Tag Archives: management

April 15, 2019 · 9:30 am

Great Skills

I spent some time last week speaking with a fellow who is trying to change his life. I meet a lot of those folks in my franchise consulting role. They’re tired of working for someone else and want to invest what they’ve saved in creating a new, better life for themselves and their families.

One thing we talk about early on in the process is the skill set the candidate is bringing with them. Have they managed people? Do they like selling? Do they know about technology? It’s not that any skill set is better or worse. It’s simply about identifying what they bring beyond financial resources as we examine the hundreds of possibilities out there.

The fellow I spoke with last week works in auto repair. He’s a “body man.” Unfortunately, many of the auto body repair franchises are well beyond his financial abilities so we talked about some others. I also brought up a franchise that’s involved in drywall repair. He said he didn’t know anything about drywall and he didn’t have those skills. I reminded him that this, like most other franchises, offers a lot of training but putting that aside, I asked why repairing drywall is that much different from repairing sheet metal. He’s now considering the franchise but it raised a good point that we all need to remember.

Many of us focus on the trees and not on the forest. We think about learning a skill in a vacuum instead of the broader application that learning may have. Learning to code, for example, can teach project management, since you can’t perform either one well without a great plan and a flow chart of sorts.  It’s also a good reminder that learning the “broad” skills of communication, problem-solving, and teamwork have application across the board. That’s why so many of the business opportunities I deal with emphasize they want candidates with those skills and will train them on the specific skills needed to be successful.

Unlike Napoleon Dynamite, we all DO have skills and most of us have more of them than we think. What are yours?

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April 12, 2019 · 12:45 pm

Fast Food Solutions

It’s Foodie Friday! Today I’d like us to contemplate the foods that make us hungry. No, I don’t mean the ones for which we have cravings. I mean food that can actually increase your hunger when you eat them.avoid fast food solutions

Have you ever wondered why bars put out salty snacks like popcorn or peanuts or pretzels? As it turns out, salt makes you thirsty and what better place to be when you’re thirsty than your favorite watering hole? Salt, according to some studies, is addictive, as is sugar and fat. The food industry has become very good at layering those things together to create products (I’m deliberately not saying “foods”) that play to our addictions, light up our dopamine centers, and cause us to engage in self-destructive behaviors. When you hear the old Lay’s slogan about “bet you can’t just eat just one,” you might try to think about what the drug pusher says as they give away their free samples to people: “don’t worry – you’ll be back.”

The screed today isn’t meant to be a lecture on improving our eating habits. Instead, there is a business point here. We don’t eat salty snacks or sugary foods or processed foods or even foods sweetened with artificial sweeteners (they made you hungry too) to get fat. We eat them to solve an immediate need – hunger. But there is any number of other options that can fill that need without triggering the problems that come from really unhealthy foods.

It’s the same in business. We often take the easiest or most available or cheapest solution to solve an immediate need. Unfortunately, those “fast food” solutions only solve the problem in the near term and can often cause long-term damage. Just as with food, we need to be aware of our cravings and think before we eat. We need to consider all of the options, not just the “fast food” ways out. We need to choose more wisely, not just more expeditiously.

Make sense?

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April 10, 2019 · 12:55 pm

Circular Firing Squads

One thing that used to amaze me without fail was when a room full of intelligent people would form a circular firing squad and shoot away. OK, so it’s not literally true, but you know what I mean and you’ve probably been in one or more of these situations yourself.

Photo by Holger Link

It happens when someone surfaces an idea or an argument that deviates from the conventional wisdom or thinking on an issue. Instead of evaluating the new thinking on its merits, people start taking potshots at one another. They should be united against a common “enemy” – the competition, for example, or a big problem. Instead, they attack one another.

I’m not really sure how one combats this. I always used to raise ideas along with all of the flaws inherent in what I was espousing. By showing that I understood the weaknesses in my thinking I was also showing that I could be balanced and not delusional enough to think that every idea I had was gold. What I was hoping for was for others to focus on the good parts of my thinking instead of spending time trying to surface the problems because I had already done that.

Whenever possible, I’d draw pictures of some sort – Venn diagrams, flow charts, whatever – because I believe that pictures are more easily understood, even those drawn by a person with zero artistic ability (me). The goal was always to get the team standing back to back, rifles pointed out at the problem and away from pointing inward at one another.

Creating an environment where new ideas flourish is one of the biggest management challenges. Keeping the team focused on the big goals and not on taking pot shots at one another to further their personal goals is another one. What’s above are some of the ways I do that. How do you do that?

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