Waiting for the "Big Bang"

It’s not coming.

The idea that one great idea or individual will come along and save your organization is a usually a pipe dream.  More often it’s multiple ideas, and multiple talents rubbing against each other that produce positive direction and momentum that leads to better results.

What are five factors at work currently or that you will put in place, that will combine to make 2016 better than 2015?

Tell them what you want them to do and achieve

Do each of your people know what is expected of THEM?

It is amazing what can happen when you have meetings, large and small and talk about it.  

Ask them what is the company trying to do, and what their part is in it?  How will results be measured? How can they help best?  

Leaders and managers – if you don’t do anything else this week, do this.

Establishing Direction

Do your people know what the company is trying to achieve?

How do they know that?  When is the last time you told EVERYONE?

How often do you tell them?  

Carrot or Stick

Do you lead with passion, vision and purpose, and add to people?  

Or with fear and leverage and extract from them?

Guess which one gives you better results?

What's the next step for your team?

I can’t drive to Indiana from Connecticut.  I can drive there from Ohio.  To get to Ohio I have to get to Pennsylvania first.  I can’t get to Pennsylvania from Connecticut either; I have to get to New York first.  I CAN drive from Connecticut to New York.

So the job for right NOW, TODAY, is to drive to New York.

Assuming you have goals (if you don’t, you will never achieve any), what is the next step you have to take, to set up your organization to continue with the step after that the next day/week/month/year? 

Planning far in advance

Anyone who has been obsessed with a business plan in the past knows that a plan makes many assumptions, and the farther out you go, the more those assumptions will prove false.  

I like to plan, and doodle and dream with a pen and paper (journal).  But if I plan up to 5 years out, I know the most accurate and important part of my plan is the next quarter. The part of the plan that’s farther out is more speculative.  

Then I get to work on what I can control – NOW.

Do you plan your business strategy, at least for the next couple of years?

WTTMSW

“Whoever tries the most stuff wins.” – Tom Peters

Tom Peters is a management authority who has written many great business management books.  He is one I have learned much from over the years.

In my careeer, I have tried lots of stuff.  I have little reverence for the way things have always been done – maybe because I never had a job after high school except for my own business.  We’d have an idea, and say “Let’s try it.  Now.”  Some things didn’t work and some took a while to find out it wasn’t better.  But many things yielded great results – and we changed entire industries by flanking the competition.

I have been called reckless, a genius, “wet behind the ears”, a spoiler, crazy, naive, and I’m sure many other things.  But I have learned to question everything, and try new things – and it has served us well over 30 years.  You don’t have to invent “new” things all the time either.  Often creative borrowing from other industries and applying an idea to your business when nobody ever has, seems crazy enough.

What new things have you tried lately?

How do you engage employees? 10 ideas.

1) Train them.

2) Have a purpose and tell everyone what it is.

3) Tell everyone what their part is.

4) Tell them what is expected of them.

5) Trust them.

6) Be honest with them – good news and bad news.

7) Ask for their ideas, use them, and give them credit.

8) Recognize them for their work.

9) Give them what they need to do their work well.

10) Make work fun, or let them do it.

How many of these ten things do you do?

What can you do better or more of?

Employee Engagement

If employees are engaged they will perform much better, be more productive, and get greater results.

Do you think your employees are engaged?

Victim of your own ambition?

Some of us are TOO ambitious.  We want to get into new things and over-diversify, and take on more and more until we fail at something.  We look at others who are doing it and say “I can, too”.  But others who have their hands in so many things may not be profitable, or may be driving themselves crazy, or maybe they did it over many years as they could handle it, or maybe they have great leaders who run these other divisions for them.

Focus is a key master skill to success in any business.  If diversification dilutes the focus of the leader on a business that’s already started and not reached it’s potential yet, it is likely to be a bad idea.