Dec 13 2011

Becoming Universally Attractive

Randy Joy @ 11:00 am

 

Cheers, the hit TV program when I was growing up, made a memorable statement in its opening song that remains in my memory for its truth.  “You want to go where everyone knows your name.”    It’s true, even today.

Employees want to work for companies where they are respected as people and where their individual purpose, principles and talents are nurtured.  Here’s how to make your company environment one in which people want to be:

1. Seek and respect everyone’s opinion.

2. Provide and encourage growth opportunities.

3. Align your company’s values with how you attract employees, customers, vendors and how you make company decisions.  And live by it.  Values are only as powerful as how often they are acted upon.

4. Create a company environment that blossoms and transforms.  Joy, peace and positive energies are contagious.  Create the environment where those feelings come through.

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Category: Joyful Business Model,Optimizing Operations

Dec 12 2011

3 Ways to Energize Your Company This Year

Randy Joy @ 10:00 am

 

Revitalization:  that’s the word used by my real estate clients regarding their work in various cities.  That’s also the word used by my medical practitioner clients when speaking of bringing vitality and energy back to life.  In your company, how do you revitalize yourself, your team and your vision?

Commit to bringing verve and energy to your company.  Here is the recipe for revitalizing business:

1. Revisit your mission and vision.  Take out your old business plan, dust it off, and edit it to bring it more up-to-date with new goals and growth plans.

2. Attract new clients.  Think of a new client base, as well as new marketing slants.

3. Think up a bonus system to get employees enthusiastic about growing the company.

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Category: Leadership,Strategic Planning

Dec 01 2011

Your Business Future

Randy Joy @ 10:00 am

 

It took Ray Croc, founder of McDonalds, many years and many businesses to find a way to make his billions of dollars eventually, at age 52, through selling hamburgers.  He failed numerous times before.  However, his secret to success was that he kept picking himself up and trying again.  Don’t let the past determine your future.

I have made many mistakes too.  Yet, with persistence and determination I pick myself up. This New Year commit to a one hundred percent commitment to reach your vision and persist no matter what.

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Category: Leadership

Jun 16 2011

How to Build a Strong Business Structure

Randy Joy @ 11:00 am

 

The skeleton of the body and that of a business shares the same function.  It holds everything together.  The why/purpose drives the structure and the sturdiness or glue holds all parts.

When you are building your strong company structure, remember it will have to be the structure holding everything up.

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Category: Optimizing Operations

Jun 15 2011

Your Clock is Ticking

Randy Joy @ 11:00 am

 

As the timer counts down the last few moments…don’t wait until the end.  Start every speech, moment, and action with purpose, focus and determination.

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Category: Business,Leadership

Dec 29 2010

Being Human

Randy Joy @ 3:00 am

Humans, by nature, are naturally active and social.  Think of the movie where Tom Hanks is isolated on a deserted island for many years and goes crazy, to the point where he creates another being out of a ball, just to have a social outlet.  Think of the Muttnik principle, named after a dog that interacted with the depressed researcher, sparking the discovery that social interaction, even with a dog, leads to a happier person.

Remember this when you ask your employees to stay late or come in early to sit in their chair and get through their workload.  How do you motivate them, when it is against their nature to be inactive and unsocial?  Can you make their work have aspects of a more active and social experience — while still maintaining total focus on the task at hand?

I myself enjoy walking.  In the spring and summer months, while coaching, sometimes clients and I work together as we walk through Central Park.  

How can activity and social actions be harnessed to make you and your employees work smarter in the New Year?

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Category: Joyful Business Model

Nov 09 2010

Only One Winner?

Randy Joy @ 11:00 am

 

Greek culture gave us the idea of competition, thereby setting up the concept of only one winner.  Think Olympics.  Many folks train for hours and put in grueling days of hard work.  Yet, if they don’t win a medal, they are not a winner.  Or that is how society views them.  There are only a few winners.  Never mind that the swimmer who trailed behind Phelps swims better than millions of other humans.  We’ve set up a system where only one can win.

How many TV shows are based on that, cutting people out, so that only one can win.  Dancing with the Stars, Top Chef, Bachelor — our society embraces cutting out most folks and putting only one perfect model at the acme.

