Posts Tagged ‘Change’

Keep it Simple

February 7th, 2011

Remem­ber the old acronym K.I.S.S., or “Keep it Sim­ple, Stu­pid”? This say­ing still makes a lot of sense today.

Busi­ness can be com­plex, and that com­plex­ity only seems to be increas­ing. Local, state, and fed­eral reg­u­la­tions cre­ate chal­lenges. We are bom­barded with media, social media, and an over­abun­dance of con­sumer research. Finan­cial require­ments, legal advice, ven­dor agree­ments, tax laws….all of these crowd our minds and demand our time.

If you are man­ag­ing and lead­ing peo­ple, the increas­ing degree of dif­fi­culty in get­ting the real work done can be over­whelm­ing. This is when it is nec­es­sary to step back, take a breath, and deter­mine the sim­plest solution.

(more…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Leadership | No Comments »

Coping With Success

September 7th, 2010

Success means dif­fer­ent things to dif­fer­ent peo­ple. It could be defined by a win­ning sea­son, a happy mar­riage, a bal­anced life, or an increas­ingly prof­itable busi­ness. Busi­ness suc­cess of any kind usu­ally results in greater rev­enue and (hope­fully) increased profitability.

Growth typ­i­cally brings an increased demand on your time, more employ­ees to con­sider, more poli­cies and pro­ce­dures, and greater com­plex­ity. Employ­ees may become con­cerned that we are no longer the close-knit fam­ily we once were. It can be a chal­leng­ing time.

Meet­ing the chal­lenges cre­ated by growth requires more com­mu­ni­ca­tion, more input, more dis­ci­pline, and the right attitude.

(more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Leadership | No Comments »

Swimming Against the Tide

August 24th, 2010

From time to time, all of us may feel like we are mov­ing upstream against a cur­rent of resis­tance, or at the very least, indifference.

We have a direc­tion or end result in mind, yet oth­ers don’t agree or don’t want to move in that direc­tion. Per­haps they sim­ply would rather not change what they have been doing.

Swim­ming against the cur­rent can be tir­ing. Some­times it may not seem worth it. With all that is going and all the demands for our time and energy, it may seem eas­ier to stop resist­ing and “go with the flow.” This is not the best approach!

Lead­er­ship is all about doing things right and doing the right thing. We have to keep going — there can be no com­pro­mise. If we really believe in the direc­tion we have envi­sioned, then we need to learn to change the tide.

(more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Leadership | No Comments »

Making it Through Tough Times

July 12th, 2010

If you are in busi­ness, then it’s a guar­an­tee that you will encounter dif­fi­cul­ties or tough times. Stuff hap­pens that is unplanned and unex­pected. Some chal­lenges are big. Some start out small, and quickly esca­late. Some chal­lenges can be of our own mak­ing, and some may be the result of exter­nal changes.

In many ways, suc­cess in busi­ness is about learn­ing to man­age through the dif­fi­cult times.

When tough times come along, we need to focus our energy on what we can directly impact, and learn to cope with the obsta­cles we can’t change. Many of our chal­lenges relate to man­ag­ing peo­ple. We must direct and lead our teams to over­come the obsta­cles we face.

(more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Strategy and Planning | 2 Comments »

Strategy Takes Courage

June 28th, 2010

Every invest­ment, hir­ing deci­sion, and project should sup­port your over­all strat­egy. Remem­ber that every busi­ness and every leader will face obsta­cles. Your prepa­ra­tion and con­vic­tion are what make the difference.

At the same time, if the mar­ket envi­ron­ment or cus­tomer require­ments dra­mat­i­cally change, your strat­egy needs to be reeval­u­ated. These new fac­tors may even prompt an adjust­ment to your strategy.

It takes courage to stay the course. It also takes courage to make crit­i­cal changes. An effec­tive leader can dis­cern which kind of courage is required.

Con­fi­dence in Your Strategy

Strate­gies should not be oblig­a­tory exer­cises cre­ated only to col­lect dust on the shelf until the next annual meet­ing. Strate­gies are meant to be used every day.

(more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Strategy and Planning | 2 Comments »

Changes Can Ruin Efficiency

May 24th, 2010

When unex­pected events occur, orga­ni­za­tions often respond by hastily putting new pro­ce­dures into place. These changes may be log­i­cal in the short term, but ulti­mately these added steps can slow down the over­all process. They may get in the way of serv­ing cus­tomers, impact pro­duc­tiv­ity, and hin­der finan­cial performance.

This is espe­cially prob­lem­atic when processes are not fre­quently eval­u­ated, stream­lined, or even elim­i­nated. Unchecked processes bloat vir­tu­ally every organization.

Spring clean­ing applies to busi­nesses, too!

(more…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Self-Development | No Comments »

Accept Change and Make it Work for You

May 3rd, 2010

Market con­di­tions and com­peti­tor chal­lenges often cause change. Don’t fight it. Instead, embrace change and fig­ure out how to take advan­tage of it.

Dis­rup­tions in the mar­ket almost always cre­ate busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties. While your com­peti­tors may be con­fused and inde­ci­sive, you want your team to respond quickly and pos­i­tively to change.

Hes­i­ta­tion by com­peti­tors can cre­ate big oppor­tu­ni­ties for the team that is nim­ble and respon­sive. Make sure you are that team.

(more…)

Tags: ,
Posted in Strategy and Planning | 1 Comment »

Be Part of the Solution

January 11th, 2010

Working TogetherIn times of stress our “com­plain meter” can eas­ily rise.  Things big and small annoy us, but com­plain­ing only increases our frus­tra­tion and does lit­tle to resolve issues.  This is when lead­er­ship skills really pay off, and being a leader isn’t just the province of CEO’s.  We can all make a dif­fer­ence in resolv­ing issues or improv­ing dys­func­tional sit­u­a­tions when we pos­i­tively lead oth­ers and our­selves to the right solutions.

This process is not rocket sci­ence.  In many ways it’s related to work­ing more effec­tively with oth­ers as a team.  We have all heard the expres­sion “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”  But over time, our com­plain­ing can work against us, shut­ting us out of con­tribut­ing to the solu­tion.  We can get more done by con­struc­tively par­tic­i­pat­ing in change rather than being a roadblock.

(more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Leadership | No Comments »