Rethink your business

Spring cleaning at work is a necessary and useful thing: be it archiving, a proper cleaning of the premises or a simple reshuffle or update of the furniture. That is not all, however, that should be happening during a business spring cleaning: for most of us it is also a perfect occasion to take a step back and look at what we do and how we do it from a different perspective.

This change of perspective is exactly the reason for taking experts from different fields of activity on board. However, there are things you can do yourself to pave the way for change before you call in the experts…

Experience tells us that business tends to totally engage us, leaving little time to spend on leaning back and considering the state of affairs. We are simply too busy taking care of things that ‘need to be done (right now)’ and catching up with our emails and other communications. I completely get that and I’m certainly no stranger to this.

But there is something to be said to taking a step back regularly to look closely at how things are running, and consciously observe if there are bottlenecks somewhere in the process, if your collaborators and employees are happy doing what they do and how they do it, if there are any parts of your business you have neglected lately, planning for any future developments, etc. All of these are things we all perceive ourselves doing all the time in between the ‘really important stuff’, but are we really?

It takes a moment of calm to REALLY see and consider these things, and many of us are too busy keeping on top of things to take time out for these equally important things. They seem secondary to running the business, but in reality they are paramount to keeping it running. Once we take our place at the hub of things – and as the owners, we usually do – it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to step out for a while and take stock. And yet it should be an important part of your forward planning.

Just think about this: how often have you sat back and considered if what you are doing is what you really want and if it is going in the direction you want it to? Not often enough, I bet. And that is just considering your own position! There are so many other elements to your business that might need reconsidering, and those take the backseat to other stuff in our lives and business. It takes a proper time out to think about these.

I have recently been startled by the realisation that it takes a reshuffling of ideas and options at least twice a year (if not even more frequently), with a proper adjustment of goals and hopes for the future. It’s amazing how often new requirements pop up, be it the realisation that the website needs reinventing, or that one of your employees has reached a breaking point without you noticing it.

Bringing in experts to do that thinking for you is helpful and provides ideas and inspirations you likely would not have come up with yourself (and that is especially true for those of us who run the show on our own), but it does not take away the need to regroup and look at things from a position that supersedes the daily ins and outs of what you do. We all need to really take time off and immerse ourselves in these considerations if we want to do what is necessary AND the right thing for our business and ourselves.