Like most private equity firms, Bain Capital follows some version of a standard five-step process for turning around companies, so we can expect Romney is thinking in similar terms.

Turning around a business is a lot like handling a medical emergency:

1) Diagnose a problem: Someone falls down on the street and by-passers recognize something is wrong. This person needs help. For corporate turnarounds, the board often notices a problem long before management is willing to admit it.

2) Get a new doctor: Once the problem is diagnosed, we need to bring in an expert or get the patient to the ER, just as companies usually immediately look for new management.

3) Stop the bleeding: The doctor needs to act quickly to stabilize the patient, stop the bleeding, get the heart rate to normal. Once that’s done, we have some time to think. For corporate turnarounds this means stopping all payments, collecting all debt, and shedding off any cash-draining products.

4) Fix it: Now that we have some breathing room, we can investigate what is really wrong and fix it. We take x-rays, operate, put on a cast and let the patient heal in recovery. Corporations need to identify and get rid of losing businesses and emphasize their winners.

5) Live the new normal: The patient is walking the streets again and thinking about bigger and better things. Companies, once recovered, can now start investing in growth and building for the future.

Almost every book and article I’ve found on corporate turnarounds follows some version of this five-step process.

The outcome of the U.S. presidential election then hinges on where the public ultimately believes we are in the process. Democrats naturally argue the bleeding has stopped and we are in the recovery room, probably in step 4. For Republicans to win, they will need to convince voters we are still bleeding and need a new doctor, step 2.

Now you may not be running for president, but you are doing something new in the world. You need investors to fund you, customers to buy from you, and competitors to stay away. Your success in winning the buy-in you need depends to a great extent on where you tell people you are.

Thinking about where I place myself in my story has really proven powerful for me as I promote my book, build my fund, and grow my workshop business. I’ve found people want to be part of something that is just about to happen (step 1 or 2) more than something already underway (step 4 or 5). By crafting my language strategically I can create a sense of excitement and urgency that inspires people to join the movement.

So take a moment now to think ahead of the others. Where are you in your story?

[Image: Flickr user Gage Skidmore]

Last month, 14 percent of the NFIB’s 350,000 members reported an increase in inventories, up three points from January. The share of businesses still reducing stocks fell four points to 20 percent in February. The figures are not adjusted for seasonal variations.

“This is good news for economic growth, as many firms will be ordering new inventory to satisfy customers who are gradually increasing in numbers,” the NFIB said in a statement. The NFIB survey adds to a list of data, including employment, to suggest the economy is now firmly in a self-sustaining growth phase.

Government data on Friday showed job growth exceeded 200,000 in February for a third straight month, with the unemployment rate holding steady at a three year low of 8.3 percent. A build-up of inventories helped to boost gross domestic product in the fourth quarter.

Economists believe businesses have little appetite to add more stocks, which could see growth this quarter slowing from the fourth quarter’s 3 percent annual pace.

In the NFIB survey, plans to increase inventories increased five points in February. The number of business owners reporting stocks were “too low” exceeded those viewing inventories as “too high.” “Overall, it appears that small business owners have reduced inventories to acceptable levels given the outlook for sales growth,” the NFIB said.

In February, more business owners expected sales to increase than in January

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The National Federation of Independent Business said on Tuesday its optimism index increased to 94.3 last month – the highest reading since February 2011 – from 93.9 in January. It was the sixth consecutive month of gains.

Last month, 14 percent of the NFIB’s 350,000 members reported an increase in inventories, up three points from January. The share of businesses still reducing stocks fell four points to 20 percent in February.

The figures are not adjusted for seasonal variations.

“This is good news for economic growth, as many firms will be ordering new inventory to satisfy customers who are gradually increasing in numbers,” the NFIB said in a statement.

The NFIB survey adds to a list of data, including employment, to suggest the economy is now firmly in a self-sustaining growth phase.

Government data on Friday showed job growth exceeded 200,000 in February for a third straight month, with the unemployment rate holding steady at a three year low of 8.3 percent.

A build-up of inventories helped to boost gross domestic product in the fourth quarter.

Economists believe businesses have little appetite to add more stocks, which could see growth this quarter slowing from the fourth quarter’s 3 percent annual pace.

In the NFIB survey, plans to increase inventories increased five points in February. The number of business owners reporting stocks were “too low” exceeded those viewing inventories as “too high.”

“Overall, it appears that small business owners have reduced inventories to acceptable levels given the outlook for sales growth,” the NFIB said.

