Spring is almost here. If you’re thinking about spring cleaning, I thought I’d share some tips on how to spring clean your business…and leave your competition in the dust!
Here are ten tips on how to purge various aspects of the business that can hurt business growth. Taking action in any one or more of these areas can help your business maintain a competitive edge.
- Processes: Discontinue processes that no longer work well, or never worked well from the start.
- Pests: Let go of people who don’t serve the business well. These people may be customers, employees or others who are creating a negative impact. If allowed to persist, they can threaten the business in the long term.
- Plans: Ditch strategic or tactical plans that have never been executed, even if they seemed to make sense when first developed. Take a fresh look at where the business is now and start from there.
- Paper: Get rid of the clutter on your desk and in your office. You’ll think better. Make sure the paper correspondence floating around the office is truly useful.
- Practices: Avoid unnecessary or unproductive meetings and practices. Prime targets are those practices that people defend by saying, “We’ve always done it that way.”
- Pessimism: Deflect pessimists. Your business can’t thrive if people can’t see and believe in new possibilities. Optimism fuels the business. Create a corporate culture that values optimism.
- Perfectionism: Stop striving for perfection. Focus on progress instead.
- Possessiveness: Weed out possessive behaviors in your company. Is information flowing or hoarded? Are people more concerned about turf rather than working as a team?
- Procrastination: Replace procrastination with decisiveness. Combat procrastination by taking even the smallest action. Procrastination can paralyze the business.
- Paranoia: Too worried about the competition? Fear-based thinking is dangerous. Focus sharply on your mission, vision, market, customer needs, opportunities, etc. Don’t be distracted by peripheral activities and unfounded concerns.
Strategic purging in your business can bring about new possibilities. Taking a look at those aspects of the business that hold you back and doing something about them is empowering. Leaders can identify these or other areas of their business that need attention to help them achieve better results.
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