It’s not often I go to the gym at 6.30 in a morning, I usually prefer midday to give me a break during work.
But today I was up early, the sun was shining and I felt great. So a workout and a swim before work seemed a good idea.

I now regret not having been at this time before. The amount you learn about what’s happening in business is really interesting.
Makes the BBC’s Today programme look positively short of news.

For instance today’s headlines from the gym are:

“Kevin’s just not pulling his weight…”
and as he’s responsible for increasing sales and as they are targeted on a team result it’s not pleasing the rest of his team. The boss won’t find out till it’s too late to meet target because if he’s so stupid that he can’t see it himself then it’s his look-out.

“The new sales push will knock the competition for six”
A company has come up with a new product and pricing structure to steal some of the competition’s major clients in September. By the time the competition has leant what’s happening it’ll be too late for them to do much.

Preparing for the future
Having listened to all this news I wondered if the boss did know about Kevin, or was he relying on monthly statistics. If he’s relying on the sales stats he will have little chance of reversing the situation before targets become impossible to be met.

More imporantly, does the competition not know that they are about to have their sales attacked? If the new product line and pricing structure is as effective and destructive as anticipated then there will be a panic and a rush to “Fix the problem” in September. In my experience this will always be a costly and time consuming exercise.

The gym’s news confirms that It’s always worth having an early warning system to identify what the future might bring and obviously the Gym at 6.30 is a place I will be going to more often.

As for my early warning system…I think the picture below shows my future

I always find January in my gym difficult. It’s packed with people with good intentions that have made New Year resolutions. However, generally, by mid February the status-quo has been restored and I can find exercise machines, mats and weights easily available. I guess the same goes for other resolutions such as stopping smoking or saving more money.

Team resolutions
Resolutions that do seem to succeed are those made where the results are also monitored by other people and one can be held to account. I was thinking last night if it would be more sensible to make business team resolutions that would improve team effectiveness?
Some I might consider:

• Arriving on time for meetings
• Replying to e-mail within 24 hours
• Providing more support to other team members
• Holding more regular meetings
• keeping meetings to time

What would be your ideas?
Happy New Year to all