Leadership The future of the cleaning industry is in your hands. By: James Madison A Vacuum T The cleaning industry has benefited enormously from countless innovations in chemicals, equip-ment and techniques over the past 20 years. Green chemicals, microfiber cleaning cloths and improved production rates all bear witness to this periodʼs progress. Inversely, while those progressive operational transformations were moving the industry for-ward, a vacuum of leadership apparently emerged. As effectively as a dual-motor upright pulls dirt from carpet, this disparaging vacuum has effec-tively been removing common sense, ethics, courage, loyalty and most of the fun from the fab-ric of the cleaning industry. Concurrently, the vacuumʼs beater bar snagged a revenue thread and caused a devastating “run” Of James Madison is the founder of Clean Advice LLC, a company that offers janitorial solutions support to building owners and managers, facility manage-ment companies and service providers. Utilizing innova-tive technologies and decades of industry expert-ise, Clean Advice delivers reliable, accurate and sus-tainable cleaning solutions while supplying actionable documentation based on objective expert observations and quantitative analysis. For more information, con-tact Clean Advice at [email protected]. in operational soundness, abridging the cleaning industryʼs potential. Everyone connected to the cleaning industry has been negatively affected by this vacuum. Correspondingly, professionalism, profits and salaries have all suffered a steady decline. Unlike a shop vacuum, just reversing the airflow wonʼt put back what was sucked out of our indus-try leadership. Itʼs time to pull the plug on this vacuum of lead-ership and take back the future of our beloved cleaning industry. Communications Cowards Leaders used to have what were referred to as “open door” policies: They were accessible and available to their employees. for more info Visit www.cmmonline.com and type in search keyword: Management . For more information on related products, visit www.cmmonline.com , select SUPPLIER SEARCH from the main navigation bar, and enter keyword: Consulting . Effectively communicating job functions and expectations to employees can help eliminate the lack of leadership and contribute to more consistent cleaning. 34 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • April 2010 Image courtesy of Tornado Industries Inc.
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