Flexibility is the key.

“You must always be able to predict what's next and then have the flexibility to evolve.” ~ Marc Benioff

Most business owners today would cite inflation and rising costs as top issues in keeping their business afloat. Inflation, rising costs, and supply chain insecurity have created an environment in which a business owner must keep a tight reign on all expenses while simultaneously keeping products and services priced competitively. In this time of ever-shrinking margins (and with a need for a business to achieve profit in order to continue its existence), everyone is looking to pinch every penny.

This often means cutting back. After all, what happens when you are faced with new bill unexpectedly at home? You look at where you can tighten your belt, remove unnecessary expenses, and cobble together the funds to address the emergency as it emerges, right? Business owners necessarily have to do the same thing. And yet…this so often results in ever-increasing stress for short-handed and underpaid employees.

If we choose the layoff route, we’re left with less people we expect to do more. Less people doing more work means an overstressed team. Employees with higher levels of stress perform at lower levels, period.

If we choose to replace staff with lower paid employees, we’re left with a less qualified team. If we ask our staff to take a pay cut, we’re left with a team that feels underpaid and resentful.

Looking to cut costs through your staffing is almost always a terrible plan, by the way.

Instead, it’s time to strategize. It’s time to look at your strengths and weaknesses, think outside the box about the structure of your business. It’s time to get flexible.

Flexibility in business is vital; flexibility allows us to break silos, shuck negative trending, surprise our customers (in a good way), and most importantly: it helps us to build trust with our employees and assists in them feeling more valued. Just as stress lowers productivity, feeling valued and appreciated at work raises productivity.

Corporate America seems to be trending toward doing away with all of the remote positions created during the initial phases of the Covid-19 pandemic. What a curious thing! I mean, I understand that a great many employers fear that allowing employees to work remotely means employing a team to sit at home in their underwear eating chips and working no more than 30 minutes per day…FEAR.

FEAR: False. Expectations. About. Reality.

In reality, studies show time and again that those who work remotely typically outperform their sad colleagues who are forced to work in-person in similar jobs. This is not to say that every employee can succeed in a remote environment; it certainly requires self-motivation and a certain drive to stay focused when there’s laundry to do, and mail to look at, and a toilet to scrub, and, and, and…

Considering whether the benefits of a remote team would help to streamline costs is an act of flexibility that can certainly prove worth it, however. In a business that doesn’t need to maintain a physical presence the size of its entire workforce, an owner can save huge amounts of money in space and utility costs alone. And having a workplace that is flexible enough to offer its employees the flexibility they need to improve their quality of life, makes for unparalleled loyalty (and creative thinking!) in a team.

Some businesses do not allow for remote work. Where would your coffee shop be if all your baristas worked from home? The key for businesses such as this is ALSO flexibility. How can you make your employees feel valued? How can you prove to them that you care about their well-being and quality of life, even when they’re not clocked in? Perhaps this looks like flex-time. Perhaps it looks like creativity in schedule. Maybe it’s really about a sit-down with each employee to figure out together which parts of their job make them passionate and which aspects might be better delegated to someone else.

Flexibility is the key. Being flexible with your employees to increase their sense of value to the business and their passion for their work will pay off exponentially. Happy, relaxed employees will have higher productivity, and higher productivity means good things for your margins.

So do a little mental yoga, already. Get flexible.

Leveling Up

“Everything feels difficult when you’re about to level up” (unknown)

I was never really a gamer. Probably unprocessed resentment from when my mom bought me a game system in third grade and then proceeded to monopolize it herself. Someday a therapist will sit me down and ask me how it made me feel to watch her play Tetris endlessly on MY Nintendo. And then bill me a couple hundred dollars for the exercise.

I was never really a gamer, but while “leveling up” is a gaming metaphor, it is certainly not a gaming concept alone. We experience it throughout our lives. In our skills, our hobbies, our schooling and our careers. And really, “everything feels difficult when you’re about to level up” isn’t that disparate a statement from “it’s always darkest before dawn,” is it?

Just as a child experiences literal “growing pains” before a physical growth spurt, we all experience “growing pains” before a spiritual or intellectual growth spurt. Whether you look at these “difficult” times as a growth spurt, or a Phoenix-life death and rebirth cycle doesn’t really matter. We all have them.

“And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anaïs Nin

It works both ways. You know you’re ready to “level up” when there is pain associated with maintaining the status quo. Pain could be as simple as utter boredom, or it could be as graphic as a floundering business. Likewise, you know you’re ready to “level up” when things seem to get increasingly difficult, when challenges suddenly surround you on all sides. It’s time to defeat the “boss” and move forward on your journey.

You’re ready to level up because you’re LOOKING for these challenges. You’re YEARNING for this growth. You are READY, despite any trepidation you might feel. Remember, you have already succeeded in seeking out these challenges and opportunities to grow.

In the moment, “leveling up” can be ridiculously terrifying. Fear of pain. Fear of failure. Fear of destruction. These fears can freeze us in our tracks, seducing us with a siren’s song full of verses about how maintaining the status quo would be much easier, much more comfortable, much safer. When it comes to personal growth, there are times I don’t WANT to level up. That’s a lot of work and strife, dangit!

And yet, that moment inevitably comes when the risk to remain tight in a bud is more painful than the risk it takes to blossom, no?

