Finding Your Business Comfort Zone, A Dangerous Place To Live.

Jelly Fish Are Slippery And Can Sting, So Are Humans.

It feels good to take a healthy power nap.  It also feels good to take a very hot, long shower.  I think it also feels good to enjoy a well-prepared meal.  A back massage feels good, too.  I especially like a really good neck massage.  One of my favorite feel good things is to go on a warm, long Harley ride.  All of these things hit the comfort zone for me.

I also like for my business experiences to 'hit' stride with everything going smoothly and delivering good returns.  That becomes a great comfort zone, as well.  When my office work is completely finished on time, in routine and ready for the next step to begin, I am happy.  That is when my comfort zone is maxed.  When my staff and associates are productive, on point and settled in each day without conflict I am standing next to another area of comfort zone.  Finding your comfort zone is an important tool to knowing the current health of your business affairs.  Where are your comfort zones?

Some business leaders are not happy with non-conflict atmospheres.  They need conflict in order to feel comfortable about their business duties.  I have worked for many of these people.  They come to work each day with a chip on their shoulder.  It is usually a different chip each time, too.  Today they may be dissatisfied with the delivery system they have in place.  Tomorrow it may be how the invoices are being processed.  A different problem for each different day.  These types of business leaders have developed this leadership pattern of conflict as being the place where they feel the most comfortable.

Some business leaders are the most comfortable when they can get away from the conflicts their business model generates.  As each new day wears on, the problems that keep popping up drive them crazy enough to want to leave the office early.  They find unique excuses to get away.  They have meetings to attend, some appointments to keep and arrange all kinds of excuses to exit the building.  These kinds of business leaders work overtime on finding ways to 'get away' from the conflicts and decisions they face.  This provides comfort for them.

Everyone has a style of operation that produces what they feel the most comfortable in doing.  We all have our comfort zones.  Our comfort zones can grow to become our method of operations.  We live our business lives trying to circle these desires.  Without much notice, we arrange our working patterns around our desires to find where our comfort zones prefer to live.  If we like 'shooting the shit' with whomever comes into our office, we work to make that kind of event occur more often.  It will eventually dominate our desk duties.  Our comfort zones drive how we function in our business leadership roles.  Each of us will do what it takes to deny this predictable pattern.  I am guilty.

However, the truth is the truth.  I have certain characteristics in my management style that dominate how I function.  The most prominent ones lean close to where my comfort zones live.  I can be defined by the comfort zones I prefer to flex the most.  Those patterns become who I am, how I manage my business affairs and where my associates and staff learn about how I function.  I will telegraph the pleasure buttons I support the most.  I will eventually reflect what I prefer to do in my business day.  My comfort zones will see to it.

This is exactly what makes my comfort zones so dangerous to reveal.  In a business atmosphere, revealing my comfort zones can easily become a dangerous place to live.  It may tip my hand more than what the business plans should reveal.  It may also interfere with placing the right kinds of pressure on the right kinds of things at the right kind of time.  This is the place where some interesting magic takes place in every business model.  Be very aware of how your comfort zones relate to performing the stronger leadership tasks your business model needs to maintain.  In short, stay a bit more edgy and a little less predictable about where your comfort zones reside.

Find your comfort zones, but keep them aloof.

Here's why.

Page two.

Even Though They Can Sting, They Can Also Become Very Efficient.

Sometimes I stand back and watch my wife move.  I make no effort to telegraph that I am watching her.  I have it in my mind to examine how she moves.  I will appear as though I am reading a magazine, Kindle, a newspaper or watching a game on the screen.  Instead, I am paying close attention to what she is doing and how she is doing it.  I might observe her motions for as much as a couple of hours.  I will also perform this observation technique a few times per month.  This way I can see where she prefers to arrive in her comfort zones.  Her motions will telegraph where that is.

Once I notice where her comfort zones land, I can begin to see where she prefers to be.  It becomes very predictable.  Imagine how useful this information can become.  When we are pinched for productivity, adversity or tall challenges in our lives it becomes very useful to know where your mate feels the most comfortable in doing when tough decisions must be made.  It helps produce better sets of useful decisions.

This is very true for a business model.  Your associates, staff and employees are vital parts of your overall decision-making models.  They play strong in your ultimate plans.  When your staff is disrupted, taken off their productive course your business suffers.  Productivity falls while profits diminish.  In fact, the potential for costly errors increases when your staff gets bumped off their course of routine production.  That is one of the reasons why obstacles in business are not a welcomed sight.  Obstacles arrive to disrupt the comfort zone flow.  This increases the level of dissatisfaction and promotes more error.  These two elements have a tendency to damage the business model somewhere.

When you know where their comfort zones run, you can head off the obstacles that produce the most likely damage your business may face.  It may seem silly and a bit on the side of over-kill to be paying attention to these kinds of details, but trust me, the best business leaders do this kind of work often and silently.  They pay very close attention to the comfort zones their business supports.  The business models that reach a higher level of this kind of detail work are the models that become the toughest ones to beat.  They are the business models led by a strong and savvy leader.

However, there is risk in managing these things.  Very few people like to be recognized as being predictable.  In fact, most will say they are not predictable.  They will deny it when you define where their comfort zones reside.  It makes them feel vulnerable.  When they feel predictable they therefore feel more able to be better controlled by someone else.  This may result in them feeling like they are less manageable to themselves.  It is an interesting human trait.  We want the safety to be employed, but we also want the independence to manage ourselves.  We do not want to be controlled.  If someone discovers what our true comfort zones are they increase their potential to be able to lay successful control over our lives.  We feel threatened by this potential.

This kind of discovery helps to reveal how knowing your business comfort zone can become a very dangerous thing to manage.  Not only are we hard to predict ourselves, even though we are very predictable souls, others become threatened when we begin the work to find their comfort zones.  A good business leader will soon discover the art of chameleon work.  They will watch their associates and staff work in a way that does not reveal how they are watching them.  They will pay enough attention to the details of preferences in order to discover where each particular comfort zone lives.  With that information, the best leaders will manage their relationships in a better and more productive fashion using full respect for knowing what makes the others tick.  Make sure you keep an arms distance away from the dangerous ground where comfort zones live.

Managing people is not easy work.  It carries some slippery slopes.  However, if you desire your business model to become more productive, better managed and increasing market shares and profits...your relationship management needs to improve.  Get closer to the truth about comfort zones.  Help mange them in a more useful, respectful and profitable fashion.  Work extra hard on avoiding the dangerous fall outs that can occur.

Until next time...