Business Management - Productivity/Process Improvement

If you agree that we sometimes need to find a way to reignite the flame within us that can get a little low or burn out, it may be time to attend an industry event. If you haven’t taken some time away from your business recently, I suggest you do so this fall.

Right when you’re in the middle of fulfilling a large, time-sensitive order, those all-too-familiar words ring out that send everyone into a panic—“We’re out of (this or that)!” A good inventory management system is vital to a thriving business.

“Do you have trouble keeping your desk clean!?” I asked that question at a recent conference in South Carolina, and 80 percent of the people in the room raised their hands. If EVERYTHING does not have a place, then those items without a permanent and convenient location start to break down the system.

Too often, when a job is completed—printed, finished, mailed and billed—we tend to think “it’s over.” How can a job or project be over unless we measure the results or, in some fashion, determine if the solution we provided the customer yielded the expected outcome?

We have all heard that, as managers, we should not get in the way of our staff people doing their jobs. The reality is, as a manager or owner of a small business, we find it necessary to work in the business at the same time we work on it.

I’ve noticed that many owners and managers actually run their businesses via their cell phones—constantly allowing calls and text messages to interrupt even important meetings, meals, and any personal time. Think of each call as an ERROR in your business.

WHEN this economy turns around (and I believe it will), will you have already thrown in the towel? In the past few years, I have been able to visit with hundreds of business owners across our nation, and I’ve heard a resounding complaint, “Not enough time, too many problems.” CHAOS! 

Partnering with the management of an in-plant operation could be a win-win opportunity. Too often, we can look at in-plants—or even other competitors—as the enemy when they could make a good partner. Such a relationship will require a different mindset than some of us are used to, but in this fast-changing world, we all need to look for new solutions.

I likely blocked out all memories of past household moves, since I wasn’t particularly anxious about this one. My house was an operations disaster! I wondered how in the world I had accumulated so much, and how I had failed to realize it.

Eighteen years ago I had an epiphany. I was, admittedly, a bit of a SLOB back then—my desk and office consistently looked like the aftermath of a tornado, and I had no clue how to keep it clean.