So with Autumn well and truly upon us, and Christmas just around the corner (86 days as I write this post), many businesses are now assessing how their year has gone against their key targets.
I don’t know about you, but as we enter the last quarter of the business year there’s always that mad push to achieve those goals we set at the beginning fo the year even if they seem further away then when we set them (and even if we’ve forgotten WHY we set them!!).
Most will be dusting off their company objectives, thinking, why did we write this? And assessing their status.
As well as looking at those big company goals, many individuals will also be looking at their own personal objectives, with a view that they have three more months to hit them or face the wrath of their manager
OK so with that in mind, let us take a look at our findings for September
1/ I have a friend that’s recently taken over a company that he considers in “turnaround”, i.e. a business that’s not doing so well and needs a step change in order to be effective.
Forbes ran an interesting article on what a business turn-around actually means (check out the article here). As you know if you’ve followed our blog we’ve written a lot obout continuous improvement, business turnaround feels more like a heart transplant. So if you want to look at how continuous improvement can impact a business in decline, take a look at that post.
2/ Speaking of turnaround, in the UK the Government’s statistical office reported on the UK’s most deprived areas (reviewing income, employment, education, health and crime indicators), stating a lack of jobs and a reliance on social support as key contributory factors (take a look here the BBC’s coverage https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49812519). This sort of turnaround is perhaps a larger question that a business turnaround and the UK is not unique in areas such as these. Many of these areas have seen large industry decline with jobs affected. Just how do you turnaround these areas? Is it just by throwing money at them? Is it by attracting new industries? Can you apply similar methodologies which you would apply to business turnaround? Targeting key facets that would drive key benefits?
3/ Our roundups typically contain an article on healthcare, and this month’s no different. New technology is so often utilized as an enabler and we’re really hyped to see how the use of drones in healthcare is increasing, from the US, to drones helping to deliver life saving medication around Africa, it looks like the technology is really finding it’s place. This just goes to show how much of a enabler technology is and how sometimes industries need to think out of the box to get the best out of it. What about your organization? Does it just use technology the same as everyone else, or does it look to use it as leverage to gain customers?
4/ You’ve no doubt heard of mentoring but have you heard about it in the context of the young mentoring the old?
Yes, you did read that right – reverse mentoring is apprarently the next big thing, where younger employees are paired with their older counterparts to help them embrace things like technology, social media and modern ways of working. (Forbes has it’s article here https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2019/09/05/the-power-of-reverse-mentoring/#31f26be566de) and there’s also an interesting piece here https://businessrecord.com/Content/Opinion/Opinion/Article/Guest-opinion-Adventures-in-mentoring/168/963/88130 where the mentor perhaps learned more than her student.
A fascinating concept in the world of continuous improvement.
Think that your business could use it? Are you an older worker how would you feel about being mentored by someone half your age?
5/ As ever we released some new content during September, where we looked at a number of business tools & methodologies which included:
- Cost Leadership Strategy – here we looked at how you can utilise different business strategies around cost and competitiveness to capture market share.
- Inverted U theory We described how the theory shows the link between stress and performance with too little and too much degrading performance
- Blake Mouton Managerial Grid – This piece looked at the well known tool that helps define management style, and how you can utilize the results for personal improvement.
- Cause and Effect Chart Examples We showed you how to create a cause and effect chart and provided some chart examples
So that’s all for this month. See you again soon. (don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter @sanbustrain.