Over the past 24 months businesses have pivoted and caused lots of changes in the way they needed to do business. Lots of changes in a short period of time conducted under stressful dynamics can cause things to work for a short time but could be detrimental over the long haul. When the process changes are done in the middle of chaos the little things don’t seem to make a big difference. People are just happy they moved from one way of working to the next. The products went out the door and customers were taken care of. The process worked!
Well time is no longer in the same chaos. The stress dynamics are also different. No, they have not completely gone away but do they ever completely resolve themselves in business let alone life?
Now is the time to start the effort to look at the way you are now doing business. Is it even documented or are you still working on the I’ll remember method? Some of the pivot’s changes have been enlightening and should be adopted to your normal way of conducting your business affairs. There are others which have crept into your business processes and procedures just because it was a short cut and proved to be needed at the time. That short cut may have served you well to survive but to build the future of your organization on potentially faulty systems is a risk you should not agree with.
To a degree, many businesses were tossed into a time capsule and moved back to startup type mentality. Actions were cobbled together to keep the business running without regard for repeatability or integrity of result. I’m not suggesting businesses disregarded safety or quality but what standards might have been eased in order to deal with new delivery methods, fewer staff, different vendors and customers etc.
As leaders in your business, it is your responsibility to govern positive changes and sort through what might have crept into your process inadvertently during the past 24 months. As mentioned earlier, some of the changes were quite valuable in improving efficiency and effectiveness. Odd that out of chaos comes great benefit but history has demonstrated this time and time again. On the other hand, lots of unintentional stuff made its way into businesses.
With work teams being any one of on location, hybrid or remote this has introduced communincation changes which if not looked at for best results can become your pattern of interaction moving forward. The people may not even know they contributed to the challenges because at the time it was necessary. There was no plan to have everyone work from home and in the scramble, things were missed or jammed together to make it work.
Your challenge for the coming week is to step back and look at how the workflow happens in your business. Maybe consider forming a team of those directly involved in specific areas to evaluate what is working or what needs to be looked at for improvement. This way you get input from the sources and not make assumptions about how you think it is or should be working.
Looking to make your teams more effective in 2022? Reach out to a Promise Guide at JKL Associates at (313) 527-7945 in Michigan or (407) 984-7246 in Florida.
Journey On!
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS – EMAIL US AT PARTNERS@JKLASSOCIATES.COM OR CALL OUR OFFICES – MI AT (313) 527-7945 FL AT (407) 984-7246
Celebrating 30 years of Delivering on “Promises”
