(Time to read this Blog is about 3.5 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:
   “If you don’t understand your numbers, you don’t understand your business!  What will you do, starting now, to be a more serious student of your numbers and what they’re telling you?”     
   …Donald Cooper.
    
2. Quick Biz Tip:
   This week’s Quick Biz Tip comes in the form of a question that relates to understanding your ‘numbers’.
   A man steals $100 from a store’s cash register.
   He then buys $70 worth of goods in that store using the $100…and gets $30 change.
   How much money did the business lose?
   Answer:  $________. 
   Most people answer, “The store lost $100.”
    
   But, here’s the correct answer. The store lost the $30 change given to the thief, plus the ‘cost-of-goods’ on the thief’s $70 purchase.  If the cost-of-goods for the store is 60%, the total loss is the $30 change given, plus 60% of $70, which is $42.  So, the total loss is $72.

   Accounting firms should offer seminars or courses for their clients on ‘Understanding the Numbers & Using Them to Make Better Decisions’…but they don’t.  Shame on them!
    

3. The ‘Cranky Corner’. It might be my age, or a strong concern for where our society is headed, but some things make me cranky.  This time its reading that online gamblers in Ontario  spend almost $63 billion a year…and growing.  The problem:  Opening up betting markets has been a catalyst for financial hardship, especially among younger men and lower-income households.  A recent study in the U.S. found regions with legalized sports betting also have lower credit scores, more debt and more bankruptcies.
    
   Now, in Ontario, we’re selling alcohol in over 4,000 neighborhood convenience stores from    7 am to 11 pm.  In my opinion, this is a HUGE MISTAKE!
    
4. Shocking deaths just from cooking a family meal. About 4 million people, mostly women and children, die annually from toxic fumes produced while cooking. In much of the world,
   families still use solid fuels such as wood or charcoal instead of cleaner methods (gas or electricity) to prepare their meals.
    
5. Special Announcement for our fans in the extended GTA. Many of you have asked to be informed when I’ll be doing a Management Program that’s open to the public.   On Friday, Sept 27 I’m delivering just such a half-day ‘Accelerate Your Business’ Super Session for the business owners and managers of Mulmur Township and Dufferin County.  The event is at The Mansfield Ski Club on Airport Road, about an hour north of Toronto.   Admission is just $99.
    
   This half-day transformational Management Program will be followed by lunch and a ‘no-holds-barred’ Q&A and informal biz coaching for those who wish to stay.  My commitment is to extraordinary outcomes for every attendee!
    
   This Event is made possible by the generous sponsorship of one of my amazing Biz Coaching clients, Hill’N Dale Landscaping in Mulmur.  It’s our ‘gift’ to his community.
    
   For more info and to register, go to www.mulmur.ca scroll down and look for Event link on the right side.  If you sign up, let me know at donald@donaldcooper.com, so that I can look for you on Sept 27.
    
   By the way, if you’d like to organize a similar Event for your community, wherever you’re located in North America, we should chat.

Now, to this week’s important topic:

Why are your staff not doing their job…so you can get on with doing your job? 

When I start out with new Biz Coaching clients, many of them have large staff’s, at great expense, but they, ‘the boss’, are working late nights and weekends ‘putting out fires’.  As a result, they have no time to do their job, which is:

1. Creating clear commitments to customers, to the Team, to the bottom line and to the community and the planet. As business owners, leaders and managers, our 1^st job is Clarity.
2. Creating a Vision for an extraordinary future and a Plan to get there.
3. Building an accountable Team and a culture that engages, energies and retains them.

In my 30 years of coaching business owners and managers, here are 8 of the typical reasons behind this very serious problem.  Do any of these sound vaguely familiar?

1. Leading and managing is not what they’re comfortable with or good at, so they revert to the familiar and work ‘IN’ the business instead of working ‘ON’ the business. They take the initiate, rather than giving initiative, and their employees stand around and watch ‘the boss’ do their job.  The best Team members leave in frustration and the mediocre performers stay and take ‘I don’t give a damn’
2. ‘The boss’ is uncomfortable with, or threatened by, really smart ‘go-getters’, so hires 2^nd-rate people. When they can’t do the job, ‘the boss’ says, “If you want anything done…do it yourself!” and takes on most of their responsibilities.
3. ‘The boss’ is not clear about the skills, experience, drive, personality and values required to be a top performer and a good fit with the culture, so hires the wrong people.
4. ‘The boss’ is not a capable recruiter, so hires people who are not a good fit. To make it worse, ‘the boss’ doesn’t measure performance and / or doesn’t deal with non-performance.  So, ‘the boss’ ends up doing their job for them while non-performers happily stand around and collect a paycheck.
5. ‘The boss’ creates chaos instead of clarity so that everyone has to come to them for answers. The hardworking Boss’ runs out of time, so many of the Team’s questions go unanswered and the business grinds to a halt.  The best Team members leave in frustration and the mediocre performers stay and take ‘I don’t give a damn’
6. The business is understaffed and ‘the boss’ is doing the work of 3 or more people. ‘The boss’ comes to accept this as ‘normal’  while their energy level and life slip away.  Their life partner and kids are fed up and at some point may make other arrangements.
7. ‘The boss’ thinks that their way is the only way and micro-manages everyone on the Team to make sure they do it ‘the right way’. The best Team members leave in frustration and the mediocre performers stay and take ‘I don’t give a damn’
8. ‘The boss’ has an unhappy home-life and works nights and weekends to avoid that reality. They’re not productive…they’re just hiding.  The business suffers and the real problem doesn’t get solved.

These 8 reasons are very real.  Welcome to my world!

If any of these 8 reasons for your staff not doing their job, so that you can get on with doing your job resonate with you, perhaps we should chat.  I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com.

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.