Time To Flourish

Turnaround Operations

It’s Time…Let’s Move Forward

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Moving forward is sometimes hard to do.  It seems funny now to recall our expectations from March or April.  Back then, cynics thought that things would be back to “normal” by the summer.   For those less realistic, it was believed that it would take 14 days to flatten the curve, then right back to it.  The reality is that the only accurate adjective for the present is “ever-changing”.  Whether your business has experienced increased performance because of the pandemic or has slowed down considerably, it is time to evolve to meet the needs of your customers.

There have been considerable examples of innovation in the last few months to get businesses going; curb-side pick-up, remote personal training, parking lot dining, cashier-less grocery stores, expedited digital banking, etc.  After all, “necessity is the mother of invention”.  If innovation and change is what you need to keep your business moving forward, now is the time.

First, there are a few critical steps to take on the road to your “new normal”.  There are many questions that need answered.  Do you need to determine a new delivery method for your product or does your product need to evolve?  How do you keep your employees and customers safe and at ease?  How do you reach new customers?  How will you provide your services with the current restrictions?  Reinvention is not easy.  However, there is no time like the present to regain control and move forward! 

How?  Of course, the answer will vary by business, but there are certain commonalities to the process regardless of business type.  It all starts with an acute awareness of your surroundings, a well-thought-out plan, and the understanding that it could all change on a dime.

 SWOT Analysis

Particularly now, it is important to identify the external factors that will impact your organization’s performance.  For this reason, it is important to conduct a new SWOT analysis.  So much has shifted in the landscape of running a business, it is not surprising to find major changes particularly in the areas of external opportunities and threats.  Action plans will be necessary for ways to optimize new opportunities and to formulate contingency plans for potential threats. 

Rethink Strategy

The strategic plan completed prior to March 2020 may not fit the needs of your organization mid-pandemic.  It has become necessary to assess and possibly rethink the current plan to identify areas of change needed to align with the current circumstances.  Will you need to change or modify services, programming, or products?  Does the organization have the right expertise in the current staff to make the necessary changes? How adaptable is your current business model?  Does the current organizational design still make sense?  These are just a few of the many questions that need answered to strategize about the future of your organization. 

Adaptability

The SOP’s followed in February may not “fit” today and, likewise, initiatives put into place today may not be effective after the next six months.  If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that we need to be flexible, ready to adapt to circumstances that may unexpectedly arise. 

Adaptability makes a great argument for taking your leaders through a mid-COVID SWOT analysis process.  By identifying the external opportunities and threats that impact your organization, you can minimize potential damage and maximize potential gain.  Contingency plans for circumstances, events, and conditions that are not under our control are the best way to safeguard your organization from harm.   How would you benefit by certain external circumstances?  What must be in place internally to take advantage of an opportunity presented to you by an external event? 

Change and innovation are the steppingstones to improved outcomes.  Although, it’s not an easy path to travel down, the destination justifies the journey.

The Time To Flourish team offers strategic planning facilitation services which allows your team to focus on contribution and content while our team leads a process rich with innovation and adaptability. Call us to discuss the advantages to our Strategic Planning service.

Marketing Tips for Retail + Restaurants: Re-Opening During the Pandemic

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If your business falls into the category of a high-traffic workplace, such as retail or restaurants, you have already reworked your model to adapt to the new rules of the pandemic. Many restaurants and stores quickly adapted to online ordering and curbside pickup.

Now that you can re-open, some are struggling with ways to entice your customers back to your business.

Here are a few tips:

  1. Spread the Word. Just like when you closed your doors and created new rules, it’s time to revisit those same marketing tools to get the word out, yet again. Pinterest, Houzz, Facebook, and LinkedIn are places where you can spread the word that you are open for business. Pinterest tells the story in pictures. Houzz is also visual, but focused on the home.
  • Facebook Boosts are also another effective way to reach out to your clients and prospects. If you don’t yet have a company Facebook page, now’s a great time to get one – start making connections and telling your story. Facebook boosts offer an affordable way to advertise; try out a campaign for $10 a day for 10 days and track your results.
  • Use the tools you already have. Change your company voicemail message with an updated one. Post signs or banners on your retail store or restaurant that tells your new way of doing business. Call and text your customers. Add a message to your website about your new rules.
  • Get Clear. After being shut-in for the past few months, there’s a variety of opinions from the public on their level of comfort on returning to ‘normal life.’ Let customers know what to expect: tell them about the ‘new rules’ at your business: social distancing, wearing a mask, washing hands, temperature taking – share what you are doing to keep customers and employees safe. Places to share it are on your website, social media, e-blasts. Not everyone likes to read, so creating a video can be helpful too. People prefer different tactics to get their info, so you may need to share this info in a variety of ways.
  • Don’t Give Up. Some customers may take longer to return to your place of business due to their personal circumstances. Continue to stay in touch with e-mail, text, phone, e-blasts. Give them online ordering options, curbside pickup, early shopping hours.

