When talking to a large carrier earlier this week, we shared our thoughts on having to cut back staff,  work harder and do more with less. Our experiences were surprisingly similar though he had thousands of employees and I had just shy of a dozen. Today’s management is extremely hands on and the people that make up our trimmed down teams are communicating better and operating at higher efficiency levels. At some point, things could start falling through the cracks, but right now most companies, big and small are getting the job done right with fewer hands.

I think it’s great that big business can find their inner small enterprise…even if it took a recession to do it. Wouldn’t it be super if corporations could emulate these small business attributes as they add numbers to their ranks, in a recovering economy:

1. Keep politics and gossip out of the workplace
2. For the most part, have the left hand know what the right hand is doing
3. Don’t spend your day putting out fires by having the right people on board who can prevent them
4. Know people by name and  encourage a team atmosphere
5. Don’t waste time pointing fingers or placing blame
6. Initiate change swiftly and avoid a structure crippled by red tape and process
7. Spend less time “covering your ass” so you can “whoop-ass” instead
8. See lemons turn to lemonade daily… and at the end of each day stand proud (pun intended)

Lee’s quote for the day:

“The main reason I started my own business was at the time, I just didn’t know any better”

I came into work a little bit late yesterday only to find the office buzzing with excitement and smiles everywhere. Did we land a big sale? Did someone win the Lotto? Not exactly…

Somehow a bright yellow condom (out of the wrapper) made it on to the floor of the art department. It appeared out of nowhere and theories of how this little bit of sunshine entered our domicile were rampant most of the day.

Going backwards for a moment, our people are predominantly thinkers or administrators so it is a pretty quiet environment most of the time, with our team channelling their energy into producing highly creative solutions for our clients marketing requirements. A pretty subdued bunch for the most part and very focused on meeting daily commitments.

Back to our story… I’ve never seen so many smiles or such a light atmosphere in our office ever. Spirits were over the top and so were the scenarios people came up with regarding our mysterious visitor. Now I’m pretty sure we don’t have any inter office romances and at the end of the day, the theories of choice were that the bright yellow condom hitched a ride on the bottom of someone’s shoe or we have a silent prankster in our midst. But how and why isn’t really the point…

We’ve spent thousands of dollars this year creating a more conducive environment for our ad agency to reside in. Lots of meeting rooms, loft style open ceilings, soothing colours, large whiteboards, pool tables, big screen TV’s and video games. It appears all we had to do to achieve the desired effect was spend a buck on a bright yellow condom!

The morale of the story in marketing as in life is that almost always the best solutions are simple. If they’re not staring us straight in the face, look around or take a quick glance down, the answer is there somewhere waiting to be discovered.