How To Restructure A Company
幽幽鹿鸣/Yoyoluming
1. Insignificant changes lead to major changes
Start with attendance. It helps form a good routine and put pressure on those who have no sense of time.
2. Start from the top
Too often those on top who welcome changes are the ones who are blockers. Change their mindset first is vital. It takes time, effort, and determination.
3. Form positive energy
Get rid of those who make others uncomfortable. Encourage individuals who think creatively and critically to form group spirits to work with others. Value people's opinions, direct their energies to the company's goal.
4. Be personal
Don't be a poker face boss. Management is about forming healthy working relationship at work. If you don't care about employees, you will be deaf and blind. In the end you want to be remembered as a human who cares.
5. Rules
No one can play the game without the rules. Make realistic and applicable rules. Make necessary
adjustment and changes to make the rules enforceable and make sure rules apply to everyone.
6. Be positive
No matter what happens, you just can't be the most miserable. Remember to smile. To the end what matters is not what you do or what you own, it is your health and happy mood that matter
the most.
7. Don't make empty promises
Action is louder than words and people have memories and mouths.
8. Open minded
Learn from your past mistakes; from others; from books. But always remember the most valuable is to learn through practice with an open mind.
9. Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes. Don't repeat the same mistakes twice.
10. Forgiveness
Everyone derserves a second chance. No one should be given a third chance.
11. Taking the chance
It's not about achieving an impossible dream; it's all about doing what you can do in a better way.
Improvement should be continuous. To stop is to get behind. Opportunities come and go, be sharp, be quick, be efficient, be ready.
Re-structure, re-aim, re-start, re-adjust.
Oct. 2006
Kunming, China
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The Three M’s that Sink a Business---Misjudgment; Mismanagement; Misconduct (and they can all occur at the same time)
幽幽鹿鸣／Yoyoluming (January, 2007)
Explanation:
Case Study #17 since 1999.
Since this case is so non-typical, non-traditional and strange in every possible way, I’d like to leave it here to share with whoever has the opportunity to read it.
The two individuals involved in this case are real people (native born Americans) and are assigned as A and B (A is at least 25 years older than B), thus I use the words it/its as noun/possessive pronoun in description.
Reminder:
This is not a fabricated story and is not aiming at entertaining anyone.
Introduction:
I had been watching, listening, thinking for over two years since I met A by accident before I wrote the whole case, during which, I had the opportunity to uncover more details of the failed business and been making strong recommendations to A. Since now it is finally coming to a close, I decide to post it to remind the innocent and the not too experienced.
Background:
A, who had a somewhat successful career for a good number of years, is a family friend of B whose parents are both professionals and helped A for years in various ways. Filled with gratitude, A was persuaded by the parents into launching a business mainly selling imported perishable products with their son, B (now 35 years old).
Situation:
A invested at least $300,000 dollars of its own money with zero knowledge about the products but with enough confidence with and trust to B; who talks impressively with a persona much larger than life itself. B had failed though two previous start-up businesses, yes, also in imported perishable products. B had no other working experience elsewhere.
For some odd reason, A, as the sole investor, walked into the business with B but only held 35% of the shares of the business with the job title of being B’s secretary while B marching in the business with nothing but empty promises became the president of the company and held 65% of the shares.
What really happened:
According to A, as soon as the company was registered; the legal papers were signed; the account was set up… B began its shopping spree. During the first year of business operation, B blew up $90,000 dollars using the company’s (translation: A’s) credit card on personal items such as computer and office equipments (set up in B’s residence and recently repossessed by A), groceries, wines, meals, snacks…In order to better promote the business, A, encouraged by B, also paid people to design company logo, trade mark, packaging materials, website…The spending started; the purchase continued and the inventory began to grow... A and B went to various trade shows, presentations…But for some reason the market was just not opening its door to their products.
In over three years of their business operation, they had a total of about 15 major buyers; basically one in every one hundred days or longer. And each one owed the company money for delivered goods. The website was designed by professionals and operated from day one by B. But for reasons unknown it just didn’t have enough hits by visitors. In order to stay in business, B persuaded A to buy into an additional line of imported perishable product with total shaky health promoting claims. The total investment on this new line of product was about $160,000 dollars. A had to rent a warehouse for the product in bulk with quality problems but without customers. B repeatedly claimed that the market was forming and the line of buyers was getting long…
As president of the company, B’s job was mainly to be in charge of marketing and sales (after their limited sales, B could not collect payment from buyers). It staged elaborate and impressive presentations in front of potential customers at the cost of the company’s expanse, but afterwards few came to buy their products. Did B make the product too mysterious or did B give people the impression that it was beyond their comprehension? Or was B just not convincing enough to make sales happen? Was B using such opportunities to promote itself to secure its position in the business or did it just want to make sure that A got the impression that B was the best in the business and they had to work together? Was B using such opportunities to get attention from people that it normally couldn’t? And they always had trouble sending orders out on time.
B kept telling A exciting stories about growing possibilities about the profitable product and made sure A kept pumping in more investment money to sustain the operation. B even placed order for $80,000 dollars of new products (without telling A) when the old ones were stored as inventory (did B get a cut from such order?). In over three years A had basically lost the total investment in the “promising” business. A didn’t have enough knowledge about the products; about internet sales; about record keeping; about inventory; A has no skill in management; no vision or plan for the business; no control in the operation…A basically lost its sense of time and let B run the show at its free will.
The company never had established rules; without operation hours; A had no control over B and couldn’t enforce anything to get things done. All the customers who bought the products were A’s friends or through its connection. B turned itself into an entertainer and really enjoyed its VIP status wherever it went for presentation. No one from the outside knew anything about the growing internal problems.
I began to offer advice to A based on our conversations and my observation; A gradually began to reveal to me more details of the so-called business operation. It was very disturbing.
A business is based on reliable source of supply and the market. In between it’s connected with quality control, cost control, customer service; marketing strategies…I found none of the key elements in this business operation. Instead I found two irresponsible individuals who sit back to let all the opportunities disappear in front of them and B skillfully played the mind game to manipulate A from the beginning to end.
Is it fair to blame B for all the problems? Am I being fair to B since the above information came entirely from A? How much responsibility A needs to take for the failed business? Why couldn’t A solve the problems for two years watching and noticing the growing problems? What is the true reason that made A incapable of solving the problems for so long? Is fearful of losing its face among its inner circle friends a reason why A prolonged the problems? Are they both suffering from clinical depression? What lessons can each individual involved learn from this case?
For legal reasons I will not describe any more details about the ending results. It’s anyone’s guess. Trust and honesty are the key words in business. But also be watchful in managing your own business. One might not know everything from A to Z in business management, but one needs to learn the lesson from A and B in business operation.
