To my mind, running a successful
company is a bit like making a cake.
In tough economic times you may not
have the funds to use top quality ingredients, (for which read,
employ high calibre staff), but with a bit love and care you can
still produce results that will be more successful than taking on
board a bunch of high flying prima-donnas and throwing them all into
the melting pot of day-to-day office politics; the difference between
the all-in-one method of making your 'business cake', putting
everything in the mixing bowl and beating the life out of it, instead
of ensuring that each ingredient is in the right condition to produce
the results you want. Recognition that each ingredient (employee) has
an important part to play. For the uninitiated, this is called team
work.
The mixing bowl is the equivalent of
your own department; it needs to be big enough to hold all of the
ingredients when at peak performance, or it will spill over, the
equivalent of a team member leaving..
You, the manager, are the wooden spoon,
which needs to be strong enough to do the job without breaking. The
team cannot perform without you bringing them all together, in the
right order. If you beat too hard, you'll end up with a disjointed
team that won't work together, causing friction, and resulting in
failure.
Of course your team members are not
working in isolation. If any one of them goes sick, leaves (missing
ingredients,or the wrong quantities), or doesn't understand from the
outset the business objective, and the part they play in it, then
great results will not be guaranteed; the future of the business
relies on consistency.
Stay with the theme – here's your
team of 14.
- 4oz. butter (old hands, can be hard nosed, and need softening up to mix with others in the team)
- 4oz. caster sugar (reliably sweet tempered, and good team players but feeling ground down with responsibility, work best with butter)
- 2 medium eggs (can have off days if they get too cold, but when motivated and full of energy, can really cause team spirits to rise. Prefer to work separately until they get to know the other team members better, otherwise they can cause friction)
- 4oz. self-raising flour (flighty types who, if they don't get their own way can bring the team down, but when lightened up a bit can help bring the whole team together)
Having brought everything together
you'll now need the right sized baking tins (2x 7inches) to cook it
all in. They are comparable to the company in which you operate.
You've done your job with the team mix, but those at the top need to
have done a little preparation themselves, a little greasing and
lining maybe? This will enable them to hold the whole 'business cake'
together, without it sticking, while it steps into the outside world
– the oven.
The oven is akin to the economic
marketplace in which your business operates, something you have
little or no control over – is it at the right temperature to
ensure your 'business cake' can rise. Is it too hot causing it to
burn, or too cool to ensure a good rise?
Lastly, as with all things, timing is
everything …... once your 'business cake' is out of the oven,
having got the basics right, don't rush to market. You must allow
sufficient cooling (thinking) time to consider the 'value added'
element that will ensure your reputation as the best in your market;
jam, with or without buttercream, fresh cream, maybe that extra
hidden something (a drop of passionfruit?), and of course eye
catching packaging. These elements will ensure you are unique and can
command the highest price, creating a demand, for either a slice or
the whole thing, with a discount for bulk purchase, of course.
Team happy, work done, and you've all
kept your jobs! Gone on, treat yourself (and your team) to a slice of
cake.
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