After experiencing the world of Aleksandra Efimova at
Russian Pointe I can say that you need to have a strong personality and a
Vision plus a Mission that you can believe in every day without having a doubt
about it. That doesn’t mean that you not are able to adjust things as you go
but just like Aleksandra was saying “Without a strong clear Mission Statement you
are not able…” to communicate your Key Goals and your Values to your own
employees and to your customers.
I fully agree with that but I would like to take a closer
look and the Key Goals. Nowadays Key Goals are divided into Key Goal Indicators
and Key Performance Indicators. If you want to be effective and efficient you
need to honor these two terms. A Key Goal Indicator (KGI) is defined as ‘a
measure of what has to be accomplished’ and by comparison a Key Performance Indicator
(KPI) ‘a measure of how well the process is performing’. It is also indicated
that their relationship ‘looks for measures of outcome of the goal and for measures
of performance relative to the enablers that will make it possible for the goal
to be achieved’.
For Russian Pointe in the beginning that means it was
important to keep the focus on the business itself, doesn’t matter if your
phone is out of order or the light is not working, because you couldn’t pay the
bills. The business needs to move on at any cost (being effective). Aleksandra
found out that strong Leadership is the next step to keep the business running but
also taking care that her business is growing (“Go big or go home”). To focus
on the business she had to start being more efficient. To accomplish this she
hired new professional employees and implemented a strong leadership and close
communication between her and the employees. On the customer side social media
became more and more important. That is why Russian Pointe uses Facebook,
Twitter and Instagram for example.
If we combine the inside view we got from Aleksandra with
the things we already experienced here in Chicago and the ones we learned back
home we know that not everything in the books is useless but theory and reality
are still different worlds.
Hey Sebastian,
ReplyDeletenice blog on this interesting excursion. You mentioned one of the things that stuck to my mind as well: The stories of Aleksandra telling us how she somehow managed to keep her business running even in times when her phone or the electricity in her apartment were disconnected and how that implies the Key Goals, KGI and KPI, of a company.
For me it was so hard to imagine to keep a company running under those circumstances in the beginning, so I took some time to research for advice on how to keep homebased or similar small business & startups running more smoothly and stumbled across this article: http://entm.ag/1kKh49y
I think nowadays especially the second point is quite important – and that is one of the things that impressed me about Aleksandra's story – how she found clever solutions for all those difficult situations (e.g. going around some UPS costs). Well, I guess that's what entrepreneurs do!
Once again, nice work, see you tomorrow at Kendall!
Konstantin
Thank you Sebastian Knuth for your informative blog post about Russian Point!
ReplyDeleteI like the way you describe Aleksandra Efimova (CEO and Founder of Russian Point) and her leadership style and which direct conclusions you draw from her. These conclusions you follow with quotes and your own opinion. All in all carried out a very detailed analysis.
The Key Goal Indicator (KGI) is a very important index for Aleksandra Efimova and you described it extraordinary clear.
I also agree with your résumé that theory and reality are still different worlds.
All in all a successful blog post!
Last but not least I want to recommend a book and an article:
- Leadership: Theory and Practice from Peter G. Northouse (author)
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2013/02/18/the-most-successful-leaders-do-15-things-automatically-every-day/
So see you tomorrow
Andi
Sebastian, great job on describing the importance of a sufficient mission. I totally agree on the necessity of a well formulated mission and on keeping focus on it while doing business. In contrary to it, I have to disagree on the matter that you should not adapt your mission. There are always issues occurring while conducting business and therefore there may occur a need of adapting your mission to the current circumstances. Once you have defined a mission, it is also important to keep the message and content of it.
ReplyDeleteI also would like to give you an example how it might work out in reality. Talking of säft., which is an entrepreneurship launching on the beginning of 2016 and producing a juice machine, there was also an adaption of the mission throughout the considering progress of the business idea. We made certain changes on behalf of the change from powder based to liquid juice in the capsules which are put in the device.
Therefore keep in mind, always be prepared of making adoptions to your business if some circumstances change.
Feel free to contact me regarding to my comment.
Best regards
Tobias