Substantially increasing: gross margins; and available time are the new business battlegrounds?
With increasing pace and disruption: it is becoming increasingly difficult to increase margins and productivity?
In this blog we outline “The art of the impossible:” how to immediately increase profits and productivity by double digits.
“The art of the impossible”
- Facing the opportunity: “giving away double-digit profit and productivity”
- A symptom: “Are you too busy?”
- Why are we too busy: “the 10 roadblocks?”
- The Myths “the art of the possible”
- Conclusion & “What’s the solution?”
“My manager is too stressed, and I am worried for their health”. February 2019 Executive Survey
Facing the opportunity
Are YOU costing 70% in lost productivity and giving away double-digit margins?
YES YOU…
Does this sound like nonsense?
For most of my career, nothing productively challenged my thinking either.
Try asking yourself this out loud 10x… “am I costing 70% in lost productivity and giving away double-digit margins…? “
Does this sound like nonsense? How do you justify rejecting this? E.g. “Tom doesn’t understand” ?
– great let’s shine some light into where the gap is and where the money is for you…
Why does our thinking matter? Can you recall a catalyst that caused a breakthrough in your thinking?
“People reach the limits of their own or their organisations thinking, well before they reach the limit of their own talents”… so tragically people rarely exceed more than c30% (*1) of their potential…
A symptom Are you “too busy”
Being too busy is a good indicator that you are costing your shareholders a 70% loss in productivity and giving away double-digit margins. Whilst being busy is a symptom not a cause, being too busy also justifies doing nothing, a total flip-flop?
Stress is fuelled by the digital environment of manipulation and distraction. So being too busy is becoming an epidemic… This was the dominant comment from an associate partners’ survey this month:
“My manager is too stressed, and I am worried for their health”.
Why are we too busy? “The 10 Roadblocks”
Roadblock 1 “Stress” is an indicator that your beliefs and actions are misaligned. What does it cost your integrity and productivity trying to be someone else? The “2019 digital syndrome” fuels this increase in misalignment. Do you recognise how stress reduces your willingness to consider alternatives or even just listen?
Roadblock 2 “fear misaligns our actions”, for example: despite the damage we continue to fuel the “2019 digital syndrome”, it’s a fear driven response. Fear overrides rational decision making…
Roadblock 3 “Your thinking creates inactivity”. Maybe you think you are: “too busy”, “doing all you can”, “we are OK”, “we are the best in our space”, “we have a plan” etc. See how this thinking creates inactivity ?…?
Roadblock 4 “Blindness” – Have you experienced how a shift in thinking changes productivity? The table below is from a case study showing even a good managers communication misaligned his employees’ activity by over 70% away from the challenge. This was a good leader… Another leadership team waste a decade… which we recovered in 3months! (*2)
Roadblock 5 – “Do you have the courage” to admit you are too stressed? What’s the cause?
Roadblock 6 “My productivity” if there are hundreds of people in your team, what’s more important: how you use YOUR time; or making sure your team’s time is well spent?
Roadblock 7 “Being busy is OK?” What is it like to work for you if you are too busy?
Roadblock 8 – “Do you value being busy”: notice how it’s comfortable, and makes you feel loved – eh?
Roadblock 9 – “Comfort in the status quo” Are you fearful of doing things that you don’t like to do or to give up your being busy mantra…? Successful people have formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do. (Albert E N Grey)
Roadblock 10 “the desire for pleasing methods: team days etc” Successful people are influenced by the desire for pleasing results, people who fail are influenced by the desire for pleasing methods. (Albert E N Grey)
The Myths “the art of the possible”
MythBusters 1 1 You can’t achieve a cultural shift in 1 day. If you change your actions immediately of course you can?
MythBusters 2- Yes most coaching content and consulting solutions are just “feel-good” or ineffective. The funny thing is that the WT session is fun and engaging.
Mythbusters 2 – “you don’t understand our situation”. The context of these sessions is your objectives in the context of your team, and the combined experience of our alumni turning over 200 businesses in these organisations…
Mythbuster –3 double digit profit improvement is impossible? Yes, but only with your current thinking? (*2)
Conclusion & “what’s the solution?”
Its 100% down to our thinking, the solution to taking control is simple but multidimensional. We achieve this by
- At the 1-day WinningThinking® colloquium you will consider 70 winning perspectives,
- from the fresh thinking each of you will identify and immediately implement 12 new actions.
- These unleash diversity so will be unique to you and aligned with your team and business objectives.
- The day’s sharing and unique dialogue will transform relationships too, realise immediate results and remove barriers to realising future results.
- You will practice and learn a new set of tools to innovate faster; remain on track and realise how liberating it is to take new action, reopen the options and stay that way.
- To maximise the business benefit, we run a WinningThinking® day for 8 people (8 is optimum).
- At these sessions we will train people and create 6 X-functional champions.
- Prior to this we will confirm the 3 WinningThinking® 1-day colloquium objectives with you and run a simple, confidential email survey to establish your cultural baseline.
- Following the session: we will debrief leadership; on capability; implementation risks; and provide the support remotely to certify your 6 champions over 12 weeks.
- Sessions include: preparation; accreditation; team licences to access the online content for 12m; and the debrief.
- We can scope the simpler collaborative industry innovation days later.
To prevent your people reaching their limit, email me or call to give me a date and I will organise a www.winningthinking.uk team day, and or I welcome ambitious individuals reach out to apply to join our accredited alumni.
Immediate actions and results are guaranteed.
Cheers Tom
+44(0) 7720 597869
Tom Pickering is internationally renowned business turnaround practitioner, CEO of the Year 2018 , MBA Masterclass Leader and winner of many prestigious awards since 2002. As winningthinking.uk is available online many thousands more businesses can transform themselves. Making the right changes in 2005 enabled his team to turn around over 200 companies & yield 45x cash return.
