How often does this happen? You’re running a process that you’ve successfully run a million times, but this time it fails. As kids, we were always told, when approaching a railroad crossing, to STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN. When evaluating the integrity of a process, we think you should do that as well… Under these circumstances, It’s easy to think the process no longer works, and must be changed. And it might be that you’re right. But did you thoroughly check your assumptions? When something either doesn’t work, or stops working, don’t make a hasty change without checking to make sure that a change…

    How many times have you made a decision that seemed to make sense at the time, but in retrospect, turned out to be less than optimal? Many times, it is not your fault.  Leaders become trapped in a conflicting world. They get mountains of input from everywhere; news events, markets, customers, vendors, and even everyone inside the organization. Sometimes the information is incomplete. Sometimes it is not accurate. Sometimes it is complicated and difficult to understand. Sometimes it conflicts with other information. It is the leader’s job to sift through all this stuff and determine the direction of the organization. Small wonder…

  What kind of question is that, and why am I asking it? Well, why don’t you ask yourself if your business is a finite, or infinite enterprise? Sure, your business had a beginning. It might also have rules (processes), timelines, and score keeping (the numbers). But when does it end? What does the end even look like?  This is an important concept to consider for several reasons: Even if you have a business plan with 1 year or 3-year goals, once you reach the goal, now what?  Is it possible to create our own future? While it’s impossible to predict the future, is it possible…

Here’s an interesting fact: Every organization has 3 main functions: Sales and Marketing to generate opportunities,and close deals. Operations to produce and deliver the goods/services sold Finance/Administration for accounting, HR, and other admin functions. Knowing this allows us to understand how work flows through the company. In fact, it’s linear. It must pass through all 3 functions in that order to generate money/profit. Are you aware that every business has a bottleneck, or constraint? That is a mathematical certainty. Why? Because if your business does not have a constraint, you’d have infinite profits. And even Apple doesn’t have that (although some think they are close)... Your…

Cloud storage is now easily available to everyone.  This gives the advantage of knowing that your files are backed up and being able to access them from anywhere.  You shouldn’t be storing important files on your computer alone or on memory sticks.  But just throwing files randomly in a folder isn’t helpful either.  You need to be able to organize them so that each file’s purpose is clear without having to open it and so that you can quickly find files when you need them. To organize files well, you need both an organizing folder structure as well as a file…

Do you remember the comedian Rodney Dangerfield? That was his signature line. “I tell you, I don’t get no respect. When I was born, I was so ugly the doctor took one look at me and slapped my mother.” Do your people respect you? Are you getting the results you need from them? Do you sometimes wonder about their commitment? You might ask yourself this question. How do you feel or how do you typically respond when someone tries to exert control over you? I like to watch people walking their dogs. Sounds strange? Maybe it’s because I love dogs. I noticed that…

  Instead of living in the “Cost World” try living in the “Throughput World.” If you are focused on the speed and amount of throughput in your business (while maintaining costs) you are assured of making more money now and in the future. Why is that? It’s because you are looking operationally and systematically at things you can do to improve throughput, which ALWAYS results in making more money. And if you really want to do a deep dive into this area, pick up a book called “The Goal” by Eliyahu Goldratt. It will completely change your perspective about business!!  In our next…