Guest Post: David Gise on "Less Stress for Success"
Jun
29
Written by:
6/29/2010 10:24 AM
The following is commentary on the June Working Lunch With Rob featuring Matt Silver of Ultimate Class Limousine in "Less Stress for Success."
Much like Matt’s business, the pace was frenetic and I dealt with one problem after another, making it almost impossible to ever get ahead of the oncoming barrage of problems. Unlike Matt however, I really had NO experience in the health club business so it was doubly challenging for me as far as getting organized (i.e. running a facility, sales, personnel management, bookkeeping, etc.).
Here is a small sample of a few of the “small” (yeah right) problems I had to deal with:
- The hydraulic line which powered the underwater therapy bikes and treadmills ruptured filling an entire pool filled with jet black oil from top to bottom (think BP disaster in Long Beach)
- The entire wall of one side of the building fell into the parking lot
- The heavy glass/steel lid on the pool filter exploded nearly decapitating one of our maintenance workers
Anyway, just when I thought I was never going to get my arms around this huge disaster of a business, I received the BEST piece of business advice that I ever heard.
It was called the 20-80 rule for employees. If a problem occurred in any area of the health club, an employee should spend 20% of the time focused on determining the root of the problem and 80% of the time should be focused on a solution to the problem. Most importantly, employees were not allowed to come to ME with a problem without 3 possible solutions.
I basically called for a one on one meeting with every single employee and told them that moving forward if they wanted to keep their jobs they would have to abide by this rule.
The results were amazing!!!
1) It empowered every single employee to OWN their department, even if their job was simply keeping the bathrooms clean. Almost immediately everyone became an expert in their position.
2) It allowed me to make quick decisions to fix problems without having to delve into possible solutions myself.
3) It made it much easier to see which departments might require staff changes
Most importantly, it allowed me to oversee the business without having to “do it all myself”. Based on what I heard at the event, this seems to be one of Matt’s biggest issues.
Perhaps this piece of advice that was so helpful to me can also be helpful to Matt and other business owners.
Dave Gise