Accepting The Truth Is The First Step To Repair

Accepting The Truth Is The First Step To Repair

Sixteen years ago I retired.  I had finished saving my furniture store business from failure.  It is funny what you will forget.  Time will move past those troubled days and they will fade away from your memory.  That furniture store owned some properties, some rentals, some fair assets and a lot of inventory.  It had money in the bank and no payments.  However, I had learned how to produce some side income in two small ventures.  Those small ventures did not require the same full and demanding time requirement that my furniture store operation delivered.  I had spent the last fifteen years of my furniture store ownership recovering from a near bankruptcy 'close call' in that business.  I had just completed a grueling 15-year process of corrections in my operational efforts with that business model.  I was tired and worn out.  When it became solvent, I stepped aside.  I no longer liked what it represented.  That was sixteen years ago.

I still own 25 percent of that business model.  The balance of ownership went to the folks that are running that model to this day, successfully.  My wife works there two days per week.  It is a lot smaller operation than it was during the days when I operated it.  It is scaled down tremendously, but still solvent.  I make absolutely no decisions in that business model.  According to Robert Kiyosaki, the author of "Rich Dad Poor Dad", I am a true business 'owner.'  A true business owner is someone who owns the business but does not need to go to work to make it happen.  Compare that to the person who is self-employed.  Self-employed is someone who owns the business but needs to show up to make it run.  That is how my relationship works with that furniture store operation, at least 25 percent of it.  It remains open and flopping along in this terrible set of economic times.  It still does not interest me.  Digging it out of bankruptcy was a big task.  It wore me out mentally and physically.  It was a very trying process.  Those fifteen years seemed more like 50 years.  When you get behind your finances as deep as I had gotten  it takes a very long time to correct the wrongs and recover from their damage.  In my case, it took fifteen years to complete that recovery.  The process of recovery also took my good spirits away.  It happens.

Since that time, I have been hired twice to help save a business model from failure.  Both times, we were successful in that process.  Each time I do this kind of recovery work, it does not get any easier.  Each business model comes with a separate set of reasons why they were failing to survive.  However, the work needing to be done to help them correct their paths is all the same.  Profits must be generated and money delays must be managed carefully while the correction begins its work.  Each recovering business model must change the way they are doing their business.  Most of those changes come from the top.  The top leadership must make the largest emotional change of effort.  The leadership is doing a lot of stuff wrong.  The leadership is where the problems began, where they are protected and where they need to be altered.  In both of my efforts to repair those failing business models, the person who hired me is the one who needs to be changed.  Try that one on for size!

The only way this kind of work can be effective is for the change agent, me in these cases, needs to be extremely patient in the slowness to change that will occur.  Patience is the key.  Patience will win long term if the work for change is set up correctly.  Stepping on the gas will wreck the ship.  Quietly turn the steering wheel once in awhile will be the better move.  Treat the business model like a really large ship, do not try to turn it around quickly.  You will tip it over.  Go slowly.  You want an effective recovery, not a failed continuation.  Recovery takes a long, long time.

If you are trying to recover from a failing business model, get yourself prepared to spend a lot of hours, a lot of days, a lot of weeks and a lot of months going slower than a turtle.  It takes a long time to make the right things happen that will help your efforts work well for the failing model.  Do not expect quick recovery to occur.  It does not happen that way.  Do not tease yourself into believing that foolish stuff.  The mess the business is in is usually caused by some seriously wrong patterns that are deeply protected by the leadership that got it in that wrong position in the first place.  A failing business model is not an accident.  A failing business model is the by-product of a complete series of leadership wrongs that are stacked on top of each other hidden from the view of its leadership.  Flipping a mirror in front of those failed leaders is not an easy task.  They protect their views deeply.  They will protect those views right to the end of bankruptcy if you allow them to do so.  Many do.  If your business model is struggling to survive, I can bet all of my ownership on the fact that your leadership is somewhere near the roots to the problems your model is experiencing.  In all three of my personal efforts to help struggling business models recover from near failure, the leadership was the key blame.  All three cases.

If you desire to correct what is going wrong with your business model, you are agreeing to correct your ways of operation.  Those ways are the ways you direct your operations to run.  You are going to correct you.  It ain't your business model that is at fault, it is you.  You are likely the reason why failure is lurking.  The next question is this, how well do you like me now?  Get over it and you can learn how to mend what you are doing wrong.  I did.  It is now something that I specialize in doing.  I fix broken business models.  I do that by fixing the wrong leadership that is occurring.  I am not a genius nor someone who is great at building a great business model.  However, I am very patient and know the truth.  I accept the work that needs to be done.  I know the leadership needs to be modified.  I accept that fact and begin making the adjustments in their style with little tiny bites.  If you are one of those leaders who is in my cross hairs I will slowly begin to irritate you.  I will begin to irritate you into making the moves you need to be making.  You will not like me very much.

