Why is the old adage “The Baker doesn’t bake his own bread” such a common truth? I know it is far too easy for me to get bogged down in my work and let that what it is that I preach escape practice in our own business.

It is not always an easy task to stop and take an unbiased look at the business you run day to day. Even more when it is a focused critique about everything you are doing to make the hard but necessary changes to steer your business into the future. This is more difficult when it requires you to kill the old cash cow that hogs your resources and keeps you welded to the past and from your real objectives and ultimately achieving greatness.

To practice what we preach we’ve successfully implemented a series of “Evolution of The Sponge” planning days. They have been spread over a period of a 6 weeks and have had the involvement of the key people within The Sponge and externally. The outcome has been extremely positive, refreshing and bonding to put it simply. Now we have an empowering new Vision, Mission and set of Core Values that will guide all our actions and choices here in. I want to share them with you because we feel they are powerful. The words are being finalized now and will be published to here soon.

The other key outcomes of the Evolution planning day series are a road map for the next 12 months at The Sponge which includes:

• the redefinition of the category in which we play (work)
• the services which we are amputating
• the services we are focusing on
• our new internship program
• stronger Sponge culture
• new facility layout
• promotions and budgets
• goals
• definition of 4 new roles that we need filled.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the Evolution of The Sponge experience and as a result we are already more profitable and working better together. There is a level of positivity that we have not experienced before and that is quite exciting, I only wish we had done it sooner. Practice what you preach.