To overcome today’s challenges, and build a sustainable business for the long term, it’s time to transform how you get work done The biggest challenges our organization faces, like most everyone else in our post-pandemic world, is shortages of parts and people. With global supply chains snarled, we find ourselves sitting on warehouses full of engines waiting for silicon chips worth a few dollars each. Meanwhile, we were incredibly fortunate to hire 500 new associates over the past year. But, we’re still shorthanded when you subtract the 250 or so employee-owners who retired at the end of 2020. And, despite the superhuman efforts from our human relations teams, that’s not going to change anytime soon.
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For many today, it would be unthinkable— if not sheer torture—to run a company supported by data arriving by pony express and steamship. Yet, in the 1800s, that’s what American industrialists regularly did to huge success. How could Carnegie and Rockefeller have made significant, informed decisions with material gathered by mere telegraph, letters, and only later, telephone? Weren’t they alarmed that their milk was fresher than their business intelligence?
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Ben Franklin famously said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But that’s only because ESOPs weren’t invented yet. With all the news about President Biden’s proposed tax changes grabbing headlines these days, I was reminded about a story I wrote a few years ago that was published at Forbes.com.
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Words are cheap. What I mean is that it’s easy to say something, but it’s a heck of a lot harder to actually put those words into action. For example, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how it’s become commonplace for companies to trumpet their mission, vision, and values. Everyone says they have a higher purpose with their business, something more than just pursuing profit, which is great. The idea is to show your associates, your customers, and the communities you operate in that you have a higher purpose than just making money at their expense.
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Dealing with this pandemic is exhausting. Whether your business is shut down, or booming, the uncertainty about whether you and your people might be safe is something that doesn’t stop. In our case at Springfield ReManufacturing Corp., we’ve been labeled an “essential” business. We make parts for key industries like defense, health care, and agriculture. And like Steve Choate, my longtime friend, and colleague, likes to say, “Farmers are gonna farm.” If we’re going to keep our factories open we need to do everything under God to keep them safe. It’s got me up at night, and up early in the morning, trying to think through every scenario I can dream of.
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A few days ago, I received a frantic call from a small business owner. This entrepreneur, who I’ll call Molly to protect the innocent, runs two retail shops. Like many similar brick-and-mortar businesses around the country, she had seen a dramatic drop in her sales over the past few weeks. Now, things were about to get worse; a lot worse. The state was mandating all retail shops like hers—along with restaurants, cafes, and other “non-essential” businesses—shut down to avoid spreading the coronavirus. Molly was beyond scared. Of course, she wanted to do the right thing and keep her people and her customers safe. But, by doing that, she wasn’t sure how she would pay her credit card, her rent, her banker, and her vendors. Worse, she wasn’t sure what would happen to her dozen or so employees—some of whom had worked with her for years.
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When the company does well, our professional lives go forward. But when the company doesn’t do well, eventually, it will impact the employees. The most common employee response to a company failure is “we never saw this coming!” Over the last 10-20 years, we have watched large, successful U.S. companies enter into failure mode. It constantly hits our media networks. It’s painful to see the impact of this demise on the people who have committed their professional life to the failing company. The failure of the corporation never seems to be “fair” to these employees. So, it’s appropriate to propose that the company’s success has to be important to the employees.
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