At the beginning, we may be actually doing much of the work. But as our business grows things change. Necessarily. Our role changes, too.
We hire people. The business grows and expansion requires additional help. Perhaps even new skills. Over time we realize that our role, as the owner, transitions away from doing the actual work (selling the thing, or making the thing, or delivering the thing)…to helping others do the work better!
The Small Business Leadership Daily Brief is a short, under 5-minute podcast produced Monday through Saturday. Subscribe to the Grow Great podcast and you’ll get every podcast episode, including the daily briefs.
When you feel like you need to reboot or shake things up it may be time for a cleanup. Don’t wait for Spring. Do it today!
Every business experiences the clutter that comes with not paying attention to details. Sometimes that clutter is physical, but it also takes form in other areas. Processes and systems get filled with clutter. Communication can get cluttered. Next thing you know, your people are doing things far less efficiently than you’d like. Time for a cleanup.
It’s the same thing that happens in your home. Stuff overtakes empty, or what-was-once-organized space. Next thing you know, you can’t find that hammer when you need it. Or the bug spray. Or whatever else you happen to be searching for. “It’s here somewhere,” is a common refrain around most houses. It’s frustrating, amping up our anxiety and costing us time.
But at work…the costs are likely higher. Clutter kills morale, efficiency, and profitability.
Think about the last time you cleaned out the garage so you could actually get all the cars inside. Remember how good it felt? Remember the sense of accomplishment?
That’s how your employees will feel after the cleanup. Consider picking out the worst space – don’t go for a company-wide ordeal (that’ll just beat everybody down). Pick some specific area, the area most in need of a cleanup. Don’t storm in yelling and screaming about how pathetic it looks. Instead, get all-hands-on-deck with the folks who work in that area and encourage them. Remind them of how good it feels to step back after a cleanup and see how great it looks…and how wonderful it feels.
Make it fun. Give them control to make the space more efficient. This is the opportunity to have it the way it always needed to be.
Tip: Have everybody take before photos. Then have everybody take after photos. Have a contest and give away a gift card to the winner. Let everybody vote on the best photo set (both the before and after pics).
The result will be higher efficiency, pride, and morale. And profitability, too.
“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” – Mark Twain
No Fear is a company founded in 1971 producing t-shirts and other apparel aimed at extreme sports. The “No Fear” slogan was popular back in the 90’s. Back in 2011, they filed chapter 11 bankruptcy. They’re still around, but I don’t see their products much anymore. Maybe they fell into some trouble because we’re no longer afraid of anything. 😉 Hardly.
In 1901 Mark Twain wrote an essay where he penned this sentence:
“Each man is afraid of his neighbor’s disapproval–a thing which, to the general run of the human race, is more dreaded than wolves and death.”
Here we are bearing down on the summer of 2018. By the way, Twain penned that line in the summer of 1901. A mere 117 years ago. Time doesn’t change everything.
Some fears are more universal than others. Fact is, we’re all afraid. More than we may admit. But today, I’m not here to coach you up about having no fear. Rather, I’m sort of a fan of fear. It can be a terrific catalyst for taking action. Or, it can paralyze us. I’m in favor of the former. Not so much a fan of the latter. 😉
Business owners are people, too. People with fears.
For the last number of years, our economy has rebounded nicely from the Great Recession of 2008. Many people have enjoyed solid prosperity and growth.
Good times or bad, you’ll find companies succeeding wildly while others are going broke. Toys R Us, Gibson (guitars), Remington (guns), Winn-Dixie and others have endured some defeat during this prosperity. Plenty to be afraid of.
Among small business owners (people owning and operating companies that generate $5 to $200 million or so), prosperity isn’t always a remedy for fear. Success can foster its own kind of fear. Fear that we can’t sustain our current success. Worry that our growth will stall, then what will we do?
Are small business owners just a neurotic breed? To some, it can look like it. But like I said, I’m a fan of fear. We just have to leverage it as the resource it can be. That’s the topic in today’s episode as we end May 2018.
I was asked to explain The Peer Advantage by Bula Network. We had a digital recorder in the middle of the table recording the conversation…so I was able to capture this part of it. Where I offered about 15 minutes worth of explanation. This was NOT a sale pitch, but an answer to the question, “What exactly is this thing you’re now doing?” 😉
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