You can do it. Make the change and build a better company.

Authored by Guest Blogger Nancy Sipera.

Nancy Sipera is the president of First Impressions Marketing, a full-service, award-winning marketing firm in Cherry Hill, N.J. that works with business owners and leaders who understand the impact that marketing can have on their bottom line. Visit First Impressions Marketing online at www.MakeFirstImpressions.com

Is it Time to Re-invent your Organization?

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Times are always changing.  Lately, it feels like that is true in a way that no-one would have ever expected.  So much has happened and so much has changed during the first quarter of 2020 that it is only prudent to take dedicated time to truly assess where your organization stands today.  I’m fairly certain that the last time any organization did their SWOT analysis or updated their Strategic Plan, that a pandemic wasn’t something accounted for in the process.  That being said, it’s time to do just that!

What has this pandemic done to your organization’s financial stability?   Has it put your organization in hyper-growth and over-drive mode or are you concerned about making the next payroll?   How has this changed your current target audience and how will it change your target audience moving forward?   Will you need to change or modify services, programming, goods or products?  Does the organization have the right expertise in the current staff to make the changes necessary? How adaptable is your current business model?  Does the business now require a new organizational design?  These are just a few of the many questions that need answered as leaders plot out the futures of their organizations.

When I think of companies who have successfully re-positioned, re-branded or re-invented themselves the one that first comes to my mind is Netflix.  I can’t help but immediately compare the Netflix transformation to the lack of reinvention by Blockbuster.  The slowness of Blockbuster to react and respond to the changes around them ultimately destroyed a company that was once valued at almost $6 billion. Many other companies have successfully re-invented themselves including big names like Amazon, Legos, Barbie and National Geographic.  Innovation, calculated good decisions, and speed to implementing change are just a few of the necessary qualities in a transformation.

Historically it has always been critical that organizations remain acutely aware of potential external threats to their success.  It is one of the many reasons that a solid SWOT analysis is an important part of the strategic planning process.   Knowing the strengths of your organization and therefore your ability to mitigate threats is a key component to sustainable success.  

Whether you are concerned with meeting the newly increased customer demand this pandemic has created or you are concerned with your organization’s ability to meet existing lender covenant requirements; be sure to dedicate sufficient time and resources to making strategic decisions for the planning and forecasting of your organization’s future.

Time To Flourish Becomes Newest Certified Partner of The Predictive Index

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Time To Flourish Uses The Predictive Index to Help Clients Maximize Workforce Productivity

Time To Flourish is now a Certified Partner of The Predictive Index (PI). Time To Flourish will provide talent optimization services with PI’s science-based methodologies to empower clients to align their people strategy with their business strategy to achieve optimal business results.

Offering over 35 years of collective management experience, Sandi Rapp and Maria Veglia help businesses accurately define the true competencies needed for specific positions. With data from PI, the Time To Flourish team can help businesses greatly improve their success in hiring top talent, designing winning teams, managing change, influencing productivity, and ultimately driving growth to achieve their business objectives.

Time To Flourish is a women-owned business offering consulting and performance improvement services. We partner with our clients to develop significant and lasting solutions to impact financial performance, employee retention and engagement. These custom solutions are developed in partnership with our clients and are based on an extensive, multi-faceted assessment. Schedule an appointment to learn more here.

About The Predictive Index

The Predictive Index (PI) is an award-winning talent optimization platform that aligns business strategy with people strategy for optimal business results. Sixty years of proven science, software, and a robust curriculum of insightful management workshops make PI the solution for any company looking to design great teams and culture, make objective hiring decisions, and inspire greatness in their people anywhere in the world. More than 8,000 clients and 150+ partners use PI—including Nissan, Citizens Bank, DocuSign, Subway, 47 Brand, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Omni Hotels—across 140+ countries. Learn more at https://www.predictiveindex.com/.

