The Dashboard Group Aligns Companies For High Performance

How do you create a high performing organization? It’s a question leaders face day-in and day-out, and all too frequently fall short when it comes to execution. Dave Ramos, Founder and CEO of The Dashboard Group, believes lack of alignment frequently lies at the core of underperformance. While the concept of alignment may seem simple, achieving it is not.

“You have to deal with the elephant in the room,” observes Ramos. “Even in organizations that recognize there’s a problem, fixing it can be painful. For example, it might require you to deal with long-standing dysfunctional interpersonal relationships that have penetrated the organizational culture.”

Misalignment stems from systemic problems that cut across functions, divisions or systems. For example, the CEO says employees are the company’s most valuable resource… but the organization lacks systems to grow talent or reward outstanding performance. Or perhaps the sales, marketing, and product development teams view the world differently and strive to achieve excellence—but not from the same context.

A few seemingly innocuous factors can cause a company to go out of alignment. We may not even notice when they occur, but we do notice that performance plateaus. Consider this. A company has entered a new phase of its lifecycle, yet adheres to its old strategy. Or maybe the founder, who excelled in the exploratory, ‘drill for oil‘ phase, struggles to lead during what Ramos calls the ‘real enterprise phase.’

Another common mistake—particularly for companies struggling just to survive the early years—is lack of focus and resource dilution.

“Companies tend to underestimate what is required to succeed in a new market,” states Ramos. “They tend to overestimate what it takes to do new things and and therefore often pursue too many opportunities at the same time. As a result, they under invest in all of their strategic initiatives. Dabbling is an absolute recipe for destruction.”

So, how does The Dashboard Group help clients kick start their companies to become high performers? They view the organization as an ecosystem, conduct a comprehensive diagnostic, and develop integrated solutions that cut across artificial boundaries. They do not believe you can simply apply a patch here or a patch there and expect the bandaids to resolve larger problems.

The Dashboard Group also helps clients narrow their scope and intensely focus on a core market. It may require the company to prune away underperforming markets or employees and unprofitable customers. Resources made available from pruning are then reinvested in a few new initiatives or doubled down on the client’s best performing products or markets.

The softer side of business also plays a key role in Ramos’ approach. Vision, mission and values supply the foundation for high performance. According to Ramos it’s like building a house. The foundation doesn’t get any credit, but without it, the house crumbles.

High performing companies use the self-awareness established by mission, vision, and values to attract and retain employees that fit the corporate culture. By having a strong sense of self these companies interview for a combination of chemistry and talent. Employees need both to help the organization achieve excellence. The same can be said for finding the right consultant. You must have chemistry and agree with their worldview for the relationship to work well.