The business plans adopted by most companies offer little or no room for creative thinking. However, these same plans want the business to be more productive this year than last. If the business manages the employees and the sales in the same manner year after year, they will soon hit the glass ceiling of productivity.
That glass ceiling is there thanks to the stringent beliefs that business is somehow different than family. On the contrary, if you run your business the way you run your family, you will see increases in productivity, sales, profit and more.
In your home there are certain rules that may be unspoken but understood. When you finish a meal, the dishes are washed, dried and put away. When there is laundry to be done, the clothes are neatly folded and placed back where they started, in the drawers or closets. When it is time to go to bed, the children hustle off to brush their teeth and the day is completed in a successful manner.
In your business, these same things need to occur with the same efficiency. When a mess is made, both literally and figuratively, that mess needs to be cleaned up. Waiting around for another person to delegate the task on is simply a waste of time. Sure, there are higher managers who believe they are below changing out the towels in the men's restroom, but it is not better to make the change now rather than have to deal with someone complaining about it later.
In the office setting, goals that are set up as future goals need to have regular intervals of productivity reporting. Everyone needs to stay in communication and when things go wrong, the entire team needs to work together to find a solution in the same way a family works together.
Life in the business world is not much different than life in the world of home life. If you run your business with the same goals and expectations of your family, you will see the profits increase, the productivity soar and, if you are lucky, a bond between the business and the employee will be born.