Implementing Best Practices Is Not Easy

Last Spring I heard Brian Scudamore, the founder and CEO of 1-800-Got-Junk, speak at an Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO) conference. To say that he was inspiring would be an under statement. I can see why Brian was able to turn everyone else’s junk into a $400 million + business and have fun while doing it. I took home some interesting “best practices” that I swore I would implement right away. Hmm, didn’t happen.

As fate would have it, looks like I needed a reminder. Several months ago the former COO of 1-800-Got-Junk spoke at a local EO event and was just as inspirational as Brian was. It was high time start implementing these best practices at Zoe Foods. Well, I didn’t start right away, but swore I’d get started as soon as our granolas had been reformulated and that I had some new hires up and running.
I now have a terrific team and we have just finished reformulating Zoe’s Granola to taste better than ever, and with even better nutrition. We’ve also revamped our website, and I have faithfully been writing my blog for a couple of months. I think that day has arrived and it’s high time to start to implement what I learned from 1-800-Got-Junk. Besides, if Scudamore could create a $400 million business from other people’s junk, I should be able to create a successful company by creating foods that taste great and are good for you. Sounds easy!
The two best practices that I learned from Scudamore that Zoe Foods will be implementing are: Daily Huddles, and “The Painted Picture”. Daily huddles start this week at Zoe Foods. Simply put, they are an all company meeting for seven minutes in which “wins” and “stucks” are brought up. The goal is to facilitate communication and hold each other accountable. The discussion and decision making takes place after the huddle. I admit that I’m a little dubious about these daily huddles, but it seems to be a common practice among successful, fellow EO members in Boston, so worth a try! Scudamore’s “Painted Picture” took me a little over a day to create. It is a two-page document describing Zoe Foods looking three years forward.
As I started to write the Painted Picture I used the future tense. Suddenly I remembered the book, The Secret. I threw out what I wrote, started over and wrote in the present tense. So this is what a vision is all about! I needed to be experiencing what it was like to have already grown Zoe Foods now, not talk about what I’d like it to be three years hence.
Athletes always talk about envisioning their performance before they actually compete. I realize that writing a vision for a company is no different, just more complex because so many more people are necessary to make it happen.
On that note, I think it’s time to go watch some more of the Olympics to see what Best Practices I can glean from these most incredible athletes.