Tips on Managing Your Growing Restoration & Cleaning Business

One of my greatest pleasures in life is reading.  Although I enjoy books on a wide range of subjects I find most of my reading centers around two broad subject areas: business and American history (my kids have accused me of being a frustrated History teacher).  Over the years I’ve learned that many of the clients with whom I work are also avid readers.

With the holidays approaching and hopefully a little more time to enjoy reading, I thought this might be a good time to solicit your ideas on recommended books.

If you’ve read a good book you think others might also enjoy reading, how about sharing it?  Tell us the name of the book along with the author, and if you’re in the mood you could even include a short synopsis of it.  I’ll get us started with a couple I’ve recently enjoyed:

How The Mighty Fall by Jim Collins.
You’re probably familiar with Collins from his two best-selling books, Good To Great and Built To Last.  In this book Jim outlines five distinct stages a business goes through as they fall from greatness into decline, and what you can do to avoid them.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
You might remember Malcolm from his earlier books Blink and The Tipping Point.  In Outliers Gladwell attempts to explain why some people are exceptionally talented in certain areas.  In the process you’ll learn what your chances are of making the Canadian National Hockey Team (remote), the secret behind Bill Gates’ genius (not so secret), and how many hours you’ll have to work at something to become a real expert at it (lots).

I can’t wait to get started on my next book, so come on – give us your suggestions!

Chuck Violand

This week’s blog post comes from one of our readers and pertains to the challenge of changing a company’s culture.  This business owner writes:

“How do you effect real change in your businesses culture? It has to start at the top and work down. It also takes a long time. This is something I've struggled with. I'm sure others have too.“

ANY change in business is “real” and should be taken seriously.  As our reader suggests, how that change effects company culture would appear to be driven by the owner and upper management.  HOWEVER, there seems to be a point in a company’s maturity when the inmates take over the asylum, so to speak.  A time when the business owner is at the mercy of the culture that’s been adopted and cultivated by the employees, dictating that change must now be implemented by leadership at a much lower level.  As a result, the question now becomes: Can culture be dictated from the top down or does it need to be adopted from the bottom up?

I would argue that change is adopted and then fostered from the bottom up.  To create a positive culture change business owners must hire for attitude, and enable leaders to have an affirmative impact on the company’s culture at a much lower level.  Whether you agree or disagree, I’m eager to hear your opinions and thoughts.

Tim Hull