I recently came across a very interesting blog post. (See below)
Scary at first…possibly hard to swallow… but who knows. It could work for your business.
A wake up call of sorts.
Like diving into an icy lake.
(As a side note, the temperature’s the same when you dip your toe into the icy lake, as when you dive in.)
What do you think? Would this help make your business
healthier?
Please post a comment on this, I would love to hear
your thoughts.
- HealthierMIDave
Read on:
Going Out of Business
Jan 04 2010
(from http://www.thecreativitygeneration.com/tag/business/)
I bet that subject got your attention! I recently read that Marc
Andreessen (founder of Netscape) sent a memo to the whole company around
1994 (at the height of their success) called “The Top 10 Reasons we’re
going out of business”. It showcased where they needed to improve, and
highlighted their biggest threats. This, of course, allowed everyone to
focus on not letting those items get in their way. It sounds like a
perfect thing to do now, as we begin the next decade.
IDEA FOR YOU: Develop and send your team a “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS EMAIL”.
Grab everyone’s attention and generate laser-beam focus for the New
Year. Here are some reasons I came up with for our own business (ePrize –
www.ePrize.com):
The Top 12 Reasons we’re going out of business
1. Ignoring the voice of the customer, and being too focused on “us”
instead of our clients. Forgetting our purpose.
2. Allowing bureaucracy to slow down and/or inhibit our creativity
and progress. Not taking enough risks. Not being “lean and mean”.
3. Believing our own PR, getting cocky, and resting on our laurels.
4. Loosing urgency and straying from our fire-in-the-belly origins.
Losing our hunger.
5. Not sweating the small stuff. De-emphasizing attention to detail.
6. Losing focus on expense control and the economics of our
business.
7. Over-complicating rather than simplifying.
8. Not holding each other accountable – for both big results and
daily behavior.
9. Too much manual heavy-lifting rather than system building.
10. Not moving quickly enough to adapt, evolve, and innovate.
11. Spreading ourselves too thin and trying to be “all things to all
people.”
12. Accepting anything less than our A+ game at every step of the
journey.
As you reflect on your own business for the New Year, what are the
pitfalls that you can brainstorm now to avoid later? Creativity can be
applied not only to new product innovation, but to solving a range of
business problems… including identifying them in advance. Think of it as
a “pre-mortem” instead of a “post-mortem”. Wishing you an amazing and
prosperous 2010!
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