Last week we spoke about being able to live in the your home for as long as possible as you age.   Added to this, of course, is availability of the assistance and services required  to maintain safety and quality of life. This is known as Aging in Place.

They’d been married for over 50 years when he died. At 80 she was in decent health but she wasn’t able to take care of the one acre, 2,900 square foot homestead by herself. So with the help of her children, she sold the house and downsized into a condo. Surrounded by 4 children, 8 grandchildren and one great grandchild, she had an incredible will to live. She chose a two-story condo because, in her mind, she needed the exercise of going up and down stairs.

I’m sitting here this morning looking out from my hotel balcony at the Gulf of Mexico. We just concluded the Service Nation Alliance Spring meeting and the Spring 2017 International Roundtable events in St. Pete Beach, Florida. I live due east, a little over an hour away. One thing that I’m always amazed at is the difference in culture between the Fla beaches and my neighborhood. Take away the palm trees and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between my community and a general U.S. suburb. The Beach culture however, is distinct and consistent. Gentle sea breeze, sand, rum-laced drinks, laid back lifestyle and never more than ten minutes away from a Jimmy Buffet song. Matter of fact, one of our luncheon’s theme was Cheeseburger in Paradise.

My most powerful take away from the week’s events is the importance of a vibrant and healthy company culture. It surfaced directly and indirectly in almost every single talk, seminar and panel discussion.

In fact, in one panel discussion where the panelists spoke about the pros and cons to adding additional services to your business, the concept of culture found its way into the conversation even though the separate panelists offered diverse company backgrounds. For example, if you’re an HVAC contractor considering purchasing an electrical company, make sure your cultures are compatible.

Your Company Has a Culture

Did you ever get into a rut? Like struggling in a pit of quicksand, the harder you try to get out, the deeper you sink. The harder you work at trying to implement performance pay, the further away you get. And, if your own effort isn’t enough of an obstacle, you seemingly have an army of imaginary and some not so imaginary rapscallions greasing the walls of your ever-deepening rut.

Thought Leaders

Just exactly what is a thought leader? I’d always had this image of wisely whitebeards doling out visions of the near future while effortlessly articulating brilliance that kept folks like myself scrambling for dictionaries and Google in a mad dash to understand.

”It’s my dream company! I wish I could work there but it’s impossible to get in.”

Is this what they say about your company?

How do you generate talk like this?

Pursue Fortune

Fortune, the magazine, has been publishing a list called “The 100 Best Companies to Work For” for the last twenty years. This year’s issue came out in March. Paging through it I looked for common traits and characteristics; why did employees want to work for these companies? The following are similar reasons that appear across many different companies on the list.

Do me a favor, okay? Please click and read “Could Your Company Become an Award Winning Company?” a Matt Michel article.

Entering contests

Matt talks about your company entering contests, why you won’t enter contests and finally what to do if you do win a contest. I find it interesting that Matt spends the most time writing about why you will not or why you hesitate to enter contests. The fact that your head was nodding in acknowledgement while you read that section is exactly why our salsa-making-CEO devoted so much time to it.

Your eyebrows just burrowed down upon your eyes. “Salsa?” they ask.

Useful advice

Shoulders slump forward as they pull along an imaginary ball and chain in the dreadful hallway on way to an inevitable fate. They walk a version of the Green Mile every Monday, Thursday and Friday morning. That would be the day of your sales, service and install meetings. An outsider’s look at this motley crew?  Prisoners on their way to the torture chamber. An insider’s look? Pretty much the same.

Did you ever get into an exciting conversations with your friends? Perhaps you were sitting around a fireplace on the first day of vacation. The relaxing notion of five more days of freedom, a few cold ones and no one looking over your shoulder sets the stage for a spirited exploration on launching a make-believe company. Ideas build upon ideas and soon everyone starts raising their what-if? / could we? eyebrows.

Perhaps it wasn’t make-believe. Maybe you, the warehouse manager and one of your installers started talking about ways to improve your warehouse operation. Ideas started building upon ideas. Like a rock climber who gains a toehold over another building upon his ascent; incremental progress leads to new vistas.

Being aware

Will taught English at Cornell University for 46 years. Seeing the need to assist his students, Will economized his English textbook. Instead of listing all of the English language’s why’s, wherefores and rules, he created and self-published a little book of frequently misused rules of usage and principles of composition in 1919.

Will identified a problem and then designed a solution. He didn’t seek to change the world, only to make his immediate world a little more effective.

What change might you make in the environment to increase your effectiveness?

Thou shalt know the difference between markup and margin.

If Frank J. Blau Jr. had been born when Plumbing & Mechanical published the 10 Commandments, this would have been number 11.