Improve areas of your business
By Peter Switzer

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3. Your people
Meeting up with people in your business is an important glue that holds a great operation together.

John D Rockefeller used to lunch with his directors every day! Business analysts argue that great businesses have a rhythm of well-placed meetings to ensure good two-way feedback, monitoring of measurable goals and to keep the vibe positive.

The great book The One Minute Manager sums it up neatly: ‘People who feel good about themselves produce great results.’

The simple rule for managing people is to give them goals, appropriate praise and timely reprimands where you criticise actions, but not people. Encourage them to think of themselves working for themselves, but in your business. It gives them a self-employed work ethic and interest in self-improvement.

4. Your business
The best explanation of how to simply run a business came from Verne Harnish who wrote the book Mastering The Rockefeller Habits. He advised it should be like raising kids:

• Have a handful of rules
• Repeat them all of the time
• Be consistent.

Also have a commitment to setting goals and link them to data so you can measure how your business is going. I love that old line: ‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.’

Also, work on your leadership. Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, thinks leaders:

• have to be fair
• they must face the truth
• be positive
• be a good calculator of risk.

Most of the great CEOs I have talked to, including Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, think having a vision and sharing it with their teams were critical for full engagement.

5. Working on you
Do a SWOT on you – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Outline the weaknesses in particular and seek help – books, coaches, mentors, etc.

Work out how you can play to your strengths. List the opportunities (they’re often right in front of you) and research to find more and list the threats to prepare for battle against them.

Seek expertise and drive yourself through inspiration. Look for great one-liners to help you through hard, negative times.

I love this one:
‘Don’t wish it was easier; wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom.’

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