This is the time of year we tend to think about staying healthy. 

We go about our business and hopefully enjoy life, but we’re more aware than usual of germs that might be lurking. That’s why we get a flu shot, wash our hands more often, and dress for the weather. And it’s why we make resolutions around losing weight, eating more healthfully, kicking bad habits, and so forth.

There’s a lot that business owners can learn from this. A company is a living organism, and many factors go into keeping it healthy. January is a good time to focus on key issues impacting areas like leadership, culture, employee engagement, and customer experience so you can plan how to proceed in the year ahead.

Healing any illness requires that we first diagnose, then treat it. Sometimes we may be tempted to skip the diagnosis, but it’s crucial to make sure we’re treating the right problem with the right treatment plan. Then, once we’re well, we can focus on a prevention plan. By paying attention to key metrics, we can keep problems from coming back and prevent new ones from popping up in the future.

Here are a few suggestions for keeping your company’s immune system strong this year: 

 

Take a hard look at what you’re measuring. Do you know how your company is doing on the important things: employee engagement, customer satisfaction and experience, quality metrics, sales numbers, customer retention, etc.? We show what we value by what we measure. And we need objective data to truly have a handle on our company’s health. These are the metrics that help us diagnose issues, see how treatment is progressing, and gauge the effectiveness of prevention efforts as we move forward.

  

Focus on your own self-awareness. What kind of leader are you? Do you pay attention to how your words and actions affect others? Do you live by the same rules you expect from others? Do you create environments in which employees can do their best work? No company can be strong and healthy without also having strong, healthy leadership.

 

Stay coachable. Learn from others. There are lots of experts out there. Great leaders seek them out and sit at their feet. No one can know everything about everything. It’s important to stay open to fresh ideas and approaches you might adapt from other industries. Coachability and willingness to learn fuel innovative thinking—one of the most important “soft skills” vital to success in today’s economy. 

 

Take a cue from Jim Collins and set BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). Small goals won’t serve you well. Make sure they’re big enough to cause discomfort, which is actually a good thing. Growth and change are rarely comfortable. Just be sure not to make the goals so big that they’re overwhelming and unreachable.

 

Root out cynicism. If employees are cynical—if they make snarky comments about clients, coworkers, or leaders—the company probably has issues. A healthy culture is a positive culture. While we need to make it clear that cynical behavior is unacceptable, it’s more important that we hold up the mirror. We need to make sure we’re not giving them reason to be cynical. Can we be trusted? Are we open and transparent? Do we keep our promises? Do we show that we care about them?

 

Make sure everyone knows the rules. I have written about this subject before. Healthy companies are those with a lot of clarity and firm boundaries in place. Vagueness causes anxiety and stress. Make sure everyone knows exactly what’s expected of them in terms of both goals and behavior. Not only will this make people far more likely to hit the mark, it allows leaders to hold them accountable.

 

Build up a strong emotional bank account with employees. Don’t wait for them to tell you what they want and need. Ask. Say thank you frequently. Celebrate their birthdays. Ask about their families. All of these are deposits in the emotional bank account you are building with employees. When there is a healthy, positive balance, it won’t be a big deal when you have to make a “withdrawal.”

 

Connect people to a larger sense of purpose. Remind them of the why behind your company, its goals, and what you’re asking them to do. This may be the single most important thing you do to keep your company healthy. People crave meaningful work—it’s what keeps them motivated when things get tough.

 

Have regular sit-downs with your key customers. Hopefully you are doing customer satisfaction surveys regularly, but one-on-one conversations can be powerful. Ask them what they most need from you, what you’re doing well, and what you could improve on. Customers have a lot of options and they will probably not approach you with a list of things they need from you that they aren’t getting. They’ll just leave. Never, ever take them for granted.

 

Stay closely connected to your vendors and partners. These might be suppliers, freelancers, attorneys, accountants, etc. Sometimes we take these people for granted but they are absolutely crucial to a healthy company immune system. Especially in the gig economy, they may be unofficial employees. When you treat them well, they will go the extra mile to solve problems for you when you’re in a crunch.

 

Finally, never stop asking yourself and the others around you: What can we as a company do better? Complacency is the slow road to deterioration. It’s not easy to always be pushing, questioning, tweaking, and holding people to higher and higher standards. But that’s what great leadership requires. Healthy companies are growing companies. If you’re not moving ahead, you’re falling behind.