We started a monthly “Sharing of the Mind” lunch where members of the team taught a specific topic over a brown bag lunch. This allowed members of the team to demonstrate their expertise and simultaneously cross-train members of the group. We occasionally had outside visitors – including the CEO & CIO – share in the experience and learn from members of the team.

Take an opportunity to hold a seminar in your team and let your coworkers teach you.

There are a lot of people who are great at “activity,” but you need to reward and focus on productivity. ‘Activity’ doesn’t build a multimillion dollar business, close the sale on the next big contract, or create a killer website. Focus your efforts on improving productivity and quit being so concerned about the hours someone puts in. Are the hours paying off?

1. Educate yourself. The first step to finding out what you need to know is to identify what you do not know. Technology changes so rapidly that you need to educate your management team about the web and what you’re missing out on.
2. Find the web leaders. You may not know, but there are probably several people inside your company who are cutting edge, web savvy individuals outside of work who are always talking about how far behind the firm is online. Find those employees and engage with them to get input on what your company is missing online.
3. Don’t waste a bunch of time with consultants. I’ve seen several firms spend gobs of cash on outside consultants to help define what they’re missing when they’re missing everything. The reports and feedback they receive is so elementary that the exercise is a waste of money and time. Don’t bring in the consultants until you get the basics down.
4. Engage with your customers. Find out what your customers expect from you on the web. Just ask – send them a survey, call them, send them an email. Don’t delay or commission a study. Don’t waste money on companies who promise to tell you what a sampling of your customer base expects, find out for yourself.
5. Use open source technologies. Too many firms go after what they think is an enterprise solution when what they need is a working solution. Don’t overlook PHP, WordPress, Apache, or MySQL as a solution for what you need. Cost and technology are no longer issues – or excuses.
6. Take it incrementally – but do something. It’s not enough to plan a strategy or business plan and then never do anything with it. Start small (think: open a Twitter account for customer service and interact with your customers) and expand out as you get buy-in – and most importantly, as you generate results for the company.

As you bring customers or others into your work area, show them the bowl and explain what it is.

1. The restaurant is failing because of a combination of over ambitious menus, lack of a clear strategy, the wrong personnel, poor public image, and denial by the owner.
2. Gordon performs an honest assessment with his own opinion combined with a survey of people “on the street” near the restaurant.
3. Typically, the restaurant needs some staff changes to get the right people in the right positions for success.
4. Gordon identifies the core problems and designs an action plan to rectify the situation.
5. Though he receives push back from the existing staff (and many an owner), he pushes forward until his plan is implemented.

The show teaches many lessons for managers seeking to turnaround a business or department.