You’re only as good as your last result?
You got the whole business excited about your idea and then they forgot?
Has that ever happened to you? Sometimes it’s not about having more good ideas, it’s about doing something with the ones that you’ve already had. Improving the durability of the good ideas in your business can make a big difference to the bottom line. Productivity is not helped by a stream of new ideas that don’t get implemented.
You’re only as good as your last audit/ sale/ project….
I was chatting with some people at a networking meeting this morning about a business they worked in where it’s often said that “You’re only as good as your last sale“. Horrible as it is, I bet you’ve seen it happen in businesses too. The question is what can you do to prevent a culture where your team quickly forget your last idea and move onto business as usual?
Returning from holidays
When you come back from a holiday, most people bring photographs to remind them of the good time you had (the one above is from a recent Amazon basin expedition I was on). What can you do to improve recall of the initiatives you get your team all excited about? Photographs and other visual reminders of the discussion or project is one simple thing that can really help. If you link the display of the results to this theme as well it can become even more powerful. It does of course lead onto thought number 2.
Focus on one thing at a time
By ensuring that the focus remains on one key milestone, or project at a time you avoid the issue where you are saying everything is important all the time (which it maybe, but that doesn’t help you get somebodies attention, or action). Rather than have a jumble of ideas that you want “strategic development” of, think ahead. Create some quarterly or monthly traction around one thing at a time. Now you can always discuss it in meetings, talk about the results of it, talk about the next step, use the visual reminders (and remove them when you move on). That stopping afterwards is something I discussed in another productivity article, click here to read that article on productivity (“Bayoneting the dead”).
What else?
What techniques have you used to hold your team’s focus and improve productivity? I’d love to hear your feedback.
The Inca trip.
The trip I mentioned to the Amazon basin was part of our Peru trip. This was the latest in an annual series of hikes by a team of 10, that have met through networking. Mainly SME owners, the group also comprises senior bank manager, and a couple of other senior executives. This year we raised over £10k for charities, all of which went to the charity (not covering the cost of our places on the trip).
The Amazon Basin was incredible, spending time living in a jungle lodge surrounded by trees that were 37 metres high and full of Parrots, Monkeys, Macaws, Humming birds and somewhere was a jaguar. The views were stunning. A highlight for me was on the last day travelling by the boat and looking at the sun on the river – even though it led to thinking about work and this blog!
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