Time To Flourish will work with clients to uncover the root cause of business challenges and to implement the data-driven tools provided by The Predictive Index to boost employee engagement, workplace culture and financial performance.

To learn more about our services, email us at Contact@TimeToFlourish.net .

Mission Driven – To Be or Not To Be

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Is your organization mission-driven?   As a board member, owner, investor or senior executive did you make an active decision to be or not to be mission-driven?  Or is this a topic that requires further thought and attention?

 

Historically, many of us associated being mission-driven with non-profit organizations.  Today, more and more for-profit organizations are becoming increasingly mission-driven. I would personally argue that most organizations should be mission-driven.

 

For purposes of this discussion let’s make a few assumptions:

Assumption #1:  your organization offers a quality product or service

Assumption #2:  your product/service is either in-demand or has an appropriately sized target audience.

Assumption #3:  employees need to earn a fair paycheck.

 

With a quality product or service and a defined target audience, success for a great organization is largely dependent on the recruitment and retainment of great employees.  With the low unemployment rates and high competition for top talent, recruiting has become a greater and greater challenge at most organizations.  The cost of recruiting coupled with the expense of employee turnover is great motivation to assess and evaluate your culture.

 

Organizations who promote their mission and keep employees invested in the mission have higher levels of employee engagement. Employee engagement is a requirement for a positive and healthy work culture, and imperative for high employee productivity.  According to the most recent BLS survey, the average American employee will stay with their employer for 4.3 years.  Many surveys have pointed out that employees are happier and more satisfied in their jobs when they feel they have and serve a purpose.

 

Ask yourself, is my organization mission driven?  If the answer is no, why not?  To continue this conversation, please contact us at contact@timetoflourish.flywheelsites.com .

The Power of Good Communication

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There are several factors that contribute to creating a productive and satisfying workplace environment, however, none more important than good communication.  Effective communication is critical for success regardless of the size and structure of your organization.  Poor communication will result in lower productivity and employee morale and engagement which ultimately impacts financial performance.  Everyone will agree that good communication is key, however, the quality of communication is not always measured or considered.

Good communication typically mitigates conflict.  Poor communication fosters an environment of confusion and resentment.  When evaluating and establishing your communication strategy, include measures to avoid misunderstanding, consider communication patterns and preferences and address the emotional needs of your team.

It’s important to assess whether your message is being understood as intended.  Communication isn’t simply sharing information but measuring how the information is received.  If the message is received differently than it’s intended, confusion on the part of the receiver may lead to resentment.  I have witnessed the devastating effects of poor communication, particularly when the communication avenue is only one-way.  Therefore, an effective delivery must include a feedback loop; a means to determine if the communication was received, understood and supported.  Two-way communication is always the goal when establishing an effective system of sharing information.

The vehicle of communication is also crucial.  A multi-generational workforce makes this more complex and requires that you consider various options of how to share information. Communication methods must be effective with your entire workforce which is most likely comprised of Baby Boomers, Generation-Xers and Millennials. Is your organization relying on email to distribute information?   Are you utilizing social media and technology as part of your strategy?  Are you ensuring that your communication strategy includes face-to-face interaction?  A multi-faceted approach will ensure that you are meeting your team at the point where your message will be best received and may include regular “Team Huddles”, an intranet providing policies and procedures plus company news and events, and regular but concise emails.

Ongoing assessment and feedback methods are a key strategy for organizations determined to establish a workplace environment rich with productive communication.  Employee surveys are a great way to assess your team’s perspective.  Surveys should be conducted at regular intervals and responded to in a timely manner.  Analyzing utilization of the company intranet will provide valuable feedback on its effectiveness.  Another great way to assess the quality of communication is to create ways for the team to echo the message back to management.  For example, when introducing a new policy, ask your team to respond with how this new policy will impact their roles and their productivity.

The power of good communication in your organization is significant and will result in improved employee engagement, higher productivity and an increased sense of their value within the company.  Establishing an effective communication strategy is complex but will greatly improve performance and outcomes.

 

Are You Stuck Fighting Fires?

