The Unstoppable Organization by Shawn Casemore Book Summary

The Unstoppable Organization, Empower Your People, Engage Your Customers, and Grow Your Revenue by Shawn Casemore

Recommendation

All businesses want to increase sales and profits and attain “unstoppable growth.” But, for many, achieving sales growth is an uncertain, even chaotic, affair: one quarter up, the next quarter down. Consultant Shawn Casemore advises leaders to focus on their employees. He provides tactics, tools and tips leaders can use to help employees please customers and build sales and profits. After interviewing dozens of CEOs from North America’s leading companies, Casemore offers recommendations based on their advice for any organization that depends on the tripod of employees, customers and sales.

Take-Aways

High-quality employees who fit your organizational culture will fuel your success.
Employees are happy when they enjoy their jobs, work well with their colleagues and receive support from their firms.
Hire new employees for cultural fit.
Companies that want to achieve “unstoppable growth” must empower their employees.
Unstoppable organizations understand certain axioms, such as that consumer desires change constantly.
Looking to the future, business growth has more to do with your employees than with technology and processes.

The Unstoppable Organization Book Summary

High-quality employees who fit your organizational culture will fuel your success.

The common belief is that an organization’s success depends on its brand, strong sales, intelligent marketing, the right processes, advanced technology and strong productivity. These factors are indeed crucial to commercial success. But your people count more: quality employees who work well with each other, support your company’s culture, develop close relationships with your customers, enthusiastically embrace your firm’s mission, know how to help achieve the mission and take the necessary steps to make it a commercial reality.

“An unstoppable organization…provides customers with a customizable experience…supported and delivered by employees who have the freedom, knowledge and desire to provide such an experience, recognizing as they do so why it’s important.”

Find employees with superior skills. Recruiting and hiring people who fit your organization matters more than résumés. You can teach skills; you can’t teach personality. When you hire new people, integrate them into your operations and involve them in all its activities. Educate employees about your company’s vision and customer needs. Teach new staff members how their actions can meet and satisfy your consumers’ needs.

“Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.” (J.C. Penney founder James Cash Penney, 1875–1971)

The internet is essential to sales. Many business leaders focus the lion’s share of their attention and efforts on software, web marketing, internet development, social media and the virtual world. Many leaders invest more in technology than in their employees. These executives have their priorities backward. They should always focus on people first. The internet and high tech can’t replace the positive impact employees can have on any firm’s success.

Employees are happy when they enjoy their jobs, work well with their colleagues and receive support from their firms.

The secret of business success is no secret; it’s your people. The need for an engaged workforce has always been the dominant factor in commercial success. But amid exciting online and technological developments, many business leaders lost sight of the simple truth that “your people are the key to becoming unstoppable.” Your employees directly affect the essential bottom-line issues of sales, productivity, profitability, and the like. You must have certain factors in place to enable your people to have a positive influence on your company. For the right circumstances and expected benefits to materialize, employees must:

Enjoy their work and their interactions with their colleagues.
Have the support of their leaders.
Connect with senior managers in meaningful ways.
Communicate openly and honestly with supervisors and superiors.
Feel confident that the company wants what’s best for them professionally and personally.
Receive exposure to all relevant aspects of their organization’s operations.
Know they have a personal, positive influence on the firm’s success.
Accept constructive change as a good thing and not something to fear.
Have up-to-date information and access to the proper tools they need to make informed decisions.
Possess decision-making authority with an understanding of how their decisions affect the organization.

Hire new employees for cultural fit.

Unstoppable organizations succeed by developing close connections between employees and customers, such as Hillberg and Berk, CenterLine, Blommer Chocolate and Saje Natural Wellness – which creates and sells “healthier, more effective and natural solutions to pharmaceutical medicine.” Saje’s products include essential oils and skin care products.

“There is no sense perfecting your operating model if you first can’t attract and retain customers to bring in consistently growing revenue.”

Saje co-founder Kate Ross LeBlanc asserts that the company’s success is due in large part to its employees. LeBlanc believes that Saje employees account for its informed product development, its robust client support and engagement activities, and its astute target marketing. LeBlanc and fellow co-founder Jean-Pierre LeBlanc prioritize finding job candidates with winning personalities who will “fit” well within Saje’s culture. To the LeBlancs, employee fit outweighs specific skills and experience.

“Even in the business-to-business (B2B) marketplace, customers are still people and social media and various other online technologies are necessary to engage with customers.”

Like other unstoppable organizations, Saje developed a system in which its employees create close connections with its customers. Unstoppable organizations know their customers’ “preferred experiences” and secure feedback about how the firm can improve its products and services and make them more popular.

Companies that want to achieve “unstoppable growth” must empower their employees.

Saje didn’t accomplish all this overnight. Indeed, it took considerable time. Saje’s leaders had to determine how to educate employees about how their performance, language and interactions directly affect its vision, its customers and its success. To become an unstoppable organization, you must teach these lessons to your employees. Working with them at this level goes beyond educating them; you must involve and empower them.