In February, more business owners expected sales to increase than in January. While the survey found little signs of inflation, despite a spike in gasoline prices, one in five business owners plan to raise prices over the coming months.

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Want to work work smarter–not longer–hours? Start here with advice from Y Combinator, Techstars, Founder Institute, Excelerate Labs, and Seedcamp.

For startup accelerator programs, teaching wannabe entrepreneurs time management skills is critical. These camp-like incubators have one of the steepest learning curves of any professional environment, and making sure entrepreneurs stay productive is the key to success. For startups, managing time is a matter of sink or swim, and infant companies can only succeed if they stay on task.

Of course, balancing your time isn’t reserved for startup founders tackling the first part of their business plan. It applies to anyone who’s eager to work smarter–not longer–hours. So we asked founders and partners at the world’s top accelerator programs for time management tips they always share with bleary-eyed entrepreneurs. Here’s what they said:

1. Avoid the email time suck.

“Email is my worst enemy, so I only check it three times a day,” says Jonathan Greechan, partner at the Founder Institute, an accelerator program in 13 cities around the world. “Keeping email open all day is the quickest way to kill your productivity.” Instead, he’s developed a schedule when dealing with email: “First thing in the morning I glance over most emails and address only the critical ones. Midday I check progress on the critical emails I addressed in the morning. And before I go to sleep my main goal is to clear volume and smaller or menial tasks. On especially busy days I only check twice a day, cutting out the midday scrub.”

Sometimes taking longer to respond can be even more effective, Greechan says: “It may sound bad, but ignoring emails is a good way to make people not as dependent on you–in most cases, they can find the answers or solutions themselves. If you are always quick to answer, they will get lazy and be always quick to ask.”

2. Choose your most important goal each week.

Techstars chief executive David Cohen tells entrepreneurs to focus on one big goal each week. “This mental exercise makes you figure out what really matters, and focus time and energy on it at the cost of other, less important things,” he says. “Focusing on the right priorities can help you do more faster. I remember when Isaac Saldana of SendGrid decided he wanted to bring in an outside CEO. He focused on this until it was finished as his number one priority, and it accelerated the company more than anything else he could have done. Now SendGrid is on fire, and Isaac contributes as the technical leader, which is further propelling the company. It’s all because he focused on the biggest and most important thing through to completion.”

3. Know your productivity limits.

“Most people have a maximum for productivity,” says Troy Henikoff, chief executive of Excelerate Labs in Chicago. “I had an employee that would produce the maximum amount on 55 hours a week. The rest of us had to work 80 hours to get done what he did in 55; but if he worked more than 55, his total productivity started to drop. Make sure you know your limits and the individuals on your team’s limits.”

In addition, be sure you understand the most important tasks that need attention. “Do not get urgent confused with important–it is easy to get sucked into all those urgent issues, but you really should be prioritizing by what is most important,” he adds.

4. Be like Dorsey: Take breaks to prevent burnout.

“We encourage founders to not underestimate the importance of exercise, sleep, and taking breaks to restore energy and creativity,” says Harj Taggar, a partner at Y Combinator in Mountain View, Calif. “It’s better to average eight solid hours of productivity a day than it is to output 12 hours of mediocre ones. [Twitter cofounder] Jack Dorsey is running two $1 billion plus companies and he finds time to take Saturdays off to recharge.”

5. Skip some meetings.

It’s tempting to take every meeting that comes along, but it can be more distracting than productive, says Y Combinator’s Taggar: “Don’t waste time on meetings,” he says. “Once you’re a YC company, there will be an endless stream of people wanting to meet with you–investors or people offering ‘mentorship’ who will pull you in all sorts of different directions. During YC, block these out and focus on the two things above. One meeting can blow an entire day of productivity.”

Techstars’ Cohen tells entrepreneurs to avoid meetings that last longer than half hour. “Meetings with no goal, also known as ‘coffee shop’ meetings, can be huge time wasters if you’re not efficient with them,” says Cohen. “Always know why you’re meeting, and make sure it’s important–try to keep them to 30 minutes, max.”

6. Say “no” when you need to.

Reshma Sohoni, partner at Seedcamp, a venture accelerator in London, tells entrepreneurs that accepting offers of everything from meetings to seemingly related projects can quickly kill productivity. Sohoni teaches newbie founders the importance of saying no. “Entrepreneurs–especially early on–will say yes to everything. It’s really a hard balance to strike,” she says. “Whether that’s in having too many meetings or taking too much on for the team, entrepreneurs really need to make decisions fast about when and where to say no. It’s a critical skill [we] all need to learn.”

