There’s a pedestrian crossing at the bottom of a hill where cars speed by. Recently, the city put in solar powered speed signs that warn people when they are going to fast. And they are doing the job! As soon as they went in, people started slowing down when the sign started flashing “slow.”
Signals that bring focus to behavior that is not in line with expectations are powerful. What signals do you have in your business to get people to adjust their behavior?
Every day about noon, the wind picks up and blows pretty aggressively. On one particular street, the daily gusts have shaped the trees so they are permanently bent sideways from the wind. And in the morning, seeing the trees with their sideway lean causes one to wonder if a different landscape design would have been chosen if the designer knew this would be the outcome.
The same sorts of bending of organizations happens all the time to accommodate the daily flow of business. And eventually, the bending becomes permanent. The question is, do you leave something in place that is not designed to work that way, but has adapted as best it could? Or, do you remove it and put something more functional in its place?
Friday. For many people, it is the day to wrap up work and get ready for the weekend. Often times, brain power and focus start to drop off. Thoughts start drifting toward how time will be spent over the weekend. And that’s why I was so surprised to see a company scheduling important training on Fridays. Not only is attention waning, but people had no opportunity to implement what they learned before time off, leading to a high probability the learning will be lost.
Important stuff should be prioritized earlier in the week. Not first thing on Monday, because people won’t be able to focus if they have a pile of work that needs to be cleared. Tuesday or Wednesday is best because people are fresh, ideas can be implemented and people can clear their desk before leaving for the weekend.
How are you scheduling important things in your business?
“Where are you?” he asked as we started our first meeting over Zoom. I’ve been asked that a lot and it is usually about where I am in my house. So I answered “my dining room.” And that’s not at all what he meant. He wanted to know where in the country I was.
It’s so easy to misinterpret what someone is saying because of the lens we wear. And that’s the challenge in leadership. Being clear and giving context to questions or asks makes all the difference in getting the response or output we are looking for. How well are you framing your questions and asks?
For a lot of years, the annual ritual for planting my garden starts with using a hoe to turn up the dirt and amending the soil, mixing the nutrients and the turned up dirt with a shovel. The practice got the job done, but was not efficient. This year, my neighbor lent me her rototiller. What a difference the right tool makes! Not only was it faster, but it did a better job. Not just a little better job, a significantly better job.
The same happens all the time in business. People use tools that work, but aren’t designed to do the job quickly or effectively. Having the right tools can make all the difference in how quickly work gets done. And how much the people doing the job enjoy it. Do you have the right tools in your business?
Every week, the yard crews come through the neighborhood on different days and mow, trim and blow. Each crew uses roughly the same technique, ending with blowing leaves and trimmings along fence lines. But the cloud of leaves, trimmings and dust doesn’t just stay on one side of the fence. Some of it ends up on the other side. The tossing of stuff over the fence happens as part of the job because there is no attempt to keep it contained to one side. And at times, a little makes it over the wall and at other times, a lot makes it over the wall.
The same thing happens every day in business. People go through their day tossing problems over the wall. Sometimes they are small. Other times they are large. It happens because it is easier to let the problem migrate somewhere else than to contain it and fix it. And the situation will continue until someone steps in and resolves to start fixing issues and stop throwing them over the fence.
I recently took a flower arranging class. It was a lot of fun creating something where nothing existed before. As the class worked to create the arrangement step by step, the instructor cautioned us that the tulips would continue to grow. And the lilies would open up and take lots of space. Both instructions were giving us advice to choose the height and placement for what was to come.
She wasn’t kidding! The tulips grew four or five inches, while I thought they might grow two. And the lilies opened up, covering half the arrangement. As a result, the arrangement ended up out of balance after a few days with the tulips out running the rest of the arrangement and the lilies covering many of the other flowers.
The same thing happens in building out organizations. Some people and departments start outpacing the rest of the organization. And other departments and people take over, not allowing others to be seen and reach their potential. Even if you know it is coming, the best laid plans don’t always work. That means it is imperative to watch for it and continually rebalance so the organization and people operate in harmony. When was the last time you rebalanced?
A service provider recently sent an email outlining some upcoming changes. And with gusto, they signed off by stating that I’d love the changes. The move was clearly for cost savings. And would require more work on my end every month. I don’t love it.
That’s the thing with driving change. For it to stick, everyone has to be better off. And they have to know how they will be better off to get excited about it. So, as you think about your change initiatives, take time to get people involved to see how they will be impacted. You’ll be glad you did!
We all have products we love. And when they aren’t available, the search for a substitute is on. Like many, I’ve had that issue over the last year with Clorox wipes. And like many, I’ve been disappointed by the poor quality of the substitutes that have flooded the market. The contrast has highlighted why having a quality product is worth the money.
The same is true in businesses of all types. If your products or services are high quality, people will know that a poor substitute isn’t worth it. How are you positioning your products or services so people aren’t looking for a poor substitute?
My vet is great! She knows how to handle rescue dogs that are a bit skittish and need a little extra attention. When she moved from one company to another, we followed her because she is great. The only downside is, the owner of the vet business does will not interact with the online pharmacy because of the number of issues they experienced a decade ago. The thing is, today, the online pharmacy is so much easier to deal with and has no issues versus going to a vet office for regular refills. But the issues from a decade ago now result in the vet sending a paper prescription to me by mail, then I have to send that prescription by mail to the online pharmacy, requiring a few weeks of time for issues that no longer exist.
It is a great example of issues that no longer exist driving business decisions. Every business has something that started years ago, but would not be handled that way if implemented today. Are you keeping up with the times?