(Time to read this Blog is about 2 minutes)

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

1. My biz quote of the week:
   “You can’t build a business on lies or broken promises to your customers or to your staff…and yet many businesses try to pull that one off.  Ultimately, they fail.”
   …Donald Cooper
2. Download one of my most insightful Biz Tools, no charge. I’ve just used our 1-page self-guiding ‘Service Challenge Audit Sheet’  with one of my Biz Coaching clients and the results are so incredibly revealing.  This Tool reveals the real causes behind any service challenges in your business.  And it takes just 4 minutes for you and your team to complete.  You can download it here. Click Here.   If you’d like any help analysing the results, I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com.
3. The huge value of College and University student interns. From Community College interns to MBA students doing a strategic analysis of some part of your business, students are one of the most under-utilized resources for small and medium size businesses today.  They’re smart, they’re keen and they’re free…or almost free.

Have you built a relationship with the college or university in your area?  Have you a list of projects with which you need help?  And some of these young people become great full-time employees in the future.     

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.