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Things to celebrate…
Just a couple of weeks ago was Global Entrepreneurship Week. So while we might be bringing this up a little late, we still think it’s worth mentioning! Oakes stands head and shoulders above many other small communities because the spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well here. The only way to have a town filled with the kinds of businesses that people visit and say “I totally didn’t expect to find this here!” is to encourage, nurture, and foster the creativity, passion, and grit of the humans running these businesses. When people get better, everything gets better. Our town started because enterprising people arrived here, dreamed out loud together, and built something from nothing. Let’s celebrate that pioneering spirit that Oakes has always had!
News to know…
On December 14, there will be a hiring workshop for our local employers. Hiring guru, Rikka Brandon, will be live in Oakes to offer a hands-on interactive workshop to support you to write a better job ad and learn best practices to help you find more qualified candidates for open positions. This event will offer both in-person and virtual tickets and you can grab your spot at https://www.growingsmalltowns.
Ideas to spread…
There is a big difference between venting and problem-solving. Nothing can get better if we aren’t willing to openly state and then address the problem. The next time you are facing a challenge, here are four simple steps to help you work through it. First, you have to state the problem. This might seem easy, but take your time with this step and keep asking more questions to get to the root problem. For the second step, you’ll simply list all the potential causes of this problem. Try to avoid assigning blame to people, but rather look at processes and procedures to try and determine where and how things could be improved. In the third step, you’ll brainstorm possible solutions. This can be a freeing activity if you intentionally take off the limiting beliefs and “way we’ve always done it” lenses. The last step is to decide on what seems to be the “best” solution. This process is simple but effective and best used in situations where you personally have a lot of influence over the solution. This can also be a great resource for employees or other stakeholders who “vent” more than they offer quality ideas for making things better. You can walk through this set of steps in real-time with the people bringing complaints forward. It reduces emotion and helps us create a logical, solution-focused conversation.