“Great moments are born from great opportunity.” Family businesses often do not recognize great opportunity. We get satisfied, but what is satisfied? In today’s business each unit must practice continuous improvement. Success can be a reality. Be careful its effects are temporary.
Often in small business, Family Owned Business, Women owned businesses and even big business get complacent. This unworried state may be viewed as smug, unworried. Pride comes before the fall is an American idiom. It may have been taken from Proverbs 16:18 “Pride precedes a disaster, and an arrogant attitude precedes a fall.”
As Leaders it’s our job to help the Team. Information flows up and resources flow down. Recently at a month end metric review one Leader spoke proudly of the Team’s month over month incident rate. Their goal was five and for three months they had recorded only had one. We suggested the set a new goal. Havng a goal of five and consistently score one and not changing is complacent.
“Great moments are born from great opportunity.” Real improvement comes in simple, small, actionable steps. Sitting with another Family business we reviewed the terrific improvement the team had accomplished in reducing tool change time. The time had reduce the time by over 50%-Great Improvement! When asked if there was a documented process; the answer was no, that’s a disappointing fact. Often improvement initially comes in chunks. Similar to a sculpture, the first steps are roughing, large pieces of marble flash off the block.
Some researchers will tell you, the single most powerful workplace motivator was small, daily progress. Complacent teams by definition are “Contented, yet unconcerned, and uneager to improve or change. ”
If you want your small business, Family Business to improve set small goals. Celebrate the try, embrace the effort and reset. Satisfaction is a reality, but its effects are temporary. Small Steps and document the process. Celebrate be happy, then get hungry.
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