Summer vacations have wrapped up, Labor Day has gone by, children are back in school, football season is in full swing, and business is about to enter into the final quarter of the calendar year. This is a time to re-engage and make the most of your efforts to close out the business calendar on a high note.
What are the essentials to make the most of this time of year?
The first is making sure the routines you have in place are being executed according to their prescribed plan. During the summer, disruptions to work schedules, talent availability, and other factors cause some routines to deviate from the expectations or standards established at the beginning of the year or by the second quarter. Erosion occurs slowly and is often not observed until a significant challenge presents itself, prompting a reevaluation of the routine.
The second is having the discipline to do what needs to be done, even when you know it should be done, but you don’t really want to do it. Admit it or not, we all drift in and out of routines and discipline to execute those routines. If you have ever started a fitness program, you may have found yourself rolling out of bed at an early morning hour and heading to the gym for the first few weeks. You even pressured yourself through the aching muscles to build the habit. Then, a few months later, other things impede your workout time, such as a meeting or a family matter, and you do not, by direct design, but by chance, drift away from the routine because you did not hold yourself to the discipline needed to do it even under challenging conditions.
This leads us to the third element, which is perseverance. That painful realization that you have a routine, you have built discipline, and it is just pure, gut-wrenching effort to persevere through whatever comes your way, and you keep your routines and disciplines going.
This is a snapshot of your business. The people, processes, procedures, and all the elements that are part of day-to-day operations. Each element, whether human or procedural, is impacted by the commitment to the routines, disciplines, and perseverance that each element contributed to the ultimate success of the organization. If the people take shortcuts on routines, if the discipline to be accountable to the routines is not top of mind and measured, they can slowly slip away, and if, at the gut level, all the elements are not invested in the whole, then we cannot persevere through the challenges that will come our way.
As we ramp up our business focus for the final push to the end of the calendar year, it is a great time to evaluate how well our routines are contributing to the culture, vision, mission, and best outcomes of the business. Are we accountable to the discipline needed to deliver on the promises we made first to ourselves and then to co-workers, customers, and vendors alike? Are we ready to navigate the potential storms of change caused by new information coming at us and persevering to arrive at the other end of the tunnel of chaos?
This week is a good time to start to embed routine, discipline, and perseverance into all aspects of your business growth. If you compare your organization to world-class athletes, they must weather many storms – physical, mental, emotional, and so on. Your organization does the same, so as a leader, part of your responsibilities is to assist your team in building those routines, disciplines, and effort to persevere through the challenges that lie ahead. What will you do this week to invest in making your business a world-class operation?
Need a Promise Guide to be your accountability partner in building a world-class business? Contact JKL Associates at FL (407) 984-7246 or MI (313) 527-7945.
Journey On!
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