Conventional wisdom says that building on the strengths of an organisation is the most direct path to business success.

It’s also the foundation of most value growth plans and talent management, which focuses on increasing the performance of high-performers. But leaders continue to scratch their heads as despite all their well-intended efforts to build on strengths, their organisations still fail to deliver. How come?

It is because with organisations, you are only as good as your weakest link. Bottlenecks, deficiencies and issues, often lurking deep in the organisation, undermine the ability to create value. Weakest links can take many different forms but are often related to leadership, like when managers create a clear strategy but fail to communicate it. Weak links can also stem from organisational issues such as a clear structure, but with unclear accountabilities. Most frustratingly, deficiencies might come from dysfunctional behaviours such as having a stated focus on customers but a lack of customer-responsive behaviour.

Resolving weak links is difficult. The biggest challenge is finding them. There are so many potential types of organisational weaknesses, many of which can be subtle and otherwise subjective. And they need to be identified in the context of the portfolio company’s value-growth objectives.

Consequently, managers mostly rely on gut feel and don’t go deep enough to identify the ‘needle in the haystack’ issues. They risk missing out on the most effective and efficient measures to enable their organisations to execute a full potential plan because, once found, bottlenecks are easier and cheaper to resolve than building on existing strengths.

Leaders need an unbiased, fact-based understanding of the biggest deficiencies in their organisations, in order to resolve the weakest links. Humatica has helped countless buyout management teams over 20 years to pinpoint the bottlenecks in their organisations.

And alignment on the issues enables consensus on the remedies, which are often simple or can cost nothing to implement, like changing leadership communications. Identifying and fixing the weakest links in the organisation thereby offers fantastic value-growth potential.