It’s said that you can accomplish anything you want in the world, as long as you don’t care who gets the credit. I have always believed a firm rule for success is to make your co-operation greater than your status at all times.
We’ve all met business owners and senior management who see their status as something which should be regarded and tended to above all else, many of whom could still be viewed as good entrepreneurs and businesspeople. However, this self-centred approach will stop them from becoming great, or more importantly, will prevent them from being able to build a great organisation.

Here are some of the key strategies for business owners to bear in mind if they want to build an organisation driven by co-operation, not status.

  • Focus the contribution of others on a common goal: Co-operation is not about people just going along with others, or just responding to their needs. Real co-operation is about people sharing a common objective and believing in the value of their contribution. I often advise my clients to have a crucial results meeting, usually first thing on a Monday, which provides an opportunity to outline the key organisational goals for the week, and then the crucial results that individuals will aim to achieve, each contributing to that overall goal.
  • Enable people to contribute in the best way they can:  The act of preserving status takes up a lot of energy, it leads to people trying to appear superior to others in all departments. However, if you actively investigate your staff’s strengths and weaknesses, what they enjoy doing, as well as what they dislike, it enables you to fit people’s unique abilities to the jobs that need to be done. When people’s natural abilities are aligned to their role, they will automatically take confidence from contributing in their own way. Investigating thoroughly what your own and your employees’ unique abilities are will make an enormous difference to your ability to facilitate co-operation.
  • Be honest about your motives and understand those of others: In the same way that honesty about our strengths and weaknesses reaps rewards, so does being honest about why you’re really doing what you’re doing. Only by knowing what matters to others (and yourself) – be it advancement, freedom, or recognition – can you create the results that will satisfy these motives.
  • Develop a culture that creates mutually beneficial results, not status: One arena where you see a lot of people protecting and increasing their status is politics; after all, politics is about power, and status generally gives a person power. As the leader of a business it is crucial that you show you are willing to listen to people’s concerns and engage in honest, open-ended conversation about what worries and excites them. This means asking the right questions, about what all the parties involved in a situation need. When status is removed from the conversation and it becomes about what results are needed, then great results will follow naturally.  

Dan Sullivan is founder and president of Strategic Coach, a £13m-turnover company with offices in Toronto, Chicago and London. The company has helped more than 13,000 entrepreneurial businesses to increase their profits, while simultaneously helping their owners reduce their day-to-day workload.