If You Ignore The Truth, The Fall Could Hurt A Lot!

I went to the local UPS office yesterday with my wife.  She had a large, heavy box to ship out and I promised to help her carry it in.  I was out working in my yard at the time.  I was wrapping up one more landscaping project before the winter sets in.  I was coming down home stretch when she came out to tell me it was time to go.  I dropped my work and helped her do the heavy lifting.

When we arrived to the UPS shipping office we were greeted by a retired US Postal clerk we have known for many years.  He retired from the post office a few years ago.  He was one of the clerks who always met us at the clerk window when we did postal packaging.  We remember when he retired.  It was a big deal.  He was proud of the fact that he was all done going to work.  I remember those days when he would broadcast the countdown for his retirement.  It was a very big deal to him.  Now, here he is, working full time at the UPS office.  We were glad to see him.  We had a great greeting session and some catch-up talk about his wife and family.  However, during that conversation he made it clear that he was still retired.  My wife and I got back into our vehicle when we left the UPS office.  She mentioned this in a statement that sounded like this, "Wow, what an ego out of check!  He is working full time and believes he is retired!"

She summed it up perfectly.  His ego was running out of check.  He was still trying to convince himself that he was still in a place he no longer stood.  For whatever reasons he faced, he was back to full time work.  His mind was not willing to accept what the mirror was reflecting.  Owners of failing business models do this very same thing.  They are not willing to accept the truths that are obvious to others around them.  They lie to themselves enough that they eventually begin to believe the lie.  They will boldly parade that set of lies to everyone around them and most of the others who hear the lies will notice it and fail to hurt their feelings by trying to correct them.  Most who hear the lies will not try to correct the lies.  They will take that wooden nickel and let it be.  They will wander off into the sunset and permit the leader to lie over and over to themselves.  We did exactly that with the UPS retired postal service worker.  We let him lie to himself.

That is how a business leader will be treated when they drift wrongly in their business model and expose how they lie to protect what they are doing wrong.  The folks who work for them will allow them to lie to themselves.  Nobody will try to embarrass them by telling them the truth.  We had the opportunity to correct that UPS clerk but did not mention it.  We could have easily reminded him that he had a UPS uniform on and was processing our tickets for the packaging we were sending.  We did not do that even though he told us he was still retired.  Failed businesses are lead by failed leaders.  They are in charge of what is going wrong.  They wear the uniform but ignore how it looks on them.  They are no different than the clerk at the UPS center who still wanted to believe he was retired.  He was not still retired.  They are the current leader to the failing business model.  It is what it is.  Once that is accepted, the work can now begin on correcting what is being done incorrectly.  Until then, the mind will remain tricked and continue to protect what is not the truth.  It will continue to do what is not good to be done.

Accept the failed methods.  Accept why they are there.  Accept that you can get help.  Your model knows you are lying.  Quit it.  Your employees know that you are lying.  Quit it.  Your bankers know you are lying.  Quit it.  Your creditors know you are lying.  Quit it.  Your friends and family know you are lying.  Quit it.  The only one who does not know he is no longer retired is the clerk at the UPS window.  Everyone else knows.  Quit it.  It looks stupid and silly to continue to protect what is not going well.  Get over it and move on to begin working on the corrections.  The sooner you choose to do that move the sooner your model begins its repair.  Remember, the repair will take a long time to accomplish.  The longer you lie to protect what is going wrong the longer the repair will take.  Knock it off.  Get turned around and begin to work on what needs to be done.  Get over it.  I almost failed and I have a monster ego.  I needed to accept who was wrong and turned myself around.  It worked well.  It still does.  Get turned around.  Accept who is wrong and begin to correct what you are doing wrong.

I hope you do not look like the guy at the UPS office in a UPS uniform with a UPS name tag who tries to tell me he is retired as he processes my shipping material.  We can become this stupid with our lies.  I and my wife were not buying his story.  He was the only buyer in that office at that time.  He had convinced himself of that lie.  He was the only one buying that hogwash.  I now work with owners who behave exactly the same way.

Until next time...