Things I learnt running an art show (2)

As I mentioned last week, I recently managed perhaps the largest charity art show in Australia.

It was a great success with profit up 84% from the previous year. Here are some of the things I learnt along the way.

Lesson 1: Get rid of toxic people.

An art show, a dental practice or any business cannot afford to have toxic people. They walk around whining, complaining and bringing everyone down.Among the dental practices I've visited I have seen some absolute shockers.

In one it was the practice manager who used to start every day with a "team" meeting where she administered a verbal flogging to all in attendance.

At the art show we had someone who found everything to be "disgraceful", "hopeless" or "worst ever".

If you want to run a successful practice you simply cannot have such people around. Get rid of them.You would be better off running things with less staff and working harder than put up with toxic people.

At the practice I mentioned above, morale, productivity and profit shot up the instant the toxic staff member was eliminated. Same at the art show.

A great line for such people is: "I don't know how we are ever going to get along without you but, starting tomorrow, we will try."

Life is too short.

Another lesson next week...