(Time to read this Blog is about 2.5 minutes)

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:
   “Successful businesses are built on trusting relationships…and the best way to create trust is to deliver compelling value and experiences and behave ethically.”
   …Donald Cooper.
    

2. Download one of my most insightful Biz Tools, no charge. As business owners, leaders and managers our 1^st job is to be clear about 10 things.  I’m sorry that there are 10.  It would be much easier if there were only 3 or 4…but there are 10.  Business is complicated!
     
   Click Here to download our Biz Tool #A-4, ‘Our 1^st Job Is Clarity’ and calculate a ‘clarity score’ out of 100 for your business.  It will take just a few minutes for you and your team to complete this, and the results will be hugely insightful.  
    

3. Quick Biz Tip:  5 fact-finding & relationship-building questions to ask your staff:

1. 1. How’s work going for you these days?
   2. What’s most challenging for you on the job?    How can we help with that?
   3. How would you like to see your career develop in the next few years?  How can we help with that?
   4. What can we do to make things easier for you to perform effectively?
   5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not at work?  How did you get into that?
       

4. We have one Business Coaching slot open for 2023. For info about my transformational 6-month Biz Coaching program, email me at donald@donaldcooper.com.     

Now, to this week’s important topic:

The crazy myth of ‘Lean and Mean’:

While coaching a client recently, the boss bragged about his company being ‘lean and mean’. This makes absolutely no sense…and I told him so.

Sadly, we have 1,000s of businesses around the world bragging about being ‘lean and mean’.  “We’re lean and mean, and proud of it!”   They’re mean to their customers, their staff, their suppliers and to the environment. But at least they’re consistent…they’re mean to everybody.

‘Lean’ I understand. Too much inventory or overhead or operational inefficiency can kill a business.  In fact, every business should understand and embrace ‘lean processes’.  So, I get ‘lean’.  But ‘mean’ is just wrong!

Think about the incredible goofiness of this.  They want their customers to buy twice as much, their staff to work twice as hard, and their suppliers to serve them twice as diligently…and they’re going to achieve all of this by being ‘bastards’.  It absolutely flies in the face of human reality!

I understand why this nutty phrase caught on.  It’s short, it’s snappy and it rhymes.  But here’s the problem…‘We become what we speak’.

So, here’s my question.  What would be wrong with ‘lean and kind’?  It doesn’t rhyme and maybe it isn’t snappy…but it sure makes sense!   What could you do to make your business ‘lean and kind’?

That’s it for this week…

Stay safe…live brilliantly!       

Donald Cooper 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.