In today’s competitive operating environment, there are certain exchanges that must occur for business owners to take their operations to the next level, according to Kevin Paul Scott, co-Founder of ADDO Worldwide and author of “8 Essential Exchanges.”
Addressing travel plaza and truckstop owners and operators at the NATSO Show 2017 in Savannah, Ga., Scott shared three essential exchanges business owners can make.
Step 1: Exchange stability to gain significance. “Nobody purposely seeks instability and stability isn’t something bad. The problem that comes for us is when we pursue stability so much that it stands in the way of making a decision or change,” he explained. “If we want to set our businesses, organizations and families up for success, we have to exchange the pursuit of stability to do something significant.”
Step 2: Exchange expedience for excellence. “Getting things done and getting them done quickly isn’t bad,” Scott said, but warned that things shouldn’t be done quickly if it means sacrificing quality. “Excellence is always going to be in demand in our businesses.”
Step 3: Exchange fans for friends. To boost relationships with employees, Scott urges business owners to exchange fans for friends and work on developing meaningful relationships with staff. “Do you have a system designed to balance both results and relationships? The most successful leaders have the ability to do both,” he said.
Scott said 55 percent of the American workforce isn’t engaged at work and an additional 16 percent are actively disengaged. “If we don’t create systems to help us get the right people to the table and balance both results and relationships, we’ll have environments where we continue to lose people,” he said.
Scott said one of the keys to engaging employees, particularly millennials, is to paint a picture of why the elements of their job matter and connect them to a more meaningful outcome. “You have to give worth to their position,” he said.
Photo credit: Brittany Palmer/NATSO
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