I have been in business for over 40 years, mostly in executive leadership positions. As a result, the insights I've garnered working with thousands of professionals, primarily in technology-driven businesses, are straightforward to articulate.

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Top-line growth and improving the health and value of your business rests on the following imperatives:

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• Hire the right people
• Respect and trust their contribution
• Give them challenging and meaningful work to do
• Provide opportunities for them to grow and develop
• Mentor them to build effective business relationships. Mentoring is even more critical in the current environment of constant change and adaptability, flexibility, and greater mobility.

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A company is only as successful as its people. Shortchange one of these; by definition, you are shortchanging the other.

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Leadership can view fulfilling these imperatives through two different lenses: first is recognizing it needs to be the DNA of the company, not just the values statement on the website, and second is balancing these imperatives with the success metrics of the business.

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There is no formula for all times to create this balance. Instead, the balance point starts with the leadership and flows consistently across the company, up and down.

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I offer a few questions worth pondering to determine if you are on a productive pathway to achieving this balance point:

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• Do the BOD and the C-Suite believe these imperatives? If not, do you need to make changes? What development needs to occur for them to be successful in this endeavor?
• Are you hiring and promoting leaders in your businesses who believe in the above? If not, do you need to make changes? What avenues of development need to occur to enable success?
• Are your leaders flowing this across, up and down the organization effectively? If not, do you need to make changes? If not, why not? What challenges are in the way prohibiting this? What development opportunities need to occur?
• Are you hiring the right people who believe in the business's values? What can you do to help that belief and expression of that belief grow

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It is far easier to achieve business success metrics if the people at all levels of the company understand where they are going, the preferred way to get there, and why they are going there.

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What do you need to implement to put your business on a more productive pathway to achieving the appropriate balance point?