Making the best of the time off

Strange Times

We are living through strange times and other than for essential businesses we are in forced seclusion. This time is ripe to be used by owners and executives to reflect on their businesses – their people, their structure, their practices and the fundamentals of their operation.

I have often spoken with busy executives who run from meeting to meeting, so focused on making decisions, hitting targets, cutting costs or making that next deadline that they have no time for reflection.

The water-wheel just keeps on turning and as they dash from meeting to meeting and decision to decision they would have loved the chance to shout; ‘STOP!’ for a moment, ‘Give me time to think.’ I’m sure a lot of you recognise the feeling.

Maybe it led you to make a poor decision. Perhaps you acted rashly because the pressure was on and time was of the essence, and afterwards you were reviewing where it went wrong. If only you could have pressed the pause button and spent a few hours thinking it through, maybe that client wouldn’t have cancelled or you might not have missed that big opportunity, but who has time to stop and think like that?

Well right now? You do.

You have furloughed the bulk of your staff, and they are either re-learning the fundamentals of parenthood, how to cook for a family or maybe binge-watching that series that they never got around to.

Time To Reflect

Now you have an enforced break, courtesy of Covid-19. Those deadlines have evaporated. Those targets are no longer relevant; and for the first time in years, your business won’t suffer from you taking time out to review and reflect as the business leader, or encourage your executive team to do the same thing.

Where might those reflections take you? I have a few suggestions:

• What do your clients really think of you? Or your staff, your suppliers, your competitors?
• Do you do enough to look after your staff? Not just H&S, but mental health, training, development?
• Are you heading in the right direction? Is your finance secure? Is your market share sustainable? Is your pricing strategy appropriate? What are the risks to future business?
• Why you win business and why you don’t.
• Do you have the right suppliers or the right partners?

Backing The Right Team

But perhaps most importantly of all, the question you should be asking yourself right now is:

• Do we have the right staff in place, and particularly, do we have the right leadership team?

There is a natural presumption to back our own team and to stick with the guys that we have in place. The knowledge that we have built into the business and the shared experiences that we have had will encourage us to think that our current team is the right team. This belief tends to persist right up to the point where something goes wrong, then you have the post-mortem and maybe you come to the realisation that we had one or two round pegs in square holes. But the reality is that most teams are built of the people who were available at the time.

But what if only you had time to reflect on the team and each person’s position in it? And what’s more the opportunity to contact and talk to the best people in the market at a time when they had some time to spare?

Carpe Diem

Right now your executive team may well be less busy, and therefore less critical, than at any time since they joined. If a change is needed isn’t now the time? Review your team. Are they the people you need? Are they the best you can get? Are they going to be the ones to build your company’s future?

Because right now there are thousands of other talented execs similarly waiting for things to return to their busy normal. Right now they are willing to take a call, to discuss possible options, to give you and your company consideration.

Right now there is an opportunity that hasn’t happened in our lifetime, and may never happen again. Do you seize it, or let it pass by?

If you’d like some help seizing the opportunity, call us.

Quarsh, your complete recruitment department.
www.quarsh.com