The staggering cost of employee turnover goes largely unrecognized. There is no financial statement line item, no general ledger entry, and no budget explicitly set aside for this expense that can cost evenly modestly sized companies well over a million dollars each year. Yet a significant portion of voluntary attrition is directly related to an abusive work environment created, in part, by excessive business politics. Thus, reduced workplace politics can directly improve the organization’s bottom line.
A company of 250 employees making an average of $43,000 per year experiencing a 20 percent attrition rate spends an estimated $2.15M on employee replacements annually.
Cost of Employee Attrition
The American Management Association estimates the cost of employee turnover as ranging from between 25 percent (for entry level employees) and 250 percent (for executive level employees) of the employees annual salary.1 These costs are derived from a multitude of sources including:
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Ah, the joy of youth. Carefree and without worry – until we pursue our first real job. Then the anxiety about our age rears its ugly head for the first time. “Will clients have trouble responding to me because of my age? Will co-workers think my age makes me less qualified for the position I hold? If only I were a little older…” Although it seems hard to fathom, these sentiments were quite real when we were beginning our work lives.
Then, some years passed. One day, we woke up no longer concerned about how young we are, but how old we are. For many who are struggling professionally, age can become an obsession. As you walk into an important interview, you may find yourself thinking, “I just know they are going to want someone younger than me!” The irony is, if the person you’re meeting with wasn’t concerned about your age or any self-perceived flaw before, they are now. These imperfections are what I refer to as “a limp.” However, consider this:
“We all walk with a limp.”
There are a handful of biblical references to this phrase, but I’d like to provide my take on these six simple words. We all have our weaknesses, or some form of a limp. It’s what makes us human. Oddly enough, I have difficulty trusting anyone who appears not to have a limp. Maybe it’s because I believe that having a limp, and our ability to adjust to it, is what makes us extraordinary. Anyone without a limp is either an imposter or possesses no compassion for those who do have limps.
Your limp can be any physical or physiological imperfection you’d like to list. Sadly, we often let these limps hold us back. Notice I said, “We.” We are the ones who walk in the room troubled by what we view as a limp. We are the ones who convince ourselves that these limps are a problem for others, so we are the ones that make others concerned about them. But it just doesn’t have to be this way!
The Story of Jake
Let me tell you a story: We had a beautiful black Labrador retriever who was one of the greatest dogs I’ve ever owned. My boy Jake was a beauty. One day, we found Jake sitting by the door unable to move his back legs. He had mysteriously become paralyzed. The vet diagnosed a back injury, and he operated on Jake and did the best he could. After six months of rehab, my boy Jake could walk again. Oh, he didn’t quite walk the way his other friends did, but he had his own way of slowly getting up and swinging one leg behind the other. He even learned to run. Sure, he didn’t run like his other friends did, but he had figured out how to get up to speed, running with his front legs while he hopped with his back legs.
Sometimes when we had friends over, they would notice Jake and ask in a concerned tone, “Is your dog okay?” We’d smile and say, “He sure is.” You see, Jake walked with a limp, but he really didn’t care. The other dogs in the neighborhood didn’t care, and neither did we. Jake went on to live another ten years with his wonderful limp.
What’s Not Important to You… Becomes Less Important to Others
We all walk with a limp. It’s time to stop worrying about what the other person on the other side of the desk thinks about yours. One thing I can absolutely guarantee you: If it’s not important to you – and you reach peace with having a limp – it will dramatically decrease the impact your limp has on others. Too young, too old, too short, too tall, underqualified, overqualified, introverted, extroverted, physically or mentally challenged; it just doesn’t matter.
The people you are communicating with walk with their own limps. At the end of the day, they aren’t thinking about your limp, but they are concerned about your ability to live with it. Success requires humility, which is born from vulnerability. Walk tall, my friends, and make that limp part of the unique strengths you proudly offer the world.
About the Author
Rob Jolles is a sought-after speaker who teaches, entertains, and inspires audiences worldwide. His live programs in and around the world have enabled him to amass a client list of Fortune 500 companies including Toyota, Disney, GE, a dozen universities, and over 50 financial institutions. He is the best-selling author of six books, including his latest release, Why People Don’t Believe You… Building Credibility from the Inside Out. To learn more, visit Jolles.com.
