How HEALTHY Is Your Business?
Conducting a “Business Body Scan”
By Rosemary DiDio Brehm

“Prescription without Diagnosis is Malpractice!”

I don’t know the source of this quote, but I often think of it whenever something in my business needs fixing. It springs to mind now as I develop my business plan for next year.

How much diagnosis, on a regular basis, do you do for your business?
If you are like me, this deep analysis is always on my to-do list. Sure, I react to ailments in my business, but I seldom do a full business body scan. Sometimes, I leap before I look and waste time and money by prescribing, without fully knowing what is going on in my business.

This is the year to change that. November is the perfect time to do a full body scan of your business. There are many ways to measure company health. Here are some diagnostic questions to help you avoid malpractice.

Brain Health - How do you exercise your company’s brain functions?

• Do you set up collaborative brain trusts and use the genius of the group to come up with the big ideas and the big answers?

• Do you have customers, former customers, prospective customers, and suppliers in your brain trust?

• Do you recruit left brain logic and right brain creativity to your teams?

• Do you strengthen your company’s EQ (Emotional Quotient) by teaching employees to use their emotional intelligence to perceive and manage emotions?

• Do you fortify your company’s skills with training and lifelong learning opportunities?

Heart Health - How do you measure your company’s heartfelt passions?

• Do you review your mission statement and core values to ensure alignment with your core business and core passions?

• Do the hearts of your employees, clients, and suppliers beat to the same rhythm?

• Do you triage problems as they occur and teach your employees Company CPR, in order to resuscitate the business quickly and avoid Intensive Care specialists?

Eye Health - How clearly does your company see?

• Does your company have a clear and powerful vision?

• Do you look outside your viewpoint for new ways to bring your business to new heights?

• Do you and your employees see trends before your competitors do?

Ear Health - How actively does your company listen?

• Do you schedule time to listen? Do you hold customer focus groups, employee town hall meetings, and supplier appreciation sessions?

• Do you listen to contrary ideas that may be difficult to hear?

• Are you and your employees listening twice as often as speaking?

Oral Health - How consistently and professionally does your company communicate?

• Do you conduct annual communication surveys to measure message effectiveness?

• Do you have best practices for all company communications? Do you teach and enforce them?

• Do you sell your business services though powerful stories?

• Do employees have frequent face-to-face communication time? Have you considered “email-free Fridays” to increase internal company connections?

Shoulder Health - How does your company shoulder the weight of business change?

• Do you teach change management strategies to adapt to and manage change?

• Do you hold supportive peer group meetings to help employees fortify each other during successful times and during challenging situations?

• Do you teach company relaxation techniques?

Stomach Health - How gutsy is your company concerning risk and conflict?

• Do you have risk and conflict management plans?

• Do you have a “risk-ready” team to assess, measure, and respond when risk enters your business equation?

• Do you teach your teams how to turn unhealthy conflict into healthy conflict to get better results?

• Does your company make hard and unpopular decisions when required?

“Pocket” Health - How and when do you measure your financial health?

• Do you and your employees read and understand company financial statements?

• Do you take your financial temperature every day?

• Do you go deeper into your financial analysis and hire someone to help you plan ahead?

• Do you engage employees in keeping the company financially healthy?

Hand Health - How hands-on are you?

• Do you hold your stakeholders in high esteem?

• Do you frequently give a round of applause to show company appreciation?

• Do you juggle priorities without stress?

• Do you extend company hands to your community when needed?

Leg Health - How do you prepare for the marathon race of business?

• Do you take the time to stretch and work the kinks out before your start a new project?

• Do you pace your company so you don’t get winded and miss the finish line?

• Do you walk many paths to find the best answers for your customers?

Conducting this full business body scan will allow you to write yourself a healthy prescription to fortify your business in 2009.

And if you feel a headache coming on as you read this article, take two aspirins and call me in the morning. I will help you get started. You will feel so much better on January 1st!

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Rosemary DiDio Brehm, President of turningpoints2results and Facilitator of the Tampa Bay Women Presidents’ Organization, is an organizational strategist who helps businesses work on their strategic, leadership and team health. Contact Rosemary at 727-443-0319, Article Published: November / December 2008

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