Not that every person or company or effort wants to be a flower, of course. But we do all desire to bloom, right? We all want to be the best version of ourselves. We all want our businesses to flourish. We all want our efforts to explode into success.

So.

Are you finding yourself yearning to grow? Do you feel cramped like you need to stretch? Are you noticing impending growing pains or fantasizing about how your business can bloom?

It’s time to level up!

Gotta Risk/Invest Big to Win Big

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing quickly, the only strategy guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” ~ Mark Zuckerberg

We’ve all heard the same advice about gambling. You can’t win big unless you bet big, right? Sure, it’s true, and so is the inverse. You bet big and you can lose big. No gamble at all is the surest way to make sure you don’t end up in the red.

Except that’s not true in business. Consistently, the businesses finding themselves in the red are there because they’re stuck in a rut. Because they refuse to “change with the times.” Because “this is the way we’ve always done it.” Because they refuse to gamble (tell me the difference between “gamble” and “invest”).

When I stop to think about it, I have to credit a great deal of my current professional success to the fact that I possess the ability to hop into a situation with my clients and think entirely outside of the box in which they’ve find themselves “trapped”. Often, I make a new suggestion that is met with a WHOLE bunch of hesitation.

“But, but…we’ve NEVER done that before. We’ve ALWAYS done it this way!”

“Yep. That’s why nothing is changing for you. If it didn’t work last time, what makes you think it will work this go around?”

Note: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Want to stay just where you are? Great, just keep doing what you’ve been doing! It’s no different than training your body in the realm of exercise, right? If you run the same distance at the same speed each day, you don’t make any gains. What’s more than that: you start burning less and less calories on your run, as your body gets more efficient.

Your brain and your voice are muscles too. Don’t challenge them and you won’t myelinate new pathways, you won’t increase your range or strength or influence. “Use it or lose it,” right?

Your business, your team, is no different. If you decide not to “gamble” (read: “invest”) with your business or your message, not only do you get stuck in that rut, you also risk having your team leave you for work that they find more personally fulfilling. Because growth and achievement are highly motivating to us humans.

Woah. Does that mean if we don’t invest (“gamble”) in regards to business and people and values, we ONLY stand to lose?

The only strategy guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

Ask for more.

You deserve it.

Do the next right thing

“When things don't go your way, you've got to keep trying to do the right things.” ~Dele Alli

I’m watching the legislative session quite a lot these days and today it occurred to me to wonder what all these legislators do when it feels like nothing they propose is going through. How do they pick themselves up each day to go to their committee meetings, present their bills, speak on the floor, review everything on which they need to formulate positions….when it feels like their purpose is obstructed? Very few jobs entail the constant exposure to rejection that our lawmakers face.

Whether the title of this blog post makes you think of Kristen Bell and Frozen, or of the tenants of addiction recovery, it’s good advice, yeah? Heck, it’s the only advice.

Sometimes the strategy is simply picking yourself up off the ground, dusting yourself off, and putting one foot in front of the other (in the right direction). Truth be told, we don’t always know the right direction, which is why it’s especially important to be committed to trying to do the right thing.

We can’t predict exactly where that tornado will hit or whether the hurricane will veer up the East Coast or into the Gulf (yay, Louisiana). We can only remain vigilantly devoted to our ethical framework, moral compass, and The Golden Rule.

“In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. . . .” ~Matthew (7:12)

The next right thing is always the decision or movement based in love. Always. Love your maker. Love your family. Love your neighbor. Love.

So, like I said, I’m not sure what our legislators do when they’re feeling especially defeated. Probably whatever they do for stress relief at the end of the day. Those with active other jobs during session have to deal with those, of course. Those with families must tend to their folks.

And then, the next day, they must return to the Capitol…hopefully with renewed determination to do the next right thing. If they can do it each day, can’t each of us occasionally?

Don’t Just Make Noise

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~Sun Tzu

Strategy is everything. And nothing. For strategy to be effective, it must be well-placed, thought-out, and comprehensive. Still, strategy alone will at least get you somewhere. All too often, folks jump into their vision of war-like tactics and pray that attack mode will win them triumph. They’re just making noise.

Don’t just make noise: ALL communication is strategic. If your communication isn’t strategic, you’re wasting your breath.

For a business, strategy is all about creating value. As far as definitions go, the vagueness of that one could make your eyes cross. The truth is, people have been attempting to define “strategy” in an effort to sell it, for longer than the word itself has existed.

As a side note: according to Oxford Languages, the word “strategy” is first noted in the “early 17th century (denoting an army, government, or province under the command or rule of a general): from Greek stratēgia ‘generalship’, ‘province governed by a general’, from stratēgos ‘general’ (see stratagem).”

While the etymology of the word “strategy”, does denote the same war-like behavior described above, I prefer love as my weapon of choice. This means I will always look for the the option that gives a “win” to everyone involved. In my experience, people are happy to give you what you want when you give them what they need.

This often means thinking a little harder…searching a little longer…looking at situations with a fresh set of eyes. After all, “if you always do what you’ve always done,”…right?

Strategy is creating value. Strategy is effective rhetoric. Strategy is accomplishing objectives. Strategy is a happy and fulfilled team. Strategy is ticking off all of your checkboxes in the most efficient way (efficiency is a love language!) with the biggest bang for your buck and in a beautiful tidy package, to boot.

So no, I don’t view strategy as war. I view strategy as love. Don’t just make noise.