Everyday, business emergencies, crises, and disasters suddenly liberate organizations from the restraints of the institutionalized barriers to performance improvement. These events evoke powerful and dramatic responses that cannot be matched by any of the structured programs and technologies a company may currently use. They can be large or small.
Here’s an example:
When adulterated Tylenol capsules caused the deaths of seven people in September 1982, Johnson & Johnson organized a crash program to protect the public as well as to salvage its #1 brand product. One of the most critical tasks was to design a sealed package. Within seven weeks, a team of engineers and designers had developed and tested a triple-sealed package, redesigned production processes and equipment, developed new package graphics, and moved into full-scale production. Completing this series of complex tasks under normal circumstances would have taken well over one year, nearly two years.
Everyone has these stories and experiences, these miracles. Managers and owners see their people rise to great heights, and then accept it when those same people settle back into “normal.” People think they couldn’t possibly operate at those levels all the time; after all, it was a crisis situation and no one wants to be perpetually “stirred up.” Says one team leader, “We’d all be burned out.”
To me, it’s clear that what managers and/or owners regard as “normal” is really just a fraction of what could actually be achieved. No, I am not suggesting that a business run in “crisis mode” all the time— burn out your resources with sixteen hour days, do one thing well at the expense of others, etc. But what I am definitely saying is that, as a leader, if you examine these “miracle” events you begin to see a pattern of factors that emerge time after time that allow you to catapult through these corporate or built-in barriers. Apply them in an orderly way and you start creating your own “miracles,” building your very own “Catapult Effect.”
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