About Purpose is about your purpose.
Aim: Identify and articulate your purpose.
Arm: Shape yourself around your purpose.
Act: Achieve your purpose.
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Before the Storm Comes: Pruning in Business
Bob Ryan, About Purpose, Inc. ©2005
Katrina and Rita in the Gulf. Storms right here in Brooklyn Park. An awesome display of nature’s power. An incredible clean-up challenge. As I watched a tree company pick up, cut up and clean up the numerous trees we lost here in our neck of the woods, I began to ask myself the same questions being asked all over the country right now. Could we have avoided this disaster? Could we have weathered it more smoothly? (no pun intended).
It’s vital to talk about clean up and disaster response, but as a small business owner, I suggest that by the time the disaster strikes, it’s too late. We need to make decisions now to avoid disaster in the future, or at least to ride through it with a minimum of damage.
Allow me to use the tree as a metaphor. Most businesses are organic, vibrant, and changing, so the image should work. When violent winds hit our trees here in Brooklyn Park, we lost thousands. Why are the trees so vulnerable? Why did some trees stand while some fell right next to them? Our tree contractor showed me several trees that were sheared off at ground level – no roots came up, the trees were broken off at the bottom of the trunk. He said those trees had been planted too deep. Others came completely out of the ground, roots and all, showing very poor root systems, such as the blue spruce trees. Still others had been planted in sandy ground, so that even though the roots were deep, the ground wasn’t solid enough to anchor the tree.
What about your business? How well is it established? Does it have a strong foundation? Is your infrastructure sound – as in adequate funding, competent staff, a solid business model and replicable systems?
Much of the tree damage was caused by broken branches, dead limbs, or weak and brittle growth. Many trees had little resiliency and branches and trunks snapped above ground.
Is your business well-fed? Do you have a healthy debt ratio, allowing flexibility rather than rigidity? Do you rely too heavily on outside sources for your company’s care and feeding? Are you preparing for market changes, laying the groundwork for growth and development, or are you trying to react without “bulking up?
Many trees were simply too dense. The wind could not blow through them, so something had to give. We have a 17 foot ornamental crab tree in our front yard that held up very well. I have carefully pruned out all the inside-growing branches every year. 100 feet away, large cottonwoods with two foot diameter trunks went over like tinker toys.
Is your business top heavy, carrying too much management and administration? Are your hiring decisions based on the demands of the day, or are they strategically planned to support the overall direction of the company? Have you made careful outsourcing decisions to keep a balance between costs and customer responsiveness?
Let’s learn a lesson from this destructive summer. Work on your business, not just in it. Prepare before the next storm.