Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast – Peter Drucker.

Time is not your problem.

Every day I hear from business owners who think their biggest problem is time, while it may be true that time is the challenge you face every day it is not your problem, time is constant, at least here on earth it is. You, I and Elon Musk all have 168 hours in a week, what we do in those 168 hours is very likely to be different, yet time is just that, time.

So, if time is not your problem, then what is?

Business owners face a myriad of challenges and uncertainties all with underlying problems all of which take up their time. Over my time helping businesses like yours, a number of common problems have emerged. As of my last data in 2022, here are the top 3 problem areas that eat up a business owners time meaning they get stuck and find it hard to move forward.

1. Financial Management
   1. Not having clarity on the numbers so the business becomes reactive not proactive.
   1. Cashflow unpredictable and a challenge each month.
   1. Profit is not where is should be.
2. Marketing & Customer Acquisition
   1. Struggle to attract good customers who pay on time and don’t complain.
   1. Seems like there must be a discount to be able to sell.
   1. Opportunities are often missed due to being so busy firefighting.
3. Operational Efficiency
   1. Poor productivity leads to delays and higher costs than budgeted.
   1. People not delivering the level of work required both in terms of quality and Quantity.
   1. Lack of responsibility and accountability in the teams.

Of course, the specifics vary massively depending on the size of the business, the industry, the market conditions, and the owners’ own strengths and weaknesses. Still, these are broadly representative of the core problems eating up most of the time in a business.

Even one of these underlying problems can eat up so much of a business owners time that they never get a chance to grow the business or even take much time off, when the business suffers from multiple causes it becomes near impossible to even have the time to identify what the problems are.

This is where I come in, having someone to look at the business from the outside in, something an owner simply can not do and identify which is the most impactful current problem that needs to be addressed and helping you to come up with what that solution should be.

The answer in nearly every single case is a change in culture, the fuel that your business runs on, you can have the best product, with the most highly skilled people, in the best location, with the best leader in the world and if you have an underperforming culture you will underperform.

This is how you create a culture of constant and never-ending improvement by starting with the question what is at the root cause of our challenges.

Get in touch to know more.

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