The Laundry of Doing Business

Every weekend, my husband, James, and I make an attempt to get all of our weekly chores done-you know...mow the yard, do the laundry, clean the house, etc. We usually break up the chores in the usual man/woman way-he does the outside "man-stuff" and I do everything else that provides that I can be in the A/C and watching some embarrassingly woman-oriented TV programming. Plus, it drives me INSANE to watch him try to fold laundry-especially the towels because (obviously) there is a right way and wrong way to fold towels. I know the right way and well..... he just doesn't. I have folded or closely supervised every towel that has come through our house for the past six years because of the fundamental idea that if it is to be done correctly, then it must be done by me or at the very least, watch James like a hawk.

Lately,I have been reading about Jim Reinhart, a supply chain VP at Capitol One. He was once in charge of revamping their work flow in an effort to save time and money. Instead of evaluating the situation himself, Reinhart sought out the opinions of customers and employees-i.e.-the ones that were directly dealing with the work flow. While many thought his idea was crazy, it proved to be incredibly successful as the employees felt that their ideas were being heard and felt a sense of team spirit. Besides that, they offered a lot of really valuable suggestions. His conclusion was that being willing to look objectively at your business through the eyes of others was not a sign of weakness, but of strength. We cannot fix a problem that we are unaware of.

I think that my laundry world and the small business world have a lot of parallels. It is so easy to get caught up in this idea that "I must do everything in order for my business (or laundry!) to thrive". Besides conveying to our employees (and my husband) that we really don't trust all of the hard work that they do, it also leaves no time for self-evaluation. All small business owners know that we have an ego-and rightfully so. However, if this ego gets in the way of the ability to thoughtfully look at our business and evaluate what is and is not working -it is a recipe for disaster.


I think Reinhart was right-and so I release the fine art of towel folding.