Category Archives: business strategy

Fill Your Business ‘Bus’ With the Right People – Part II

business planning, business strategy, , , , ,

nlu 1

Develop effective management and recruiting systems that show you how to recruit and keep the best people for your business.

After defining last week what motivates employees – a sense of mission and purpose – I now want to get into managing people.

Assuming you already have people onboard, I’m going to tackle the managing side of people first. If you don’t have any employees, this part of the equation is still critical, as it points to what you will do and how you need to do it from the second you bring on your first employee.

Today’s businesses, especially small businesses, call for making the most of limited resources, including people. The business leader can’t do it all. He or she has to make the most of every resource and that means making the best possible use of the people of the business, and in return, providing them with rewarding, satisfying jobs and careers which, in turn, goes a long way to making their lives better. Continue reading →

Fill Your Business ‘Bus’ With the Right People – Part I

business planning, business strategy, , , , ,

nlu 1

Develop effective management and recruiting systems that show you how to recruit and keep the best people for your business.

Every business leader must make the most of every resource including people and provide them with rewarding, satisfying jobs and careers as they help you take your business towards its Strategic Intent.

Why is this important? It’s important because you can’t live in a vacuum if you want to build a successful business. The level of work you alone can do is limited by time and your own energy and resources. When you do it on your own, everything is dependent on you and all you’re doing is buying yourself a job…and you’re not building a business. Continue reading →

7 Reasons Why Systems Aren’t Followed

business planning, business strategy,

Bored businesswoman sitting at desk

I often hear people say that they have systems, but they can’t get people to follow them so today I’m going to give you 7 reasons why systems aren’t followed. I hope this will help you get clear about why it’s important to have systems.

Everyone knows that business needs systems. What do you do when you have systems that aren’t being followed, or when they’re being blatantly ignored? You go and find out why. You ask. It may be one of these reasons:

1. The staff just doesn’t see the point. Sometimes the system is put in for the sake of the system, and not much else. Or the reason is the outcome has never been properly explained. I once saw a system for the way the toilet paper was placed on the roller. It was important to the owner, but the staff thought it was a bit too…detailed.

2. It’s too complicated. When a system gets complicated and convoluted, it generally means that it’s actually a whole bunch of systems masquerading as one. Try breaking it down into a flow chart and then looking at each box on the chart as a system in itself. Or look at the outside systems that may be feeding into it. Simplify it wherever you can. Sometimes you can use checklists as part of a complex system to help people confirm that they’ve done it all. Continue reading →

Anatomy of a Foolproof System – Part IV

business planning, business strategy,

Elevated view of men planning in studio

Welcome to Part IV of Anatomy of a Foolproof System. Today I pick up where I left off last week with steps 4 through 6 of the Six Steps to Effective Business Systems.

The next step then is step 4 – Resources. You list the resources that are required for the systems. It might be staffing, job positions, specific equipment, work space or supplies, or information required to perform the work in the system. You include the quantity of each resources needed to successfully perform the steps in the system.

Step 5 are the Standards and Tracking. The standards are the yard sticks that tell you how well or poorly your system is working and whether or not the results of the system are acceptable, unacceptable, or outstanding.

There are three kinds of standards and they correspond with the three basic parts of the system. The resource, or the input standards, the work process standards and the results of the output standards. Continue reading →

Anatomy of a Foolproof System – Part III

business planning, business strategy,

A detail picture showing the precesses in a manufacturing company

Today, in Part III of the Anatomy of a Foolproof System, I discuss in depth the first three steps of the Six Steps to Effective Business Systems.

There’s a wide range of possible systems from massive manufacturing systems of global car manufacturers to simple customer service systems of small retailers. The six step system design process fits them all. You may need to adjust the steps of the process to fit your particular business. That’s okay. As long as you use all six steps. Adapt this process in the way that works best for you.

The first step, System Identification, has three parts.

• The name of the system. The system name (or number) should say what it is so everyone knows and no one has to guess. Usually the system name reflects the work of the system. A system for writing advertising copy would be called the advertising copywriting system, or a system for collecting money from customers would be named the collections systems. It’s a good idea as you go along to work out a sorting or a numbering system (we’ll cover that in a future blog article). Continue reading →