The Power of an Internal Franchise
How Your Business Will Prosper When Employees Act Like Owners
By: Martin O'Neill
Published: May 1, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 224 pages
ISBN-10: 0982056915
ISBN-13: 978-0982056912
Publisher: Third Bridge Press
"When entrepreneurial spirit permeates every corner of an organization,the entrepreneur lurking in each of us awakens", writes leadership and company culture consultant, and principal of Corsum Consulting, Martin O'Neill in his empowering and company transformational book The Power of an Internal Franchise: How Your Business Will Prosper When Employees Act Like Owners. The author describes how empowering employees to think like owners, where each employee feels they own a franchise within the company, builds a strong company culture where people make decisions that benefit the company in both the short and long term.
Martin O'Neill recognizes that restructuring, layoffs, and the economy have many employees feeling demoralized, and many business leaders at a loss as to how to rebuild employee enthusiasm. Even with a bright outlook in many industries, employees feel disconnected from their workplace, and are not engaged completely with their employer or the company's goal. It has become clear the older concepts of management are failing to achieve the results sought by the company's leadership. For Martin O'Neill, it's time for organizations to consider an entirely different approach to developing employee engagement and for creating a high performing and sustainable company culture.
Mertin O'Neill (photo left) recommends the empowering approach, of enabling every employee to feel the pride and sense of ownership of the company, through the internal franchise. The author points out that morale in many companies has declined, and with employees less engaged than ever before, it's critical for business leaders to consider an alternative approach to building a strong company culture. The very idea that employees can consider themselves owners of the business is a radical approach whose time has arrived in today's economy. Martin O'Neill reminds business leaders that people are what propel the company forward. If the organization's employees are engaged and empowered, they will drive the company to new heights of success.
To create the internal franchise model, Martin O'Neill provides three critical elements that business leaders must consider. Those three elements are as follows:
* Define your operating model
* Find employees who will learn, execute, teach, challenge and improve that model
* Build a culture of ownership
For me, the power of the book is how martin O'Neill not only presents the theoretical framework for the importance of the internal franchise, but provides a road map for putting the concept to work in any organization. The author provides the reasons why companies are not performing as well as they anticipate in their forecasts. Foremost in that assessment is the lack of engagement on the part of employees. A person who doesn't feel empowered, and even suspects that they will be laid off at any time, will not perform to their maximum ability level. While many systems exist for reinvigorating those less engaged employees, they all have the limitation of being manager-employee driven.
Martin O'Neill goes beyond the usual engagement concepts and introduces the more vital element of the feeling of ownership. When an employee feels like they are owners of the business, and that they will be rewarded accordingly, they become very high level performers. Their empowered ownership culture will far out perform a culture based on employee relationships alone. The value and self worth felt by an employee, who is also empowered as an owner, was once a standard way of looking at the world. martin O'Neill has revived and strengthened the concept of personal ownership, as a technique for rebuilding and growing companies, through empowered employees.
I highly recommend the revolutionary and idea filled book The Power of an Internal Franchise: How Your Business Will Prosper When Employees Act Like Owners by Martin O'Neill, to any business leaders who are seeking a fresh and innovative approach to renewing their moribund company cultures. This book offers a guide to empowering employees and building a company culture where people are engaged and feel they are owners with a direct stake in the success of the company.
Read the innovative and company culture changing book book The Power of an Internal Franchise: How Your Business Will Prosper When Employees Act Like Owners by Martin O'Neill, and discover the hidden engine of growth that already lives within your company in the form of the internal franchise. Through developing this empowering principle within your company, the potential for rapid and sustainable growth can become a reality.
