January 30, 2020
ISSN# 1545-2646
Missing the add on opportunity of a positive economy
Let’s face it, the current economic landscape is definitely on the positive side. Reminds me and scares me a little of the mid to late 1990’s when business growth came a bit more simply than it did in the late 2008-2011 time frame. (I know major understatement). If you participated in both of those unique times in the business cycles then you can reflect on how one was all about getting it while you could and the other was all about saving your backside from losses.
I find it interesting that during the positive times we become complacent about tweaking the performance side of the business. Taking a designed time to look deeper at how we can align and refine the business structure, system, processes and procedures. We just keep running until the inevitable contraction happens in the business cycle and we scramble to tighten down the organization.
If you were to flip these around and be disruptive by taking the good times to invest energy in tightening down and the not so good times to exploit those tweaks, the mountain and valleys would be far less treacherous.
For example, due to the low unemployment numbers, most businesses are scrambling to recruit and engage talent. There just does not seem to be talent to go around to meet the demands and needs. In some proactive companies they are using this time to innovate some of their processes as a means to relieve some of the pressure of not enough talent and to make their processes and overall business leaner to operate. Rather than having to hire more talent they are causing creativity to build to find more effective and efficient ways to do the business of being in business.
At a recent “People First” #R3ttisi conference many of the presenters and the keynote speaker gave various views at the employment landscape for the coming years and the availability of talent is not going to significantly change. Even if their is a slowdown which may cause some increase in available people, we are still running at a longterm shortage. With this in mind, now is the time for you as the business leader to take charge of disrupting what is good and working to let creativity completely rework your system to not just do the same things differently but to do them even better on many fronts.
This week look at just one area of your business which for all intensive purposes is operating well and consider if by flipping it 180 degrees you could have a longer term positive outcome with better results.
Not comfortable being that much of a disrupter? Start by calling JKL Associates at (313) 527-7945 in Michigan or (407) 984-7246 in Florida for an initial call of understanding.