May 13, 2015
I had a mad crush on Tom Cruise when I was in college. It wasn’t his first movie, All the Right Moves, that caught my attention – it was Top Gun. The uniform. The failure. The comeback. I was drunk with Tom Cruise. So, so cute.
And then I had to wait for a while to see him again – and I thought – he couldn’t possibly but he did it again – in Jerry Maguire. I actually enjoy watching a guy wrestle with emotion and Tom Cruise does it so well. Stoicism and/or those who are impossible to read actually bore me. I like to be around people who have something to fight for, someone to love and something to care about.
There are several scenes that stand out from Jerry Maguire – the sex scene at the beginning which is really disturbing in its own way – even he’s confused, the scene where he breaks up with his fiance’ and she slugs him and last but not least, the final scene where he says, “You complete me.”
Whenever I hear that line, all I can think of though is, “No I don’t.”
No one completes anyone. Hasn’t Jerry read “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O?” by Shel Silverstein? You should read this book. It’s a children’s book so you can read it at your nearest Half Price Books in about 10 minutes and then buy it. (Trust me, you’ll want to buy it and have everyone you know read it because it makes so much sense.)
Anyway.
I was talking to one of the valued members on my team on Monday about all the things we’re doing here at The Creative Company. I showed her a picture I drew of all of our Key Performance Indexes. She loved my drawing. Well, no, not really because it was just a circle with a bunch of arrows which is actually my point.
Organizational change doesn’t have to be complicated.
She and I started to talk about HOW we could increase just one thing – efficiency.
So I asked her – “What slows you down in this place?”
Here’s the short list. Misplaced files. No paper in the copier. Answering phones. Administrative tasks. Needing to greet everyone who walks in the door because we’re in an open space environment. The list went on and on. She talked for 10 minutes, maybe even 15, without taking a breath.
And then I said, “We need an Amy.”
I loved Amy. You would have loved Amy. Everyone here loved Amy. She had little angel wings that she wore to work every day. She flew in and made everything work. It was like magic. Seriously, like Walt Disney magic. I was always on time, the office ran smoothly, she handed me files as I flew out the door, my travel arrangements were always perfect – everything Amy touched had pixy dust on it and we were all so very happy. She didn’t complete me but she was the best assistant I’ve ever had.
Before coming to Creative Company, Amy was a daycare provider. You wouldn’t necessarily think that someone who wrangled kids all day would be a terrific office manager but that was one of the best hiring decisions I’ve made. Kid wrangler and office manager – same thing.
So she had experience and she had her Bachelors in Communications which meant she got it – she got what we did but didn’t necessarily want to be in charge of those kinds of things so she did what she did and she did it better than anyone ever had before or since.
I bet you’re wondering where Amy is now, right?
Well, one day, her daughters’ school called and offered her a job – with summers off. She’s so smart. She took that job.
So I hired someone else. Quickly. Because I was in a hurry. I’m always in a hurry. I’ve been in a hurry since 1987. It’s a fact. I slow down every winter but then I come back again like some sort of hungry lion. It’s just my nature. In any case, this nature vs. nurture thing actually gets in my way sometimes and –
And it didn’t work out.
The new person was sarcastic which was attractive in the beginning because I thought she was funny but it turns out, she really meant it. Who knew? I’m usually the last one to know. I’m too trusting.
So back to hiring an office manager. We started crunching the numbers and here’s what we found out.
We determined that it costs each of us at least 2.5 hours a week to do things that Amy had done – probably more – but that equates into about $6,000 a month in time that could be billed to a client or $48,000 a year. With $48,000 a year, we could hire someone and even get a little return on our investment – not immediately – but within a year for sure.
But it gets even better. With increased efficiency in the office, we’ll have higher client retention rates. With higher client retention rates, we lower our cost of new business acquisition. Less business acquisition equals more stability and more stability equals employees staying longer. Employees staying longer means we spend less on hiring and training. See – it’s the circle of life. How cool is that?
How did we get there? We thought about it. Sometimes that’s all you have to do – turn off Facebook or Twitter or whatever your social media drug of choice is and just think. Thinking is good. Talking is good.
Which brings me back to organizational change and how to increase ROI. ROI is just one of the KPI’s we’ll be looking at closely as part of our mission to turn this organization around in 180 days. Your job is to hold us accountable.
So here’s what we’re measuring:
- Culture
- Client Success
- Gross Profit Margin
- Increased Efficiencies
- Increased Influence
- Incremental Sales
- Goal Completion Rate
- Social Interactions
- E Mail Marketing Engagement
In the next post, I’ll share what we’ve accomplished already just 15 days in as well as our goals. Thanks for being my accountability partners and for coming along for the ride. I’m open to any other KPIs or other insights you might have especially as it relates to hiring well but really, about anything. I like to learn new things.
And as for Jerry Maguire, I’m a total sucker for a great ending but I don’t think anyone completes anyone. It works best if both people in the relationship are whole people. Insecurity breeds fear and mistrust and without trust, as Management Consultant Patrick Lencioni says, you can’t get anywhere.
And we have places to go. As do you. And we can get there from here. We can and we must because the world needs people who give a damn. It just does. On so many levels.
#180in120
Until next time.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyrP-pwDayE&w=430&h=242]