(Time to read this Blog is about 3 minutes)
Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things that caught my attention this week:
- Quote of the day: “Success and failure are both temporary conditions.”
- Pets and climate change. Many humans are cutting back on meat consumption for environmental reasons. But a study just released by UCLA shows that the chow Americans are feeding to ‘Fido and Felix’ produces a huge carbon pawprint.
The study shows that the meat-based food Americans’ dogs and cats eat, and the waste those pets produce, generate the equivalent of about 64 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. That’s as much as about 13.6 million cars driving for a year. Put another way, dogs and cats are responsible for 25% to 30% of the environmental impact of meat consumption in the United States.
Feeding America’s approximately 80 million dogs and 90 million cats also leads to about 5.1 million tons of feces every year, roughly equivalent to the total trash production of Massachusetts.
- Donald Cooper’s brilliant bottom-line business insights now available via Zoom! Regardless of what else is going on in the world today, you still need to sell more, manage smarter, inspire and challenge your team and grow your bottom line. So, I’m now ‘safely’ delivering my bottom-line insights on marketing, management, team engagement and profitability online, through Zoom Conferencing.
Clients include businesses, Associations and Chambers of Commerce. Many of these value-added programs include interactive follow-up Sessions and ongoing 1-on-1 Business Coaching. For info, simply email me at donald@donaldcooper.com.
Now, to this week’s important topic:
3 tips for more effective implementation!
‘Businesses don’t die from a single shot to the head. They die slowly but surely from a thousand uncompleted tasks.’ …Donald Cooper
Ineffective implementation is one of the biggest challenges in many businesses today. We have ideas, we have goals and targets and set deadlines…but stuff doesn’t get done.
Based on my years of business coaching around the world, here are 3 tips on how to implement more effectively:
- Involve your team in the process of analysis, decision making and implementation. Listen to them…they know stuff. I wrote in detail about this in my August 5th If you missed it or wish to review it, you can access it here.
- Create a culture of urgency and accountability. Don’t talk about ‘goals, targets, aims and objectives.’ These are weak and wishy-washy words that leave way too much wiggle room to not perform. Talk about ‘commitments’. When we change our language, we change our culture.
When assigning a task to someone, always ask this simple question, “By when can we agree that this will be completed?” These 10 words change everything. Negotiate a commitment date, document it and follow up. You’ll quickly find out who has the smarts and drive to get things done…and who doesn’t. - Get specific. For each project or initiative that you and your team commit to implement, get specific and document:
- what action will be taken,
- by whom,
- by when,
- with what result,
- measured how,
- at what cost (the budget),
- rewarded how?
- and then, who will follow up, at what agreed intervals, to make sure that progress is being made?
So, there you have it. Three tips to more effective implementation. How will you use these to get more done in your business or department?
That’s it for this week…
Stay safe…live brilliantly…and do at least 3 important or kind things each day!
Donald Cooper
Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and business innovation. He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.
