The Internal Affects the External (and other obvious facts)

All too often, some business leaders ignore the fact that everything that happens internally within an organization will affect it externally, no matter how big or how small the event or situation may be.  A large internal initiative can influence external results such as sales numbers or customer retention rates, but a toxic company culture also has the ability to affect those external results, sometimes more so. 

Like a game of Jenga, if you take away certain pieces, the tower may still stand, but if you take away other pieces the tower crumbles.  Unfortunately, historically, those in positions of power take the wrong pieces away not understanding what is truly holding up the tower.  The structure holding your business together may not be what you initially think it is.  And like Jenga, if you take the wrong pieces away, it will have a very negative ripple effect, but at the same time, even if you take away what seems like the “right pieces” at the time, as in the tower is still standing, those missing pieces will also have a ripple effect potentially damaging the long-term viability of the structure.

If a front-line employee is treated poorly by their supervisors and by the organization as a whole, what do you think that will do to the sales numbers?  Don’t believe that they are interconnected?  How could they not be?  A customer will be able to tell if it is a pleasant place to work without the employee saying a word about it.  The employee could be great at their job, in spite of how they are treated, but the customer will still know what it is like to work there.   

The customer will also witness high staff turnover – never a good sign.  The customer may experience a lack of proactiveness, on the part of the employee, but also on the part of the organization.  The customer will know if the employee has the tools and resources that they need to successfully do their job.  The customer may blame the organization or they may blame the individual employee, but the end result is the same – the customer knows that things internally within the organization are not going well.  

The customer may witness the staff being mistreated, and contrary to popular management belief, it doesn’t make you look good, powerful or in-charge, it makes you look like a jerk who doesn’t know what they are doing.  Berating an employee has never solved a customer issue, not once.  The customer doesn’t want the employee blamed for things that aren’t their fault, they just want their problem solved.  (If a customer does want a particular employee fired for not meeting their expectations, it usually is because within the structure of the organization the employee didn’t have the power to do more than they were doing.  If an employee in this case failed the customer, it is because the organization failed the employee by not empowering them.) 

The customer will witness other inefficiencies that your staff deals with on a daily basis through delays, miscommunications or a general inability to accomplish what seems like a straightforward task.  If something takes longer than expected, the customer will know that things internally are not functioning.

Like a human body, you can’t eat junk food and expect to look and feel good, it doesn’t work that way. Organizations are the same way.  The word “corporation” comes from “corps” or body.  Organizations are living, breathing organisms.  If you stub your toe, you will limp.  If you stub your organization’s toe by having inefficient business processes, by having outdated business processes, or by creating a toxic company culture, your organization will start limping in one way or another.

How to avoid the injury in the first place?

Take care of the whole body.  Look at your organization holistically.  Find what isn’t working.  Find what is working.  Make changes to address the issues.  Be honest about the challenges (ignoring or dismissing those who point out problems doesn’t make the problems disappear).  And most importantly, notice how every little thing within your organization is affecting at least one external result.  

Some of these effects are unavoidable as not all your customers will welcome every single change within your business, but others are not such as giving your staff outdated tools because you don’t feel like paying for systems that actually work.  

Decide what is the cost of doing business and what is costing you business.  Then do something about it.