How sane is your business?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. This is not the definition you will find in the dictionary, but I think it sends an important message. The message is that if any sane person can see that if they are doing something and getting a certain result, they will change what they are doing to get a different result.

In the business world, there are many results possible. When it comes to action and results, there is no better place to see the relation. Most businesses have seen very clear examples of how they are related.

When a business runs into a challenging situation, they have many choices. They can make any number of adjustments and see better results if they choose to do so. The best businesses make the best adjustments and eventually see the best results. That is what makes them the best. The ability to adjust and endure the difficult times is what separates the best from the rest.

What areas come to mind when you think about challenges in business? Financial stability is often at the top of the list when it comes to things a company needs to watch. The finances of a company are the most important area. If the finances don’t work, neither does the business.

There are many things that play into the finances of a business. Often it has to do with efficiency and costs of the systems running the business. One system that often gets overlooked is the employees. The employees are a system and they keep a business running…or not.

Every system in a business has a budget, a strategy, a maintenance plan and even a point person to make sure that they are operating within these perimeters. When something goes wrong, there is a series of steps to be taken to get things back on track. The more successful a company is, the quicker and more effectively they can adjust and get things back to the desired function.

What would you say if someone in your company continued to run a program into the ground? What if things kept going over budget and under-performing? That person would not be the “employee of the month”. In fact, they may not have a job for very long.

The company would work tirelessly to figure out a better way to do things. They would place a high priority on cost savings and get things functioning properly again. That would be the ‘sane’ thing for a business to do.

There is an area of business that has shown us a great deal of insanity. It’s called employee health. The cost of healthcare continues to rise. This is not the only area that is more expensive that it once was, but the reasons healthcare has continued to rise is what makes this something to talk about.

Why has healthcare gotten more expensive? It has risen due to mismanagement. Seventy-five percent of our costs are directly related to lifestyle. Smoking, poor nutrition, lack of exercise are causing more and more health problems in our workforce. We are paying more for the conditions that come from these habits.

Wellness is the plan to fix the problem that is causing the rising costs. Just as the task force finds a way to reduce costs of technology or transportation, the wellness team finds ways to help employees get and stay healthy, saving the company money and helping it function more smoothly.

This is the way that successful businesses do it. There is a result that continues to show itself in business. The choice is to change the action that is bringing this result, or deal with the same consequences over and over again. What are you doing to change your results? How sane is your business?