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‘You are what you eat.” If this is true, you are now a big piece of wors. Some of you are ningamanqina – big, fat, pork trotters going nowhere. But I’m not worried about what you feed your body; that’s your doctor’s problem. I’m more concerned about what you feed your mind because that has a direct bearing on what you say and how you make other people feel.
You’re probably asking, why do I care? It’s simple. We are together in this rubber duck called South Africa and we could sink because of stupidity.
Let’s get this right – times are tough, fuses are short and tempers are high.
This week in social media, some people accused the government of being the culprit for the drought we are experiencing. Crops are failing, calves are dying and dams are dry.
The government, say the bitter and twisted Twitterati, has created such a huge national debt, it has failed to pay the rain account, so the heavens have now cut us off.
People have such high and unreasonable expectations, they no longer allow nature to take its course.
If there is any deviation from their linear path of perfection, they blame someone else. As a business owner, you will always get the blame.
When the rand is weak and hard to come by, as it is right now, customers become harder to find and the few who turn up have higher expectations of service.
Employees, facing their own financial difficulties, are under duress and ready to tell customers to trek off and multiply. It’s a poisonous cocktail that is likely to destroy the cheap and the irrational brave.
The best thing to do when times are tough is to start a dialogue in your organisation. This is where what you feed your mind is crucial.
You need to be mentally strong to shepherd the myriad ideas and feelings that might cause a storm. If you are a bundle of negative energy, you will be more than likely to burn the house down. But if you are a nucleus of positivity in a field of realism, your business will go far.
Call in your staff and make them aware of the challenges facing the economy, your industry and your company. Do it before things get worse. The sceptics among them will think you’re starting a retrenchment process. That’s okay, scepticism is a law of nature and must be addressed. Fears cannot be spliced out, but can only be exorcised through real and meaningful conversations.
This conversation is where the person who initiates it listens more than talks, where the aim is to understand, not to spin and convince.
Employees are not a cost centre, but can provide solutions to many management challenges. Cost-cutting must not happen in the financial statements; ask the employees how wastage can be eliminated. They work with the processes the company processes, so they know how they can be improved.
Ask your staff to draw up a wish list of clients they would like on the company’s books. You can’t be everywhere in your market, but they probably have relationships with people who work for your competitors. So they know about strained relationships, assailable prices and obsolete products.
Keep an eye on the debtors’ book. Tighten up your payment terms. People who need more time to pay are probably drifting out of business.
Create a learning culture. Demand that your people improve themselves and celebrate their achievements. If people can’t uplift themselves, how do you expect them to uplift your company?
When the rewards come, remember not to eat alone. Share the profit, just as you shared the problem.
