(Time to read this Blog is about 3 minutes)
It’s still Spring here in the Northern Hemisphere and there’s a long-standing cultural tradition of ‘Spring Cleaning’. So, this week I asked each of our Biz Coaching clients to list at least 3 things that need ‘cleaning up’ in their business or department in the next 3 months.
I gave them a list of possible areas needing a ‘clean up’ just to get them started. That list appears below:
- Toxic employees.
- Inventory / SKU mgt.
- A physical facility.
- Machinery & equipment.
- Systems & processes.
- Accounts receivable.
- Our website.
- New employee ‘on-boarding’.
- Ongoing training and mentoring.
- Weekly or monthly financial reporting.
- Overhead costs that can be renegotiated, reduced or eliminated.
- Falling margins that need improvement.
- Your own ability and willingness to delegate.
- Succession & exit planning.
A) So, I’m challenging you to create a list of at least 3 things or areas that need to be cleaned up in your business or department. For each item you commit to ‘clean up’ in the next 3 months’, create an ‘Action Plan’ stating specifically what will be done, by whom, by when, at what cost and with what result or outcome. Involve your Team in identifying the list of things most in need of ‘cleaning up’ and also in creating the ‘Action Plan’. Remember, your staff knows stuff and they hate it when you don’t ask.
At least 3 things we need to ‘clean up’ in our business or my department, in the next 3 months are:
- _________________________________________________________.
- _________________________________________________________.
- _________________________________________________________.
Then, as a ‘Bonus Assignment’, I gave them the challenge of identifying at least 3 things that they should ‘clean up’ in their ‘non-business’ life. The list of possibilities to get their creative juices flowing was…
- The garage.
- My closet.
- My health.
- My diet.
- ‘Substance’ use or abuse.
- My work-life-family priorities.
- Financial planning.
- My relationship with:
a) _______________________.
b) _______________________.
B) So, I’m challenging you to create a list of at least 3 things or areas that need to be ‘cleaned up’ in your non-business life. For each item you commit to ‘clean up’ in the next 3 months’, create an ‘Action Plan’ stating specifically what you’ll do, by when.
B) At least 3 things I need to ‘clean up’ in my non-business life, in the next 3 months:
- _________________________________________________________.
- _________________________________________________________.
- _________________________________________________________.
Using this simple 2-part challenge, how can you ‘clean up’ some key items in your business and your life?
‘Covid Bits’:
- Two long-term changes likely to come from the Covid lockdown.
a) More people will work from home, permanently, with huge implications for public transportation, food courts in office towers, clothing retailers and downtowns generally. This past week Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, major banks and commercial real estate ‘biggie’ Cushman-Wakefield have all announced plans for major parts of their staff to work from home from now on.
In a survey of 1,000s of employees last week, 77% of them said they wanted to continue working from home after the lockdown.b) The huge acceleration of on-line shopping. While most traditional retailers are suffering and some have filed for bankruptcy recently, online shopping is booming. Home improvement retailer Lowe’s online sales are up by 150%. Sales at online giant Amazon are up 26% and they’re hiring 175,000 new employees to meet the demand.
- Blaming the Covid crisis, Hertz Car Rental, in business for 102 years, has filed for bankruptcy protection under the weight $19 billion in debt. They’ll likely reorganize in a way that their creditors will take a huge ‘hair cut’ and they’ll be back in business. So how does a company that’s been in business for 102 years end up with crushing debt? My guess is a combination of incompetence and greed by a long series of owners.
That’s it for this week…
Stay calm…keep safe…and do at least 3 important or kind things each day!
Donald Cooper