Originally published by http://www.youngupstarts.com/2018/11/22/worried-about-your-flaws-turn-your-imperfections-into-unique-strengths/
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/WhyPeopleDontBelieveYou.jpg25501650StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2018-11-27 08:00:172018-11-27 00:32:35Worried About Your Flaws? Turn Your Imperfections Into Unique Strengths
For the connoisseur of Agile project management, Scrum is undoubtedly shown up on your “To Do” list. First formulated as an Agile strategy to assist software development teams in pursuit of sustainable project initiatives, the method has since found roots in a number of cross-industry projects.
Now, for those relatively new to Agile, Scrum can be thought of as an empirically-oriented strategy of project management, delivering the highest-valued outcomes with a focus on fluid adaptation. It’s footprint is small; Scrum teams strive to reduce waste by organizing work in short bursts, typically two weeks in length. The method loves focus, commitment and introspection to influence adaptation.
To best pursue Scrum, a team has to use retrospectives. Retrospectives are a vital instrument that triggers actions and serves as the ideal launchpad to changing team behavior. Any team identifying Scrum as a strategy would be wise to consider how powerful retrospectives can change the face of their product outcomes with a self-aware and dynamic approach to project management.
So… what exactly is a retrospective?
For your Scrum team, a retrospective is conducted at the conclusion of an iteration. An iterations is a short project schedule, typically ranging between one and four weeks in length, with two weeks being ideal. Keeping iterations as short as possible is key to Scrum’s success; it’s all about avoiding dragging out poor performance strategies, which means minimizing the time they’re in use.
At the conclusion of these iteration cycles, teams are tasked with reflecting on observations during this time period. Specifically, teams are faced with a combination of hard data and anecdotes and asked to consider how well everyone worked together and what problems influenced their team and individual performance.
How do you hold an Agile retrospective?
The environment for the retrospective needs to feel like a safe, open discussion forum; it simply won’t work if team members don’t feel that there’s space to share what amounts to criticism. When looking to introduce the retrospective into your Agile/Scrum team, consider the five step method for conducting a retrospective:
1. Preparing Your Audience
2. Examining Team Data
3. Generate Powerful Insights
4. Create Workable Strategies
5. Work The Closer
Let’s delve further into each of these retrospective steps.
Preparing Your Audience
The retrospective meeting doesn’t have to take off at high speeds. Let your team warm up before diving into the substance of the meeting.
Throw out a question for the team and ask for a think/pair/share scheme; it’s a classic discussion method used by school teachers. Let your coworkers come up with their own answer to the question, which might be something like, “What’s one moment from this past iteration that sticks out as a true ‘lightbulb’ moment?”
They’ll then share with a partner, discuss together and bring to the bigger group. It’s a great way to gauge the room, gather further thoughts and navigate the direction of the retrospective.
Examining Team Data
There are a myriad of ways to structure a retrospective on data and produce hyper-efficient results, and there really isn’t any single perfect approach. With that said, let’s think about some general ways that can serve as launch points for obtaining data.
A common method to think about is the sailboat method. Think of it like this: the wind that pushes the boat ahead represents items in the data that assist the team in performing well. Anchors are pulling the team down, keeping them from forging onward in their pursuit. Organizing data into these columns, wind and anchors, will help the team think visually about what metrics can be pinpointed as an absolute success and what needs improvement.
Retrospectives also don’t have to be too quantitative in terms of the data points, or even discussing about areas of improvement. Consider a method called “Success Criteria”. This strategy centers around clearing up what the intentions are as a unit and targeting outcomes and results for success. You plan for the success of a goal, but you also try to prep by thinking ahead about what total and complete failure could look like. You list out your intentions in precise terms and what the target is for a project, and by considering the worst-case scenario, you’re able to minimize being caught off guard.
Generate Powerful Insights
After you’ve assembled your data, it’s time for the main event: the discussion. Get ready to bundle up problems, ideas and opportunities in a way where actionable measures can be taken.
An Affinity Map is a key Scrum retrospective technique for insights. Take one post-it with an idea and put it in a group; grab a second and decide if it belongs in the same group. Once the groups are formed, attach names to the groups and decide which post-its are most important, taking note of how big the clusters are and the overall themes of the notes.
Create Workable Strategies
In this final step, you’ll think get to move forward with actionables. Use the method of “Start, Stop and Continue” originally brought forward by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen.
Draw three sections (Start, Stop, and Continue), and place clusters from the Affinity Map in these headers. Give each person a dot to vote on most crucial items, and pick the ones with the most votes to make an actionable decision on. Reflect on feasibility and consider the short and long-term.
