Thank Goodness It's Monday #301

SIX FORWARD-LOOKING WAYS

TO SPRING FORWARD

Spring has sprung. Yes, I know the 2011 vernal equinox was March 20. 

Hellebore (Lenten rose) 
in New Jersey

But that’s really just the opening gun. Only now has the climate in our bit of the northern hemisphere progressed sufficiently to make it “official.” 

So now, with the notable spring-minded seasonal celebrations pretty much wrapped up this past weekend, let’s take a TGIM moment to examine and apply the lessons of renewal and rebirth that the seasonal shift teaches.

Today IS the first day of the rest of your life. A trite (maybe), but factual, statement. And you can’t remain static and expect to thrive in the future. You have to do more than simply make sure that things are going right today.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Spring to it. You are also responsible for making sure that what you do today creates the future you want tomorrow. If you don’t ponder and then take action on strategies for positioning your business, your family and yourself in the future, you may never have that future.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Take a quick run though these six forward-looking strategies and consider ways to tweak, twist and customize them to your personal situation in the days immediately ahead:

● Keep on top of trends. Yes, I’m the guy who said, “Tweeting is the new CB radio.” Still, you must be paying some attention in order to make that claim and, perhaps, cash in when the time is right (and cash out before it goes the way of, well, CB radio). Be continually watchful for developments … innovations …fads, fashions and fancies – and be wary of when one becomes another.

Spring mindedness: Keep your finger on the pulse of change. Up close it may be easy to sort out how your markets are doing. But what’s happening in the research labs and wider world that will drastically change what you do and how you do it? What’s happening in American culture that will creep into your world? What’s happening in the broader world that impacts your niche in it? Take in the big picture and make your own informed decisions.

● Think globally, act locally – for starters. Information technology and digital interconnectedness are shrinking the world, creating opportunities for everyone around the globe. So while you’re acting locally, also investigate the global potential of your unique abilities.

Spring mindedness: Discover how your products or services could satisfy customers somewhere else. Seek like-minded partners who can help take you where you need to go.

● Endow technology, people, training. Stop thinking like a bookkeeper (no offense to bookkeepers, you can’t win the game if you don’t know the score) and start thinking and behaving like a strategic manager.

Spring mindedness: Loosen the purse strings as much as you’re able. Don’t get tied down by sunk costs. Stop worrying about what you’ve spent in the past. Money spent on technology, people and training is not a cost, especially in this rapidly changing environment. It’s an investment.

● Innovate or abdicate. The pace of change will not let up. Better, cheaper, faster drives it. If you aren’t prepared to innovate, then prepare to be swept aside in the rush to the future. Stress innovation and adaptation with others who share your interests – and your future.

Spring mindedness:  Spring clean – counsel, train, reprimand and/or terminate laggards who are reluctant to go forward. If they can’t or won’t help you progress, help them get a job with the competition. Then use the freed-up payroll to hire, identify, train, reward and promote the best and the brightest who will help take you to the future.

● Develop future-minded customer relations. Stop thinking in terms of the products and services you historically provide. Start thinking in terms of the needs you’ll help your prospects and clients meet.

Spring mindedness: Stay focused on changing customer desires. Be proactive. Remind them of your long-term commitment. Don’t wait to be summoned to help; or to be “dismissed” in favor of a new resource. Be first on the scene with new solutions in hand as you see requirements changing.

● Beware the complacency of success. Congratulations if you’ve been “hanging tough” so far. When things aren’t broken, there’s less motivation to fix them. Unfortunately that means there’s little motivation to improve.

Spring mindedness: Even if you’re #1 in your market, don’t for one nanosecond be satisfied by the size of the gap between you and the crew in second place. Remember that success is often a barrier to change. Keep banging away at that barrier.

TGIM Takeaway: “A competitive world has two possibilities for you. You can lose. Or, if you want to win, you can change.” Lester Thurow, former Dean of the   MIT Sloan School of Management and definitive voice on global economics said that.

This Spring, become a champion for change and renewal. Prepare for the reality of change. View it as an opportunity and adventure, not a threat. Use the stimulus of the new season get your future-savvy sap flowing and blossom into a success-filled run to a prosperous, winning year end.

Springing into action ...

  

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com   

P.S.  “Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.” In 1853, Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) recorded that in his Journal.

 

P.P.S.  Here’s the closing stanza of (Thoreau’s neighbor) Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem, “The World Soul.”

Spring still makes spring in the mind

  When sixty years are told;

Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,

  And we are never old.

Over the winter glaciers

  I see the summer glow,

And through the wild-piled snow-drift

  The warm rosebuds below.