Several people shared over the last week that their favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. You can make it what you want it to be. It is not over-commercialized. It is a day for spending with friends and family and giving thanks. And that is what makes it so special.
How are spending your day? What are you grateful for?
Panic was setting in. An all hands meeting was called and no details were shared. She was stressed as she shared her thoughts. What were they going to get in trouble for? Were they closing locations? Would they still have jobs?
As it turned out, the meeting was held every year. The other shoe didn’t drop. And there wasn’t anything extraordinary that came out of the meeting. Relief set in. It was an investment by the owner and the people. But there were no calls to action.
Eliminating the panic cycle from calling all hands meetings is easy to address. Regular (at least quarterly) communication by leadership sets an expectation that people will hear about what is going on in the business. It gives people an opportunity to ask questions and clarify direction.
Are you communicating with people in your organization regularly? People want information and want to be part of what is going on. So, why not talk regularly and move the dial from panic to excitement.
My dog and I went for a walk up the hill to the college campus. The sun was just coming up and it was stunning! The bright reds and oranges framed Mt. Hood in the distance. The few rippled clouds in the sky reflected the purples then golds of the rising sun. Fog wisps settled in among the silhouettes of the evergreen trees. As the sun came up, those clouds reflected the golden light onto the yellows, golds and reds of the trees, making their leaves even more brilliant.
As I enjoyed the majesty of the morning, my dog found other things to enjoy. No matter how many times we walk the same route, she finds new things to sniff and today was no different. She was having a ball sniffing the grass that had been recently washed by the rain.
As I watched her enjoying herself immensely, it struck me that we were in the same place having totally different experiences. It was all a matter of perspective.
How often do you take a moment to understand the perspective of others?
The annual catalog came out for the anniversary sale. This time it was exclusively on line, and it was available just as the sale was starting. I took a quick peek before heading to the store and was shocked. It was a series of odd pictures with prints that clashed in combinations I would never wear. I couldn’t see myself in anything that was pictured. And apparently I wasn’t alone. The sales rep I met with had the same reaction. If I wasn’t a long time customer, I wouldn’t have shopped based on what I saw.
People have to see themselves in the picture. Whether it is working in your business or buying your products or services, they have to know that they fit. If they don’t see themselves in the picture, they will go somewhere else.
When was the last time you thought about whether your people or your customers see themselves in the picture with you?
There’s an intersection that has been under construction for months. More accurately, the corners have been torn up and cones blocking the right turn lanes. The sidewalks have been closed, causing people in wheelchairs to have to enter the street to navigate the intersection. And while the project clearly started months ago, there hasn’t been any activity to finish it. As a result, the intersection remains clogged as people try to navigate it.
That’s the thing about starting too many things in a business. Stuff gets torn up and creates a chaotic situation when it is not finished. And the tendency is to start the next thing before finishing the project that is underway. It slows everything down and makes people feel like they aren’t making progress.
High-performing companies know that it is better to start fewer projects and finish them before moving to the next. Things actually work better and more progress is made. How are you avoiding chaos in your organization?
The ladies room at the gym was remodeled, giving it a necessary facelift. As happens with many remodels, input is taken from customers/members, then as construction happens, the facilities people get involved and make changes. And it happened here. To be efficient, automatic faucets were installed that have set temperatures and meter the water to minimize waste. The problem is, you can’t change the temperature. It isn’t possible to splash cold water on your face, or run cold water over your hands. The faucets are set to a temperature designed for germ reduction. The point that people may use the faucet for others reasons was missed. One size doesn’t fit all.
Businesses often try to put in one size fits all solutions. They may be systems to run the entire business, that don’t meet the needs of some areas of the business. Or processes that require a lot of work for one area of the business to make another area of the business work better. One size doesn’t fit all. That’s why it is important to understand whether changes will work for each of the impacted areas.
How do you make sure you don’t fall into the one size fits all trap?
The squirrel leapt out of the tree from a relatively high branch and continued to leap across the road. It noticed my dog and I walking up the hill, not far from where it landed, and came charging at us. As my 80 pound dog got wound up, it continued to come straight at us, veering off into a yard just before getting to us. It was a bold move. Clearly, the little critter was confident it could outrun my dog or knew that my dog wasn’t going to get out from her leash.
How often are you that bold? That confident? That gutsy?
My dog enjoys chasing critters that run. But when we are out on a walk, she can miss bunnies that are in yards if she is focused on something else. And when this happens, the bunny sees us and freezes while we walk by. The risk passes and then the bunny moves on to another area.
Sometimes what looks like a risk isn’t actually one. The best thing to do is keep an eye on it, not panic and let it pass by.
Summer in the Pacific Northwest is beautiful. And apparently the word is out. The roads fill with people from all over the place. Watching the license plates on the roads paints a picture about where people are coming from. And many times, they are in a hurry to get where they are going. But, they aren’t watching the signs they are about to fall into a trap. A speed trap.
Locals know where the speed traps are located. Always around a blind corner on the downhill. The locals stay out of the left lane and no more than 5 mph above the speed limit. They know where the traps are as those who don’t fly by in the left lane and get pulled over for speeding.
That’s the thing about risk. If you know what you are doing, you can push the envelope. But if you are in unfamiliar territory and those who are familiar with it are behaving differently, it’s a warning sign to understand the risks before pushing forward. Calculated risk taking is a good thing. Reckless risk taking is not.
On the corner is a parcel of land where water is funneled when it rains to soak through trees and grasses back into the water table. All of the newer neighborhoods have these spots.
These parcels weren’t included in the older neighborhoods. So, the city created rain gardens in key spots. The area has many hills. These rain gardens jut out into the street a few feet and capture the rain water as it runs downhill and feeds it into long, grassy nook where it is filtered back into the ground.
It is a clever way of finding space for a new idea that didn’t fit into the older neighborhood. Sometimes new ideas fit differently into things that already exist than they do when they are created from scratch. How are you making space in your organization for new ideas?