There are occasions where running a small business is difficult for a variety of reasons. It could be simply a cashflow problem, or a capacity issue, or clients not behaving as expected, machinery failure, indeed a seemingly endless array of challenges that just when you think it’s all over another one surfaces that then requires more time to sort out and so it goes on. If it was easy everyone would do it, and that’s what gives me the buzz and the reason for getting up every morning.
We had a team ‘away day’ yesterday, which we do every so often just to take a barometer reading on what we are doing from the team’s perspective. We invite open constructive criticism from everyone, collectively pat ourselves on the back for things that we’ve done well, and work through any issues to see if, as a team, we can solve them so that everyone is happy.
Yesterday was particularly enlightening. We had issues ranging from inadequate storage in the office, to the future of convergence marketing, and everything in between. We found out that one of our team is a qualified Health & Safety Inspector, and that one of our design team is a dab hand at putting up shelves. We discovered what everyone is particularly pleased with, and what everyone doesn’t like, and then we put all the disliked things on a list and collectively we took the first steps towards solving them as a team.
Ultimately, I think that we reinforced our understanding that, despite the challenging economic environment, we make a very good team, we look out for each other, and together we produce work that our clients and ourselves can all be proud of, and that in a nutshell is what it’s all about.
Thanks to all at Slightly Different. I couldn’t do it without you.
Jeremy Hurst
Managing Director
