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Clearing the Deck for Smoother Sailing
In the Year Ahead
By Bob Garrow
The beginning of a new calendar
year is a great opportunity to look ahead to “clear
the decks” in preparation for a successful year.
Organize now and reap the benefits all year long.
Get Everyone On Board:
Pirates knew what business they were in and every
pirate knew what was expected of him. Do all of your
colleagues know your organization’s purpose and how
they are expected to contribute to it?
How can you expect the very
best from your people unless they fully understand
what business you are in, what is expected of each
of them and why? Plan now to frequently clarify and
confirm your purpose and expectations with each
colleague so as to get everyone on board.
Sharing the Treasures:
We pirates found long ago that the more treasures we
shared, the more treasures we found. How do you
reward performance?
Today, adequate compensation is
important, but it is not enough. Once people have
money, they want more than money. They want to be
respected and to have their contributions to the
organization recognized. How well do you communicate
appreciation to your colleagues? Do they know that
you appreciate them? How might you better show
appreciation for people’s efforts?
Do you demonstrate respect for
your colleagues at every opportunity? How can you do
better?
Core Competencies: What
activities does your organization do best, that
provide positive benefits to your customers? What
aspects of this work can you do better? If you think
that you have no need to improve, someone, probably
a new competitor, will prove you wrong. It is only a
matter of time.
Your Strategy: The most
successful pirates were innovators, appearing when
and where least expected to capture ships without
fighting. Do your have a strategy that capitalizes
on your strengths while negating those of your
competitors? Will it enable you to avoid intensive
price-based competition?
Past Practices: Review
your practices and procedures from the point of view
of your customers and employees. What practices no
longer work for you? What practices might actually
now be detrimental to serving your customers? What
practices make life more difficult for your
employees?
Relationships: What
relationships are no longer contributing to your
success? How can you free up the time or energy
expended in maintaining such relationships?
What relationships are valuable
to you? How can you make them more valuable to all
other parties involved in them? How else can you
strengthen these relationships?
What new relationships could
contribute to your success? What steps do you need
to take to start building those relationships?
Your Colleagues’ Skills:
Are you focused on discovering each colleague’s
greatest strengths and preferred type of work? Do
you understanding how you can best capitalize on
these skills and preferences? Are you overly focused
on their weaknesses? How productive is that?
Review Your Time Management
(80/20 rule): Set aside a few minutes to take a
look at how you manage your personal and work
habits. Undoubtedly, you are busy, but busy doing
what? What activities do you involve yourself in
that do not contribute to your highest priorities?
Set yourself a goal of finding an additional half an
hour every week to devote to your highest priority.
Changing Demographics:
Take a ride on the public transit. Stroll through
different neighborhoods, visit different stores.
Look around you. Are the demographics changing? How
will such changes impact on your organization? Are
the demographics of your customers changing? If not,
are you missing out on new markets? Are the
demographics of your employees changing? Should they
be?
With a new year dawning will
you choose to generate more of what you have had in
the past year, or will you raise the bar for your
organization. Choose wisely, and in a year from now,
you could be looking back on a year of smooth
sailing and rich treasures!
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