Doing Ideas for Leadership in our Down Economy

The following six categories of ideas have resulted from several months of research, years of experience, and the previous articles. As promised, the hope is that they will aid you as you continue your battle to emerge from our economic challenges leaner, stronger, and more successful than ever.

Aggressive – renegotiate leased space; plan for expansion in 2010; increase media, newsletters, and presentations; collaborate within your marketplace; outsource low value added products & services; network, collaborate, brainstorm; seek out and publicize good news; expect much, pay well

Conservative – micro-manage cash flow; conserve cash; keep discipline paramount; reduce insurance costs including health, life, and disability; reduce travel; curtail meetings; know your break even; observe and monitor behavior closely; provide a counter balance to all the negative media releases; use off time to test and evaluate employees; protect what's especially valuable to your company; lead and explain with honesty

Obvious – eliminate products that are not profitable; hold people accountable; develop complementary products & services; lay off underutilized employees; combine duties and reduce positions; reduce number of suppliers; embrace Lean initiatives; follow your Strategic Plan; market, market, market, listen to customers; be proactive with your bank, no surprises; cross-train employees; collaborate with customers; do more with less; use excess time to add more value

Counter-intuitive – hire the exceptional talent that is available; increase marketing budget in growth areas; call on new customers, especially those who’ve never listened to you before; spend money to increase sales rather than to simply cut costs; increase spending, focusing on things that can increase efficiency like new equipment, customer service, and energy reduction; cut costs, not good people; increase middle management and line training; “fire” your marginal clients; re-evaluate company’s position in context of changing marketplace; make downtime productive; increased specialized training; cut costs with thoughtfulness

Fostering Change – readjust goals to make more realistic; find new customers in resilient sectors; look at global markets like never before; eliminate everything that doesn’t add value to your target market; reduce investment in everything that is over offered; increase investment in everything that is under offered; create new elements of value; try, and learn new things; brainstorm on improving work flow; set (collaboratively) lofty goals and then let your managers achieve them; have courage to lay off bottom performers rather than by seniority; look for unhappy customers from you competitors; embrace new technology to add value; seek out new suppliers with new ideas

Maintaining the Status Quo – devoting personal time one to one to improve morale; expand your competitive advantage; communicate to, and stay close to your people; meet one to one with each of your people; increase morale building events; celebrate successes; recognize needs of families such as a spouse being laid off; walk through the operation daily; people are everything, attract & retain the best