Curious, when you hurt yourself or if you’re experiencing pain …how do you react?
Are you more of the “Ignore It” type – you ignore the pain and get on with it?
Are you the “Band-Aid” type – you throw a band-aid or bandage on it and hope for the best?
Or are you the “R&R” type – you stop and take time to assess and understand what’s actually going on in your body so you can then REPAIR and RECOVER.
So many people ignore the signs and signals of deeper problems treating them with a ‘surface clean’ or ‘band-aid’ refusing to make or take the time to understand (review or research) what is actually going on at a deeper level.
This is a recipe for disaster in business.
Because what happens if you ignore the pains? The cracks become gaps and they only get worse with time.
Headaches rarely vanish by themselves. They get worse and can become migraines.
An untreated cut can become infected and very painful.
However, it’s actually not about simply treating the headache either. If you only look at the surface symptoms without getting an understanding of root cause, you’re really only looking at it from a superficial level.
You’ve gotta go deeper!
Because popping a Nurofen or Advil might help for the short-term pain of a headache. Yet it isn’t actually going to solve the longer-term problems of dehydration, tight neck muscles because of too much technology time or lack of sleep or stress because you have way too much on your plate.
So back to what type are you?
Usually, most people would say well it totally depends on how severe it is… a bump, a bruise, a cut, full of blood!
So true, however, the thing is…What happens if you don’t actually know?
You know there is pain there, yet you can’t actually see what’s going on. There is not yet visual proof of the injury or hurt. You can feel something is wrong…
It looks relatively harmless, yet there could be more damage further down, deeper or underneath the surface.
At first, small pains and injuries can seem harmless yet, if they’re left untreated, ignored or avoided (because it seems too hard or there aren’t enough hours in the days)…
Well, they’ll only get worse and then they become even harder to overcome and repair.
In business, we can use band-aids as short-term fixes however invariably that’s purely at a superficial level.
It rarely solves the root cause of the problem.
What cracks or gaps can you currently see in the business?
Have you tried the band-aid fix?
How did that go for you?
What cracks or gaps do you know are in the business, that you can’t actually see?
Yet common sense or intuition tells you they’re there, but if you’re being honest, you’ve been ignoring them?
Are there bigger (deeper) problems that are actually really the issue going on?
If we avoid looking at the root cause behind issues, problems and paid, then guess what?
This won’t be the first or last time they will occur or come up.
In fact, it’s very likely they will keep on happening.
So where does the root cause lie?
Back to the headache…
Are you feeling overstretched because the business is poorly resourced? (Always keep in mind it’s about quality, not quantity) and as a business leader (whether you or higher powers) say we or I can’t afford to hire more people…. Can you afford not to?
Is the root source of the problem a gap in the communications?
Often this can be a lack of communication around the vision, the purpose, the ideal customer, the ideal team members, the strategies, accountability and responsibility. Not communicating well in this department leads to frustrations, anger, fear and pain.
Whether it’s you running the business solo or with your quality team.
Pain in business can be fixed.
Most businesses try the band-aid approach and it doesn’t work.
Oddly enough, I see most of the root cause of pain in business comes down to 2 key things.
Ineffective communication and lack of accountability.
As leaders, if we’re not communicating well (even if we think we are…!) the only measure of that is the response of the team or our customers.
That’s where accountability comes in. We can blame the pain on others or other things or do we stand up and take responsibility and action.
Here’s how you can check in on some of the small cracks or big gaps in the business?
1) The meaning of communication is the response you get
What responses are you getting?
Are your team taking action and doing what’s required?
If you’ve already ‘said’ it 100x, is it time to say it again in a different way?
Are you better at communicating the ‘how’, the ‘what’ or the ‘why in the business?
Have you forgotten about communicating the ‘who?’
2) No Failure only Feedback
What is already working really well?
What needs tweaking?
What can be improved?
What are 3 small actions you and/or the team can take to improve the core of the business?
3) Take 100% Responsibility
Stop blaming, justifying or defending what’s not working well.
It’s time to own it, as an individual, as a team and as a business.
So many businesses are so busy justifying themselves, putting on band-aids and blaming the external environment (the market, currency exchange, competitors, weather, location of the business, lack of good people to hire, technology, the customers, the product (it’s not good enough and we need to change it).
Excuse after excuse – it’s easy to blame everything else rather than take ownership and responsibility for what is going on (or not) and what needs to happen.
Is it time for you to look at what needs REPAIR and RECOVERY in the business.
What needs to be healed? Are there cuts and grazes they need some attention?
What is a ‘disaster’ waiting to happen, that you’ve been avoiding or ignoring for a while now?
Own it, assess and take action.
Genevieve “Fixer” Matthews