Work The Closer
It’s the end of the line! Closings can be underestimated and skipped over, but don’t fall for that. There are a ton of ways to close the meeting out that are forward-looking and positive, from sharing final reflections to ending on a powerful quote gathered during the retrospective itself.
Use the closer as an opportunity to garner self-reflective feedback. It’s a bit meta, but that’s the power of Agile and Scrum. It cuts through to serve as a focal point by which we can address all matters of progress within a forward-thinking environment.
About the Author
As chief evangelist, Lean-Agile strategy at Planview and former co-founder of LeanKit, Jon Terry helps enterprises around the globe discover how to increase effectiveness, optimize processes, and deliver value faster with Lean-Agile principles. Jon actively seeks to raise awareness of the benefits of Kanban and visual project management and is a highly sought-after presenter within the Lean-Agile community. In addition, Jon has been a leader in Agile transformations for some of the largest organizations in North America, including hospital-giant HCA Healthcare and its subsidiary, HealthTrust Purchasing Group. Jon earned his Global Executive MBA from Georgetown University and ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/ScrumBasedContinuousLearning.jpg8001200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2018-11-26 20:00:482018-11-26 23:04:08How to Facilitate Retrospectives in Scrum-based Continuous Learning
When you want to run your business well, there are always going to be certain things that you will want to work on. Because we all know that if you’re wasting money or time, and you’re starting to struggle, it could just be a downwards slope from there. So, instead, you need to make sure that you’re working closer and closer to finding your success every single day. And that means that you need to take steps in the right direction. Towards efficiency and productivity. To knowledge and growth. To customer satisfaction and more sales. And in order to do that, you may find that it helps you to turn to experts. Sure, you might be an expert in something in particular. But it’s safe to say that you just cannot be an expert at everything. So let’s take a look at how you can harness other expertise to best benefit your business.
1. Get A Mentor
So first of all, you might like to think about getting yourself a mentor. Someone that you trust. Someone that has the experience and expertise that you admire. Someone that can guide you, but also hold you accountable. You may find that getting a mentor, alone, is the one thing that really pushes you forward.
2. Outsource To Experts
Another great idea is to try and outsource the areas of business you can, to experts too. If you know that you’re not an expert web designer or accountant, then why struggle to do these things yourself? When you outsource then, your business benefits from the expertise of the people and companies you hire.
3. Turn To The Best Companies
But then also, you’re going to want to make sure that you are looking out for the best possible companies when it comes to the work that you’re doing. If you need a supplier, if you need to repair your compressor, if you need to buy new equipment, always go to the best. It’s so easy to try to go by price, but this may mean that you don’t get the expertise!
4. Invite Experts In
Now, this one can sound a little strange, but the idea here is for you to invite certain experts into your business so that they are able to share their knowledge and thoughts with your employees. You all know that you need to work on your staff training and push your employees to help them progress, and bringing in experts to talk can help you with that. So see if you can book speaking and training gigs for the benefit of your company’s future.
5. Collaborate With Other Businesses
But then also, you can look to team up with other companies to really harness expertise too. Maybe you want to be able to push a promotion and harness a wider audience than what you already have? Then collaborating with other businesses can really help you here. But also, you can learn from what they do, and what they know, so this is only ever going to benefit your business and your future growth.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/BusinessExperts.jpg8001200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2018-11-26 16:00:222018-11-26 22:48:52How To Harness Experts In Your Business
You’re not going to build a successful business all on your own. You’ll need a whole range of other people if you’re going to make your company profitable in the long-term, including your staff, family, and business relationships. While the first two will be in your control – at least to a larger extent – your business relationships will be a bit more difficult to manage. And it’s easy to see why: they have their own interests to look after. However, because they’re so important, it’s imperative that you take proactive steps if your business arrangements aren’t working as efficiently as they once did. Below, we take a look at a few useful steps you’ll want to consider taking to get them back on track.
Leeway
Nothing black and white, especially the world of business. As such, it’s not wise to adopt an “all or nothing” approach to your business relationships. If you’ve spent years building your relationships, then you can’t throw it away the second things hit a rough patch. If they’ve otherwise been dependable, you don’t need to take drastic action the second that the quality dips. It might be because of reasons that are beyond their control.
Talk it Through
The best approach, therefore, is to talk it out. There’s little use in talking angrily in your office about the other business. Pick up and call them. They might have an excellent reason why they’ve not been in touch/been unable to meet their end of the agreement. As a matter of routine, you should be talking as much as possible anyway. Little wrong can come from talking too much, but a lot of damage can result in not talking at all. If nothing else, it helps keep confusion and other misunderstandings at bay.
