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I
s your business FIT? The purpose of business is to create new customers, to make sure they keep coming back; to turn them into raving fans and to have fun in the process. That's FIT.
Your aim is not to satisfy clients it is to amaze them. That's FIT.
However, we can easily get side tracked focussing on one specific area of delivery and disappoint in another. FIT means STRATEGY, STRUCTURE and CULTURE, all aligned. That's what makes a business sing.
Let's say business Y wants to implement a niche market strategy for its products and services. It's a high margin, lower volume strategy. Then it starts to look at its resources and organisational structure. To implement a niche market strategy, the company will need highly skilled independent individuals who want autonomy. Then it starts to look at the culture. How will it make people feel when they come to work, what government will they apply to the company. Of course, in a niche strategy, liberalism is the answer.
Company B, on the other hand, already exists in the market and has a niche strategy. It has been able to be a small player in a huge pond but now, the leadership sets its sights on large market share and bigger jobs. This company must go from niche to larger market. So it wants to make change. However, they have been so used to small niche operation that putting the strategy in place meets with extensive internal resistance. People don't like their culture being changed, they like it the way that it is. And the type of people the company employs needs to shift, but this is hard, given niche business is usually super friendly. They are in conflict and often go broke because the FIT of the business doesn't adapt fast enough.
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FIT
Means that harmony between strategy, structure and culture is wisely chosen. Often an UNFIT business loses money hand over fist, and thinks that their problems come from poor leadership or bad management. This is not the case.
Business's fail because they are not FIT. Then, no matter how many structural changes are made, the company is always going to struggle. The people who were perfect in one market are not perfect in another market strategy. Niche players are entrepreneurial, volume players are ordered. And there's no way to shift the individuals across.
Corporate training programs often try to retrain people. Really all they are doing is trying to hold onto people who no longer FIT the strategy. Like a body on a human that doesn't fit the intention. People are one of five elemental constitutions, they can't change that. So, people are built for certain types of strategy. So the person needs to move to companies that are implementing their type of constitution, rather than re train and force a square peg into a round hole.
A fire person is suited to change.
An earth person is suited to maintaining the status quo.
A water person is suited to supporting anything except change
An air person is suited to diverse and complex environments
An ether person is a futurist, ideal to see the future but not implement it.
Corporate abuse includes the concept of attempting to change people in order to cause them to FIT into the culture that does not suit their constitution. This abuse extends all the way down to self abuse because people think they can do any job, happily and sustainably. This is not the case.
FIT is the single most important parameter for sustainable business success. It is more important than any of the individual ingredients of Strategy, Structure or Culture which is where the business mistake is so often made. Focussing on one, without the other two.
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