Get Off Your Butt!
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of the State of California, summarized what we need to do when a company is going through problems. And it only takes four words: Get Off Your Butt.
A video of him taken on September 26, two months ago is available here.
Solving a problem is never easy. But it takes the right attitude:
- Unite your team, give them the power to make changes, ignite their passion to make things better, to find solutions never thought of before and to revolutionize the way business is done in the whole company.
- Change paradigms, make changes, innovate in the way you do things.
- Create new paradigms, think 21st and 22nd century. Break from the past.
- Inspire yourself from the successful companies. Look at what’s being done out there, in your industry or others.
- Stop thinking about top line next quarter and start thinking about long term bottom line.
- Give the example. Lead by example, not by politics. Inspire your employees to make changes by making sure you make more changes then them.
- And most importantly, before you ask anyone for money, have a plan! Have a strong plan that will revolutionize the way you do things, a plan that inspires people to give you every penny they have, a plan that inspires workers to agree to cut their salaries.
I haven’t seen any of this in the auto industry the past week or so.
The success of a company only goes through sales/revenues. A successful company should not need Government grants, special bonds, R&D tax credits, etc… These are incentives to improve performance, but without sales, it’s impossible to really succeed and be productive.
And to make a parallel, people in Quebec have asked me what we can do with the manufacturing industry: well, here’s your answer: Get Off Your Butt.
Dakx
