Draining the Swamp in Your Business
April 13th, 2017 // 11:33 am @ Scott Manning
And so it begins… the draining of the swamp.
Most won’t even know about this, but today the Trump Administration has begun a full restructuring of the federal government. The goal is to do more with less, get rid of the sweetheart deals of employing friends, eliminate all of the backdoor favors and start running every single department (that is within the control of the executive branch) like a business.
As with any business, the point is to produce as much at a high quality with as little expense and overhead. For businesses that means profit. For the government that means a surplus.
Which, by the way, is exactly how a government should be run. More importantly, it’s the way your business should be run and you can never stop the fight.
The fight for efficiency
The fight for effectiveness
The fight for profitable growth
Everyone must stay on their toes. This isn’t a vacation – it’s a business.
Most entrepreneurs run their businesses like hobbies. Which is fine if you don’t need or want or care about the money. If you are doing it just for fun, then never complain about anything else – especially about your results.
People put up with waste way too much in their lives.
Wasted time.
Wasted money.
Wasted resources.
Wasted people.
Wasted talent.
The worst of all is wasted opportunity.
This is because they are distracted with “doing things” instead of getting results. The saying goes ‘confusing activity with accomplishment.’
That is what our government has always been like – and really, even that is very generous. You could hardly call it activity. More like just taking up space, moving paper around, spending money and making pretend decisions.
It doesn’t matter much what your opinion is about President Trump (though I know what most think who are here reading this). Instead of opinions, let’s embrace facts.
Leadership is about being decisive, about having focus on a direction, about adhering to a mission, about driving relentlessly towards an outcome and about not letting others deter you by making excuses.
Mistakes will be made. That is, if you are making as many decisions each day as you should be making, if you are moving as fast as is required to be successful everyday and if you are doing what is necessary to support your people to be their best.
Mistakes are inevitable. The only thing that matters is what are you learning and how are you adjusting. Just give me the results – the progress – the outcomes of your decisions.
Net Positive = Success
Today, begin draining your own swamp by taking a hard look at where waste, inefficiency, status quo, people working against you and you working against yourself exists. Anything that is not serving the greater good of the objective of your business must not be tolerated.
Next week, I’ll give you my list, plus some follow-up thoughts on self-sabotage and how to avoid it once and for all.
Hey, Mr. President of your Own Business – Commander in Chief of your Life – CEO of Your Enterprise – Leader of Your People… you have work to do. Don’t shy away from it – be decisive and drain the swamp of anyone and anything not serving the purpose of your goals, mission and greatest ambition.
Category : Blog
