Business Development Newsletter #252-Tomorrow’s problems, Monday mornings, Confidence

GREG’S BUSINESS GROWTH NEWSLETTER #252
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Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.

In this issue:

– Techniques for FIT
– Being Human
– Random Stuff

Techniques for FIT
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• Years ago, Mr. Carl told me, Gregory, today’s solutions often come back as tomorrow’s problems. Good advice. Manage today with the future in mind, don’t feed your ego with fast answers to your people’s problems.
• Standards in your firm will occasionally need updating. My advice is to only work on standards you are willing to enforce and focus on one at a time. 

• Nothing stays the same, the saying goes. Knowing this, work the word “current” into your regular vocabulary. It sets the mood for dealing with change.
• One last bit on managing. Remind your managers to focus on developing people while you focus on the numbers/results. I see a lot of employees struggle because managers lead too much, manage too little.

Being Human – Proactive or reactive Mondays
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“Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small.” – Sun Tzu

There are a number of employees ending their Friday who won’t think about the firm again until they are at their desk Monday morning. This is a good thing. Your people can’t be “on” all day, every day. Especially on the weekends.

The problem is Monday morning comes around, and they begin the day in a reactive mode. Half the day can fly by doing nothing but busy work and responding to crises. If left unchecked, these stressful, reactive Mondays lead to dread on Sunday evenings, ruining their weekends. It doesn’t have to be this way.

I used to work for a man who was in charge of fleet management at a big phone company in the 80’s. They had a problem with repair people getting in fender-benders at job sites. When investigated, most of the accidents involved vans backing into other vehicles as they were leaving the site.

Investigating further, the cause was their drivers weren’t in “driving mode” when re-entering the vans, and backing up a van requires a lot of skill. Accidents happened. The solution was to have the driver back the van into spots before beginning the work. They were more alert/better drivers when arriving at a job site, and could back in to a parking spot with ease. At exit, no complicated backing up, just drive out.

The result was a dramatic drop in fender benders, lots of money saved, and my boss getting promoted.

Monday mornings are the equivalent of backing up a van. Knowing this, train your people to use Friday afternoons to plan Monday mornings. Let them “back the van in” before they leave, so they can pull straight into Monday. Friday afternoons are notorious for being lax as it is. Might as well train them to use the time in your favor.

“Friday afternoons are for planning Monday mornings,” you start saying to your people. Eventually, it takes hold.

Random stuff
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Weird week. Between the daylight savings time shift, the continuing pandemic, the election, and some unseasonably warm weather I’ve felt slightly askew. Like I’m floating.

It’s times like this I have to remind myself I’m Clergy.

I can do this.

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