I thought it might be appropriate to offer the following summary of how I would make everything work if, as Dr. Seuss stated, “I Ran the Circus!”

Regardless of your industry, I’d pull for the following outcomes:

1. Our profit margins would always be huge. In fact, in light of our current “fairness doctrine,” where “everyone gets a trophy,” I’d make sure that every business in our country was profitable.
2. We’d have no labor challenges because all of our employees would be highly motivated, simply happy to have a job, and anxious to get to work each day.
3. We’d have no operational challenges, because we would have already anticipated all of the potential hurdles we could face as a business, and, Voila, there would already be items in place to protect all operations from such calamities.

Am I being somewhat sarcastic? Yes, of course, but let’s take this a step further and start thinking about it further, since I have no control over the occurrence of these challenges.

First, let’s look at these challenges directly. What is the largest challenge you face in your business currently? Are there potential solutions to this? What needs to occur to make progress on this problem? Who can assist you in overcoming this challenge? Trust me when I say that if you can answer these questions directly, you’ll be 75% of the way toward your solution.

How about an example? If labor turnover is your biggest issue, can you start a program of training employees for better outcomes? How about a low cost “development program” that helps you to have some new workers available, as needed, perhaps through your local Junior College? Are there other ideas for winning this challenge?

I remember a discussion with a bank manager once where he exclaimed that, “John, we just cannot afford to train our employees on their job activities. There is nothing worse than training people and then having them go over to the competition.” After thinking about for it for a moment, I suggested that there was one thing worse, and that was not training them & then having them stay…

If labor cost is your biggest challenge, what about looking at potential automation? In 22 years of consulting, I cannot think of one single case where any Client automated a process and then later was disappointed to the point of taking it out. On the contrary, it led them to think about and discover even more ways that they could automate tasks. Indeed, they never looked back. They just pushed forward & made additional improvements!

As I suggested in my last blog, using the combined thinking of Joseph Schumpeter (Creative Destruction) and Dan Heath (Upstream), my question for you is this:

“What innovations do you have available to you right now to boost the productivity of your business?”

If you spend some time on this, I guarantee that you will continue to expand your future opportunities and profitability results!

I’d like to invite you to join me for our upcoming Next Level Thinking™ workshops later this year, within which, I’ll continue to focus on the benefits of this type of proactive thinking. We’ll be doing portions of this process through Zoom Group Sessions, with monthly follow-up calls on an individual basis.

Let’s take your business to the Next Level!