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Have you ever been involved in an organization and it felt like all you did all day was fight fires?  A constant state of chaos with reaction after reaction.  If you asked someone why a project wasn’t progressing in a timely fashion, they answered that there was never enough time because they were too busy handling x, y and z.   How come everyone can make time to fight a fire but no one can make time to do the things that actually prevent the fire from happening in the first place?  How does an organization become so riddled with problem after problem? Fire after fire.  Bad luck after bad luck.  Can a problem so complex have a simple answer?  Yes!  Yes, there is an answer as to why your organization is always in fire-fighter mode.  Culture!   Culture is the simple answer.  Although it might be one simple word, having a healthy, positive and productive culture is complex and hard work.  Without a wholistic and mindful approach to creating, recreating and maintaining workplace culture, firefighting itself can become the culture of an organization.  When the leadership team applies the same time and effort to strategic planning as they would have to fire-fighting, the fires can finally start to suffocate.

Several years ago I took over as CEO for a company.  The majority owner was an equity firm and they were very candid that the company was in dire straits and potentially not able to be turned around.  They were not exaggerating!  The organization had significant compliance and regulatory problems, legal problems, outcomes problems, product development issues, branding and reputation issues, and sales issues.  The root cause of why they had all these issues was embedded in their culture.  The organization was a product of several mergers and acquisitions.  As the organization was in growth mode, no attention or strategy was put into how to mindfully merge the varying work cultures.  The organization lacked a shared mission and vision.  Nepotism became status quo in the organization.  Few policies and procedures existed and the ones that did were created in vacuums without input or buy-in from the actual experts (the employees).  There was no avenue for sharing best practices or resources.   The workplace culture was one that rewarded the “heroes” for all their hard work putting out the fire, but no consequences or regards for how the fire started in the first place.  Thoughtfulness, strategy, research, benchmarking, KPIs, data analysis were not activities that were positively re-enforced or recognized.  Pats on the back were only given out for putting out a fire.  Culture reinforces behavior.  Step back, put on a pair of someone else’s glass and look carefully.  What behaviors is your culture reinforcing?

A healthy and positive work culture is the difference maker between companies who flourish and companies who eventually fail.  Growth is an exciting stage for a company.  Many companies achieve short term success in spite of themselves.  Fast growth coupled with strong financial success can mask the smoke that is just under the surface.  But eventually that smoke will spark and become a fire.  Sustainable growth requires a wholistic and mindful strategic plan.  You can’t have a wholistic and mindful strategic plan if it doesn’t include your greatest asset (your employees!).

When you are ready to stop fighting fires and lead your organization to greater successes, contact Time To Flourish.  To continue this conversation, please visit us at www.timetoflourish.net

The Keys to Effective Strategic Planning

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Having a clear strategic plan is a critical part of keeping your organization on the path to success.  However, the most important part of any plan is the execution.  As a manager, it’s understandable that the chaotic events of the day get in the way and push you off the path carved out by your strategic plan. It’s not the intention, but often it’s the reality.   Frequently, the strategic plan is created in a silo without consideration of daily challenges and dependencies between departments.  How do we prevent this and ensure that the strategic plan is woven into the fabric of the business?  Here are a few recommendations.

The key factors to creating an effective plan that will drive the direction of performance throughout the organization include the following steps:

  1. It’s a team effort!  If you can devise a method to solicit input from all levels of employees, the plan will be owned by everyone and there will be a greater and shared determination to see it succeed.  Including input from your employees provides a more realistic view of the probability of execution.
  2. Begin with a SWOT! The first step to creating a plan that will guide the direction of your business is to first identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of your business.
  3. Start with the what’s happening now! Assess the current year’s progress as compared with the current plan and identify factors that are affecting hitting or missing strategic goals.  Use this information to ensure that your new year’s strategic initiatives are realistic and achievable.
  4. Look at it regularly! Schedule monthly meetings to review and analyze organizational achievement as compared with the strategic plan.  Make adjustments throughout the year to overcome areas that are failing to meet expectations.
  5. Make it a regular part of the conversation! Communicate progress with all members of your team and keep everyone engaged in the execution of their specific goals as well as the overall plan.
  6. Get help! Particularly if this is a new initiative for your team, a consultant or coach can help to guide the process and provide an objective prospective.  Utilize external guidance to ensure that the process adds value and is conducted efficiently.
  7. EXECUTE!! “Execution is the game.” –  Gary Vaynerchuck

A strategic plan based on past performance and an in-depth analysis of internal and external factors is the first, crucial step to setting your business on a successful path.  If your organization is trending in a positive direction, a strategic plan and maintain that trajectory.  If your organization is failing to perform at the expected level, a strategic plan can organize and focus efforts in the direction needed to achieve the necessary performance improvements.

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” – Ben Franklin