“Defining value for your customers can seem quite difficult, but you need to find ways to remain in direct contact with them to ascertain the range of value they place on the service or product you provide.”

Empowerment happens when you give employees the autonomy and authority to do their jobs effectively. When the LeBlancs started Saje, they realized their success would depend on delivering superior customer service. They further understood that the best way to guarantee a high level of service would be to cultivate their team members. All Saje personnel have the latitude to make the decisions necessary to deliver “exceptional experiences” to Saje customers. Companies’ empowering processes will vary according to their existing culture, leadership style and structure, but empowerment always involves six steps:

“Feedback” – Speak with employees to find out what they need to meet their work objectives. Discover any “obstacles, bottlenecks and restrictions” that impede them.
“Plan” – Strategize to enable your employee teams to work efficiently together.
“Communication” – Set up a strong communication system. Include daily morning briefs and weekly in-depth reviews.
“In-depth work tracking” – Promote methods that enable employees to share their projects’ progress. Leverage standard communication tools, such as white boards or smart boards and advanced online scheduling tools. Provide a system that gives employees a timely way to secure the information they need.
“Champions” – Designate team members who will proselytize company projects, processes and initiatives. Make sure they have the respect of their colleagues.
“Introduction” – Present your empowerment plan to all employees as well as to internal and external customers. Anticipate pushback. Make appropriate changes as necessary.

Unstoppable organizations understand certain axioms, such as that consumer desires change constantly.

Develop and promote a rewarding corporate culture. Create a satisfying, comfortable and empowering environment. To unlock your employees’ full potential, let them manage their own affairs. The strength of your organization will be in direct proportion to how much information you share with your employees, thus enabling them to deliver the maximum value to your customers. Follow these bedrock principles to empower your organization and its employees:

Consumer preferences change constantly – To stay current, your organization must interact as frequently as possible with consumers to find out what they care about and want. Armed with this information, you can quickly adapt your products or services as necessary. This is the only way to stay ahead of consumers and your competition. Because consumer preferences constantly change, previous practices you used to increase sales may no longer work. Be ready to change marketing and other approaches as feedback dictates.
Abandon conventional standards of employee treatment – Work hard to satisfy employees. This is the only way to recruit and hold onto the best employees.
“Start anywhere, but start now” – Before your organization can manage its “empowerment journey,” it must begin it.
Let employees customize your customers’ experience – Employees need the “freedom, knowledge and desire” to deliver positive experiences to customers and must understand the importance of doing so.
Customers’ judgments depend on how your employees treat them – Make sure your employees understand this unassailable truth and operate accordingly.
Use the internet to your advantage – Young consumers – and not-so-young consumers – rely on the web. Your organization must create a strong online presence. Social media are just that – social. Leverage online platforms to promote your company, and frequent the social media sites your customers prefer.
Capture the knowledge your employees learn from your customers – Discover and integrate whatever your employees learn through customer interactions. This enables you to adapt your work and services to meet client needs.
Your employees pay a role in sales – Either directly or indirectly, all your people play a role in marketing and selling your products and services. Provide employees with the information, education and tools they need to excel.
Involve your customers in product and service planning – This is the best guarantee that the offerings you design and market will be what your customers want.
Your brand is more than a slogan – Your brand is a definitional statement that must resonate with customers and employees. Encourage employees – and customers – to communicate about the value that your organization offers the marketplace.
Encourage your employees to collaborate openly– Prevent the formation of silos that block your organization from becoming unstoppable.

Looking to the future, business growth has more to do with your employees than with technology and processes.

Unstoppable organizations strategize about what the future holds for companies like theirs. To draft projections about how your business may evolve, heed these 10 forecasts:

“Personalized interactions” will become increasingly important to consumers.
Employees will strive to join “fun, challenging and rewarding” firms that advance professional and personal growth.
Within organizations, social media tools will replace email as the default method for employee communication.
Hierarchical management will vanish. Cross-functional teams will manage themselves.
Successful executives, including CEOs, will collaborate directly with employees.
The most popular technology will provide “knowledge repositories” that depend on employee discussions and dialogue. These will replace written and digital manuals that simply outline policies and procedures.
Consumers will care increasingly about your firm’s basic principles. “What organizations stand for will become the defining point at which they appeal to customers and employees alike.” That means “walking the talk” will determine an organization’s longevity and success.
Consumers and employees will promote companies that have a “family-friendly” ethos. Private-equity firms focused primarily on financial return will lose influence and become less popular.
More people will want to join organizations that enable them to develop diverse skills. This increases their value to your customers.
Employees will favor employers that give them sufficient free time to pursue “personal priorities.”

About the Author

Consultant Shawn Casemore specializes in employee and customer empowerment.