Dear Dave,
I started my own small business a couple of years ago. Thanks to your advice, and a lot of hard work, we’re starting to see growth. I’m just curious, if you could go back and restart your business, would you do anything differently the second time around?
Gerald
Make sure to properly vet your employees and pay yourself first
Gerald,
This is a great question! I suppose if there was one thing I could change, it would be taking more time during the hiring process. I didn’t spend nearly enough time and energy during interviews back then.
Another thing has to do with retained earnings. We didn’t begin taking a percentage of our net profits and setting it aside for retained earnings until we got too tight on cash. Starting over, I’d do that from day one. I’d run a profit and loss statement for the month, close the books for the month and take a percentage of the net profit—after paying myself a decent wage—and automatically put it aside as savings for the business.
People problems and money problems are two huge small-business killers. We fought so hard and were so passionate about everything. Sometimes, I wonder how many mistakes I made as a result of over-the-top intensity. Don’t misunderstand; you’ve got to be intense and enthusiastic to make things work. But there were probably a few times when I could have handled things with a little more understanding and class.
I’m a little more relaxed now, and I know a couple of things for sure. Better hiring decisions, and having a little bit of money saved, changes your whole attitude and outlook on things.
— Dave
How do you change the culture at a business?
Dave,
I’m a manager at a distribution center. The other managers and I are trying to change the culture of our place a little bit. It’s not a terrible situation, but some concerns about development, communication and confidence in the company have come up lately.
Do you have any advice for starting this process?
Jules
Think of leadership as servanthood
Jules,
Trust begins to break down when your team members think you don’t care about them. But when someone trusts you and knows that you value them, they’ll fight tooth-and-nail for you and with you.
The only way to make your team feel this way is by thinking of leadership as servanthood.
Now, serving someone doesn’t mean you bring them coffee and donuts every day, and it sure doesn’t mean you take a bunch of crap from them. When I talk about serving, I mean looking at your team as real people. As a manager, what are you going to do if a guy’s wife is in the hospital after miscarriage? How are you going to handle that? You’ve got to care about your team members as people, as human beings—not units of production.
In short, stop being bosses and start being leaders. That entails servanthood, and that also means using the Golden Rule. Before you do something with your team, take a minute and think how you’d feel if you were in their shoes. Put every decision through the Golden Rule paradigm.
All I’m really talking about is treating your people well. You can change your entire workplace culture just by doing that one thing.
— Dave
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