Contact: Cecil Dye, The Business Guy cecil@sunbeltnetwork.com

A growing number of small business owners are taking a page from their bigger corporate counterparts and implementing wellness programs for their employees to curtail ever-escalating health care costs. Employers can’t just force everyone to eat tofu and do yoga, however.

That’s why Climax Portable Machine Tools based in Newberg, Ore., is taking its time rolling out a wellness program and using a carrot instead of a stick with its 160 employees. The program implemented in the last year is voluntary. Workers are offered incentives, including getting up to $40 back in their paychecks a month, for getting on the health bandwagon. Among the steps being offered are on-site medical screenings, health and nutritional seminars, daily walks and even a company basketball team.

Climax has seen its health insurance premiums rise as much as 30 percent annually, so a wellness program made sense, said Karen Kinslow, the company’s wellness coordinator. “We really wanted to look after our employees and it really helps the bottom line when you do these things,” she explained.

More small business owners are realizing the same thing. A recent MetLife survey found 29 percent of small businesses offered some sort of wellness options, compared to 22 percent last year, and 16 percent five years ago.

Such programs have been shown to pay off for employers. Research from the Partnership for Prevention found that for every $1 spent on worksite health promotion programs, a company can see an average of $3.50 in savings related to fewer sick days and health care costs. And such programs can be a good thing for employees. An Israeli study showed that employees who engaged in some form of exercise had lower rates of depression and job burnout, according to an article in MyHealthNewsDaily.

But the strong-arm approach to getting workers healthier can run afoul of the nation’s labor laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA. Implementing employee health programs come with many restrictions under several key laws – the ADA, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Under the ADA, employers are prohibited from requiring an employee to take a medical exam, and you can’t require an employee to participate in a wellness program to qualify for health insurance, said Chris Kuczynski, assistant legal counsel, ADA/GINA policy division for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

When it comes to GINA, he continued, “If you’re going to offer an incentive in connection with a health risk assessment or wellness program, you can’t condition that on whether a person gives you family history or genetic information.”

Employers can’t have blanket wellness policies, which is where companies get into the most trouble, Kuczynski stressed. If a worker is unable to engage in certain exercises because of an underlying medical condition that is beyond his control, such as a thyroid gland disorder or high blood pressure, employers can’t penalize the employee for not participating.

Climax has been cautious when implementing methods to encourage workers to participate.

Kinslow talks to workers individually and helps them come up with other options if they can’t do things like running a 5K. Employees can get points, which translate into dollars, if they attend nutrition or stress-reduction seminars on-site, or even if they take a healthy-eating cooking class. And, she added, some employees may not want their wellness tied directly to work, so they could get points for teaching a karate class to kids, for example.

When providing rewards there are limits, especially as they relate to health insurance premiums. Companies are increasingly offering employees breaks on their healthcare premiums as incentives to participate in wellness programs, but there are strict requirements under HIPAA on how that can be done. The total award must not exceed 20 percent of an employees total coverage cost. Under a provision in health care reform that number will go up to 30 percent in 2014.

As far as medical privacy restrictions, health screenings that are done by the employer must be strictly confidential. “They always have to be careful with where data goes and their access to that data,” said Joe Ellis, senior vice president at CBIZ Benefits & Insurance Services, an employee benefits consulting firm. “The employer would never see an individual’s data but they could see aggregate data.”

Another problem is potential injuries workers could sustain while exercising during work hours.

Late last year, Ged King, president of The Sales Factory, a marketing agency in Greensboro, N.C., bought four Trek commuter bicycles for employees to use on lunch runs, errands or leisurely rides.

The bikes are part of a wellness strategy King devised to help his staff of 27 get healthier.

His plan also includes rewarding workers prizes — everything from $25 gift cards to iPods — if they exercise more, including biking, running, or even gardening. “It makes for happier people who are more excited to come to work,” he said about the wellness program that launched last month. “You can’t be creative if you don’t feel good.”

To deal with the issue of injuries, employees at The Sales Factory were all asked to sign a “Bicycle Release Form” before King purchased the bikes. The release stated that workers were assuming “all personal liability in case of injury”.

Employees were also asked to promise to wear helmets, which he provided, when they take the bikes out. The goal of the wellness plan, King stressed, “is to make sure we’re healthier.”

An employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) is an employee benefit plan that makes the employees of a company owners of stock in that company.

Companies such as Dansko, which designs and sells comfort footwear, are adopting the ownership plan for their companies to preserve corporate culture and keep employees engaged in the business.