A simple strategy that stops the fire fighting in your business
by Dr Greg Chapman
A key reason that most business owners don’t ever find the time to work ON their business is that they spend far too much of their time fighting fires. They lurch from crisis to crisis. No sooner than a band-aid fix has been found for one problem, than their biggest customer rings up to say they haven’t received their urgent order. This means that the time they had put aside to review their monthly sales performance is lost. The urgent takes priority over the important.
What if you could get out of the fire fighting business? What if you didn’t get continual surprises from your staff or suppliers? What if things worked the way you expected almost all the time? What I am about to recommend will appear to some as just extra time that takes them away from the fires they know should be dousing. Unfortunately most business owners believe the answer is to get better at fire fighting. All this will do over time is to wear you down and exhaust you and your staff.
The way to get out of the fire fighting business is to stop the fires from starting
I have seen this simple strategy transform so many businesses. The strategy is to hold weekly meetings with your staff and contractors so that you plan what will be happening during the week.
There are 3 key objectives for a basic meeting:
- Review the performance of the last week
- Plan the current week
- Identify opportunities for improvement
The first step is to review actions from last week’s meeting. When people know you will always ask about outstanding actions, and you won’t forget because the actions have been recorded and copied to everyone, you will be amazed how everyone will get in the habit of completing the work they have committed to before the next meeting. You will also be amazed at the effect that it has on you doing what you say you will do: a form of accountability that most owners lack.
Next, get everyone to keep problem logs, so if something comes up during the week, and if it is not urgent, it can wait till the weekly meeting where the problem will be discussed and opportunities to eliminate it are developed. This on its own will stop the same old fires recurring. Decide on solutions to the problem and nominate someone to be responsible and a date for it to be completed.
Now plan what will happen during the week. It’s an opportunity for people to identify issues before problems arise. For example, an order might be due in two days and one of your staff mentions that you are low on stock or that they wanted time off on that day. Both inconvenient, but if you know ahead of time, you can deal with it while it’s not an emergency. Often emergencies arise as one part of your business doesn’t know what another part is doing.
Finally, all actions are recorded for follow-up next week. The list is then sent to all staff.
The weekly meeting gives a focus for driving your business. Staff gets used to the meeting routine and bringing issues to it, deferring non-urgent issues so you are interrupted less often. When someone asks: “Have you got a minute?” Answer: “Is it urgent, or can it wait for our weekly meeting?”
May Your Business Be – As You Plan It!
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