Clear Simple Business

Progressing through the stages of enterprise maturity can be exciting! A successful business seems to take on a life of its own, growing at a rate that sometimes seems impossible, especially at the beginning. Business leaders of rapidly growing businesses should be proud of their companies. However, a wise business owner will experience some trepidation as his company expands, nearly, overnight. Signs You’ve Created a Monster If you’ve got your eyes open and are paying attention, you may notice some signs that you’ve created a monster -- a “Frankenstein,” if you will. Rapidly-growing businesses often experience many of the same symptoms, including: -The feeling that your employees need to work  just a little bit  harder to keep up -Employee dread of mundane tasks that take  FOREVER -An increase in mistakes that the system’s checks and balances process isn’t detecting -Declining quality of products or services, often due to other tasks demanding the attention of employees ...

  The minimalist movement always gets a lot of attention at the first of the year. People recognize how important it is to declutter their lives and get rid of items that don’t really hold a constructive purpose for them. Generally, “decluttering” refers to physical “stuff.” Like old magazines, mementos or clothing. Sometimes, it refers to emotional clutter and proactively working on guilt or hurt feelings. These attempts are all great. But, in an effort to streamline other parts of our lives, we often forget to pare down another aspect that is far reaching professionally and personally: our digital world. Your digital clutter is slowing you down. It’s impeding your professional progress and success. It’s one of the most challenging arenas of your life to harness: you can’t see it, it accumulates easily and our worlds depend on being “plugged in.” But, tackling the concept of digital clutter is one of the keys to becoming more efficient. Consider these 4 ways digital clutter is slo...

As the second post in my series about those “damn” millennials, I feel I should address, yet, another of their weaknesses: their lack of loyalty. You know, as I look at today’s work force, I realize that it’s true. Millennials really don’t have the loyalty that young employees did 50 years ago. People went to work for a company at a young age, grew with their jobs and retired many years later. They went to work everyday, day in and day out. They knew their organizations inside out. But, the reality of that occurring today is nearly impossible. And, here’s why: Corporate Layoffs Large corporations frequently implement layoffs as reactions to the ever-fluctuating economy. I have a friend (an “old” millennial, like me) who is going through his third (yes, THIRD!) round of layoffs. He is employed in the IT space working for medical device companies. He’s a hard worker with a family, but he keeps finding himself job hopping to just stay employed, by no fault of his own. He’s never h...

5 Sneaky Secrets for Unlocking the Hidden Magic of Millennials As I’ve mentioned before in my blog posts, my age qualifies me as a member of the millennial generation. Good or bad, millennials are the generation of the future for most businesses as they reach farther into the 21st century. In fact, Pew Research Center reports that   millennials have outnumbered the Baby Boomer generation . ..leaving them as the primary employee pool for the coming years. But, many business owners and leaders contend that their employees from the millennial generation are far from ready to take the helm at their organizations. Laziness, entitlement and the constant need to “do it a new way” are complaints voiced by many management reps in leading firms. However, I believe that the millennial generation is not as bad as they are cracked up to be. There is, definitely, a miscommunication and lack of understanding between the new generation and many who represent the “golden era” or, even, leaders from...