As I see it, for most companies the whole is often less than the sum of its parts because of two primary issues:

1. Selfish Agendas. In an ideal world all of your employees would be working together to ensure that the company wins. Unfortunately, Administration, Engineering, Finance, Marketing, Operations, and Sales have different ideas on what winning looks like. Often one department wins at the expense of another, which means as a company you lose. Interdepartmental friction slows your company down, it’s demoralizing, and costs you profitability.

2. Self-imposed Limitations. Most employees don’t even come close to reaching their potential. Even your super stars need to break through to next level. What this means is that your company is leaving money on the table – and opportunities for your competition.

The commonality between both of these issues is beliefs. In order for your company to work as one high-performance unit you need a fundamental belief shift where people put the needs of the company ahead of personal and departmental agendas.

When the belief shift happens your employees are happier because all of the petty rivalries that slowed the company down are gone. Instead, there is passion, a higher level of commitment, and your company has speed which allows you to out-perform your competition. This will increase your sales and your profitability.