Limit the Damage
There might be a situation where your partners aren’t able to provide the level of service that they can usually provide, but you don’t want to drop them entirely. If this happens, it’s at least important that you limit the damage that the partnership can bring. For instance, you might temporarily stop working with them until they’re in a stronger position. It’s all about making sure that your business doesn’t suffer because of another company’s actions.
The Legal Route
While you’d like to think that the business relationships you have wouldn’t cause you any harm, sometimes they do; sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it’s not. Whatever transpires, it’s imperative that you don’t let their actions bring your business down. If you’re in the middle of a dispute with another business, look at working with a firm that offers business litigation services, such as Weisblatt Law Firm. These issues can be very complicated, and sometimes litigation is the only way to resolve the issue.
Conclusion
Managed properly, your business relationships will help to take your company to the next level, but they do require ongoing management to ensure they have a positive impact on your business. If not, they could cause damage you could live without.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-photo-1498966.jpeg9161280StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2018-11-26 11:00:182018-11-26 22:20:46Have Your Business Relationships Stopped Working?
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Business Programs
Business Politics Impacts – Cost of Employee Attrition
/in Business Politics Impacts, Premium/by StrategyDrivenCost of Employee Attrition
The American Management Association estimates the cost of employee turnover as ranging from between 25 percent (for entry level employees) and 250 percent (for executive level employees) of the employees annual salary.1 These costs are derived from a multitude of sources including:
Hi there! Gain access to this article with a StrategyDriven Insights Library – Total Access subscription or buy access to the article itself.
Sign-up now for your StrategyDriven Insights Library – Total Access subscription for as low as $15 / month (paid annually).
Not sure? Click here to learn more.
Don’t need a subscription? Buy access to Business Politics Impacts – Cost of Employee Attrition and gain access to it and the accompanying tool for just $2!
Worried About Your Flaws? Turn Your Imperfections Into Unique Strengths
/in Practices for Professionals/by Rob JollesThen, some years passed. One day, we woke up no longer concerned about how young we are, but how old we are. For many who are struggling professionally, age can become an obsession. As you walk into an important interview, you may find yourself thinking, “I just know they are going to want someone younger than me!” The irony is, if the person you’re meeting with wasn’t concerned about your age or any self-perceived flaw before, they are now. These imperfections are what I refer to as “a limp.” However, consider this:
“We all walk with a limp.”
There are a handful of biblical references to this phrase, but I’d like to provide my take on these six simple words. We all have our weaknesses, or some form of a limp. It’s what makes us human. Oddly enough, I have difficulty trusting anyone who appears not to have a limp. Maybe it’s because I believe that having a limp, and our ability to adjust to it, is what makes us extraordinary. Anyone without a limp is either an imposter or possesses no compassion for those who do have limps.
Your limp can be any physical or physiological imperfection you’d like to list. Sadly, we often let these limps hold us back. Notice I said, “We.” We are the ones who walk in the room troubled by what we view as a limp. We are the ones who convince ourselves that these limps are a problem for others, so we are the ones that make others concerned about them. But it just doesn’t have to be this way!
The Story of Jake
Let me tell you a story: We had a beautiful black Labrador retriever who was one of the greatest dogs I’ve ever owned. My boy Jake was a beauty. One day, we found Jake sitting by the door unable to move his back legs. He had mysteriously become paralyzed. The vet diagnosed a back injury, and he operated on Jake and did the best he could. After six months of rehab, my boy Jake could walk again. Oh, he didn’t quite walk the way his other friends did, but he had his own way of slowly getting up and swinging one leg behind the other. He even learned to run. Sure, he didn’t run like his other friends did, but he had figured out how to get up to speed, running with his front legs while he hopped with his back legs.
Sometimes when we had friends over, they would notice Jake and ask in a concerned tone, “Is your dog okay?” We’d smile and say, “He sure is.” You see, Jake walked with a limp, but he really didn’t care. The other dogs in the neighborhood didn’t care, and neither did we. Jake went on to live another ten years with his wonderful limp.
What’s Not Important to You… Becomes Less Important to Others
We all walk with a limp. It’s time to stop worrying about what the other person on the other side of the desk thinks about yours. One thing I can absolutely guarantee you: If it’s not important to you – and you reach peace with having a limp – it will dramatically decrease the impact your limp has on others. Too young, too old, too short, too tall, underqualified, overqualified, introverted, extroverted, physically or mentally challenged; it just doesn’t matter.
