Be Prepared
I love the Boy Scouts. I learned a lot from them and carry some ideas with me to the present day. Many of you may know what the Boy Scout motto is: Be Prepared.
So simple and so useful. Keep an umbrella and hat in the car. Keep the spare tire in good condition. It is widely applicable. How does it relate to our businesses?
Fire fighting is a part of business. We all must do it at times. Be prepared is a motto to help us face the non urgent and important things that we let slide. Be Prepared helps us lower fire fighting. Developing and maintaining vision would be one example. It is invaluable to have motivated workers who bring their hearts into the business place. But envisioning and coaching to build up workers passion usually gets pushed to the back burner.
We should keep a list of non urgent and important things and then schedule people, time or support to keep them or get them well. It is worth the effort.
Finally, coming to and working in China tends to get us fire fighting. We need to get prepared and do our background checks, due diligence and research. Then we can do it well.
Thoughts?