While the quest to be a winner can be a motivating force, it is not that great in business context.  For to not win the gold means that it doesn’t pay even to try.  That is why it is so important for business leaders to remember to reward effort, not just results.  We must look at mountain climbers who work together as a team to scale successfully, rather than at competitions that cut out folks.  Building a business needs the cooperation of all our workforce, not just one “model” employee. 

In college I had an English writing professor who at the beginning of the year let all of his students know he would be grading us on our writing improvement and not on out writing abilities and talent.  Back then writing was not my natural talent.  My writing improved throughout the semester all the way to getting A papers.  To my surprise, when the final grades came in, the professor did not give me the A he had given me towards the end of the semester.  

I approached the professor and asked him why I didn’t get the A, since I had obviously improved tremendously.  He tersely told me “there are more talented writers.”  Yes, I knew that.  Ernest Hemingway I was not.  But here I had been misled to believe that my progression was to be marked, not my literary talent.  This professor was not true to his word of grading.  In the end, it is a good thing I did not know that the claim of grading our improvement was false, because the belief that my effort would be rewarded gave me the incentive to hone my writing abilities.

Now imagine what your employees would be honing, if they only knew you would reward their efforts, not just their sucesses.

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Category: Leadership

Sep 01 2010

Memories

Randy Joy @ 9:00 am

 

You know how that old time song went, “we did it before, and we can do it again…”. 

As a business leader you are the keeper of great memories, tale bearer of past triumphs of your employees.  Let negativity, complaints and flops pass (learn from them, but don’t nurture their memory).  Hold tight to all positive memories. 

Keeping a list of the top 10 praiseworthy interactions and outstanding work performed helps me continually encourage and promote positive feelings and morale.

By continuously encouraging your team based on the top praiseworthy memories you will motivate them to go even further.  And remind them that “they’ve done it before and they can do it again…”

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Category: Leadership

Aug 13 2010

Pain Can Lead to Good

Randy Joy @ 12:00 pm

 

In American society we are told to medicate pain, numb the senses,  ease a tense day with TV, shield us from boredom with video games, numb us from seeing someone else’s sadness by looking away.  This desensitization also stops us from growing.

Growth comes from pain.  The old saying is that a child is having growing pains as their legs stretch reminds us where the term comes from.   In business the pain could be spending a lot of your time on one uncooperative employee or one miscommunication with a customer.

I encourage you instead of taking a numbing pill or firing employees, next time take a moment to truly feel the pain.  Become aware of how it feels and what the main root cause of it is.  And then start to fix the problem slowly with a long term view to never let the pain happen again.

A quick fix solution is just that it stops the pain now.   I encourage my clients to do the hard work to ensure the pain does not return.

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Category: Clarifying the Vision,Leadership

Jul 28 2010

Let’s Get Focused

Randy Joy @ 9:30 am

 

Here is what a focused day looks like: 

1.       You arrive at the office and greet your staff.  

(Nothing like a good hello to jump start a week — it even beats caffeine.)

2.       Take care of any pressing customer issues.

(Satisfy your customers, you’ll end up satisfying yourself.)

3.       Make sure any scheduled appointments for the week are confirmed.

(It shows professionalism to maintain commitments and appointments.)

4.       Review your “To Do” list.  Begin working on all the Important and Urgent Items per the amount of time you slotted for each task.

(Remember to move from task to task and not get stuck on only one.)

5.       At lunch time, stop, grab a bite and converse with your employees.

(Stoke your metabolism…as well as stoke an ego or two, if you can.)

6.       Finish off any of the pressing urgent and important items – whatever is left, delegate to the appropriate staff member.

(No, you don’t have to do everything on your own.)

7.       Review the rest of the items on your list - cross off those that you can that will take about 15 minutes or less by just doing them right here and now.  Then alot yourself one hour at the end of the day to complete.

(Like clutter, to-do lists can be tackled one small mound at a time.)

8.       Review and compile a  “To Do” list for tomorrow, and make sure you estimate the amount of time it will take for each item.

(Planning makes perfect.)

9.     In the last hour, finish up those items you had slated to finish today. 

(Don’t let things pile up from day to day, if you can help it.)

10.     Shut down your computer and leave your office,  knowing exactly what needs to get done tomorrow. 

(and don’t forget to say good night to all those who worked with you today.)

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Category: Clarifying the Vision,Strategic Planning
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