The people you are communicating with walk with their own limps. At the end of the day, they aren’t thinking about your limp, but they are concerned about your ability to live with it. Success requires humility, which is born from vulnerability. Walk tall, my friends, and make that limp part of the unique strengths you proudly offer the world.
About the Author
Originally published by http://www.youngupstarts.com/2018/11/22/worried-about-your-flaws-turn-your-imperfections-into-unique-strengths/
How to Facilitate Retrospectives in Scrum-based Continuous Learning
/in Project Management/by Jon TerryNow, for those relatively new to Agile, Scrum can be thought of as an empirically-oriented strategy of project management, delivering the highest-valued outcomes with a focus on fluid adaptation. It’s footprint is small; Scrum teams strive to reduce waste by organizing work in short bursts, typically two weeks in length. The method loves focus, commitment and introspection to influence adaptation.
To best pursue Scrum, a team has to use retrospectives. Retrospectives are a vital instrument that triggers actions and serves as the ideal launchpad to changing team behavior. Any team identifying Scrum as a strategy would be wise to consider how powerful retrospectives can change the face of their product outcomes with a self-aware and dynamic approach to project management.
So… what exactly is a retrospective?
For your Scrum team, a retrospective is conducted at the conclusion of an iteration. An iterations is a short project schedule, typically ranging between one and four weeks in length, with two weeks being ideal. Keeping iterations as short as possible is key to Scrum’s success; it’s all about avoiding dragging out poor performance strategies, which means minimizing the time they’re in use.
At the conclusion of these iteration cycles, teams are tasked with reflecting on observations during this time period. Specifically, teams are faced with a combination of hard data and anecdotes and asked to consider how well everyone worked together and what problems influenced their team and individual performance.
How do you hold an Agile retrospective?
The environment for the retrospective needs to feel like a safe, open discussion forum; it simply won’t work if team members don’t feel that there’s space to share what amounts to criticism. When looking to introduce the retrospective into your Agile/Scrum team, consider the five step method for conducting a retrospective:
1. Preparing Your Audience
2. Examining Team Data
3. Generate Powerful Insights
4. Create Workable Strategies
5. Work The Closer
Let’s delve further into each of these retrospective steps.
Preparing Your Audience
The retrospective meeting doesn’t have to take off at high speeds. Let your team warm up before diving into the substance of the meeting.
Throw out a question for the team and ask for a think/pair/share scheme; it’s a classic discussion method used by school teachers. Let your coworkers come up with their own answer to the question, which might be something like, “What’s one moment from this past iteration that sticks out as a true ‘lightbulb’ moment?”
They’ll then share with a partner, discuss together and bring to the bigger group. It’s a great way to gauge the room, gather further thoughts and navigate the direction of the retrospective.
Examining Team Data
There are a myriad of ways to structure a retrospective on data and produce hyper-efficient results, and there really isn’t any single perfect approach. With that said, let’s think about some general ways that can serve as launch points for obtaining data.
A common method to think about is the sailboat method. Think of it like this: the wind that pushes the boat ahead represents items in the data that assist the team in performing well. Anchors are pulling the team down, keeping them from forging onward in their pursuit. Organizing data into these columns, wind and anchors, will help the team think visually about what metrics can be pinpointed as an absolute success and what needs improvement.
Retrospectives also don’t have to be too quantitative in terms of the data points, or even discussing about areas of improvement. Consider a method called “Success Criteria”. This strategy centers around clearing up what the intentions are as a unit and targeting outcomes and results for success. You plan for the success of a goal, but you also try to prep by thinking ahead about what total and complete failure could look like. You list out your intentions in precise terms and what the target is for a project, and by considering the worst-case scenario, you’re able to minimize being caught off guard.
Generate Powerful Insights
After you’ve assembled your data, it’s time for the main event: the discussion. Get ready to bundle up problems, ideas and opportunities in a way where actionable measures can be taken.
An Affinity Map is a key Scrum retrospective technique for insights. Take one post-it with an idea and put it in a group; grab a second and decide if it belongs in the same group. Once the groups are formed, attach names to the groups and decide which post-its are most important, taking note of how big the clusters are and the overall themes of the notes.
Create Workable Strategies
In this final step, you’ll think get to move forward with actionables. Use the method of “Start, Stop and Continue” originally brought forward by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen.
Draw three sections (Start, Stop, and Continue), and place clusters from the Affinity Map in these headers. Give each person a dot to vote on most crucial items, and pick the ones with the most votes to make an actionable decision on. Reflect on feasibility and consider the short and long-term.
Work The Closer
It’s the end of the line! Closings can be underestimated and skipped over, but don’t fall for that. There are a ton of ways to close the meeting out that are forward-looking and positive, from sharing final reflections to ending on a powerful quote gathered during the retrospective itself.
Use the closer as an opportunity to garner self-reflective feedback. It’s a bit meta, but that’s the power of Agile and Scrum. It cuts through to serve as a focal point by which we can address all matters of progress within a forward-thinking environment.
About the Author
Connect with Jon Terry – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonterry
How To Harness Experts In Your Business
/in Entrepreneurship/by StrategyDriven1. Get A Mentor
So first of all, you might like to think about getting yourself a mentor. Someone that you trust. Someone that has the experience and expertise that you admire. Someone that can guide you, but also hold you accountable. You may find that getting a mentor, alone, is the one thing that really pushes you forward.
2. Outsource To Experts
Another great idea is to try and outsource the areas of business you can, to experts too. If you know that you’re not an expert web designer or accountant, then why struggle to do these things yourself? When you outsource then, your business benefits from the expertise of the people and companies you hire.
3. Turn To The Best Companies
But then also, you’re going to want to make sure that you are looking out for the best possible companies when it comes to the work that you’re doing. If you need a supplier, if you need to repair your compressor, if you need to buy new equipment, always go to the best. It’s so easy to try to go by price, but this may mean that you don’t get the expertise!
4. Invite Experts In
Now, this one can sound a little strange, but the idea here is for you to invite certain experts into your business so that they are able to share their knowledge and thoughts with your employees. You all know that you need to work on your staff training and push your employees to help them progress, and bringing in experts to talk can help you with that. So see if you can book speaking and training gigs for the benefit of your company’s future.
5. Collaborate With Other Businesses
But then also, you can look to team up with other companies to really harness expertise too. Maybe you want to be able to push a promotion and harness a wider audience than what you already have? Then collaborating with other businesses can really help you here. But also, you can learn from what they do, and what they know, so this is only ever going to benefit your business and your future growth.
Have Your Business Relationships Stopped Working?
/in Marketing & Sales/by StrategyDrivenYou’re not going to build a successful business all on your own. You’ll need a whole range of other people if you’re going to make your company profitable in the long-term, including your staff, family, and business relationships. While the first two will be in your control – at least to a larger extent – your business relationships will be a bit more difficult to manage. And it’s easy to see why: they have their own interests to look after. However, because they’re so important, it’s imperative that you take proactive steps if your business arrangements aren’t working as efficiently as they once did. Below, we take a look at a few useful steps you’ll want to consider taking to get them back on track.
Leeway
Nothing black and white, especially the world of business. As such, it’s not wise to adopt an “all or nothing” approach to your business relationships. If you’ve spent years building your relationships, then you can’t throw it away the second things hit a rough patch. If they’ve otherwise been dependable, you don’t need to take drastic action the second that the quality dips. It might be because of reasons that are beyond their control.
Talk it Through
The best approach, therefore, is to talk it out. There’s little use in talking angrily in your office about the other business. Pick up and call them. They might have an excellent reason why they’ve not been in touch/been unable to meet their end of the agreement. As a matter of routine, you should be talking as much as possible anyway. Little wrong can come from talking too much, but a lot of damage can result in not talking at all. If nothing else, it helps keep confusion and other misunderstandings at bay.
Limit the Damage
There might be a situation where your partners aren’t able to provide the level of service that they can usually provide, but you don’t want to drop them entirely. If this happens, it’s at least important that you limit the damage that the partnership can bring. For instance, you might temporarily stop working with them until they’re in a stronger position. It’s all about making sure that your business doesn’t suffer because of another company’s actions.
The Legal Route
While you’d like to think that the business relationships you have wouldn’t cause you any harm, sometimes they do; sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it’s not. Whatever transpires, it’s imperative that you don’t let their actions bring your business down. If you’re in the middle of a dispute with another business, look at working with a firm that offers business litigation services, such as Weisblatt Law Firm. These issues can be very complicated, and sometimes litigation is the only way to resolve the issue.
Conclusion
Managed properly, your business relationships will help to take your company to the next level, but they do require ongoing management to ensure they have a positive impact on your business. If not, they could cause damage you could live without.