When these small business owners work their way into this kind of groove, they become so emotionally buried into the depths of their being that they cannot see, think, imagine or do anything outside of the way they see their business performing. Small business owners are completely consumed by the circumstances they face in their small business activities. Their business has grown up in their life and has taken all of it by the tail. It is very much like watching the tail wag the dog. The dog no longer has control of how the tail wags. The tail becomes the boss. The tail defines the owner. The only thing that appears normal when this stage of life is reached by the small business owner, is that the tail is still attached to the body. Seeing the tail attached to the body is the only normal thing remaining to be seen. Everything else becomes a blur of wrongful reactions...tolerated for the sake of supporting the business struggles. The small business owner is finally captured by the net of owning that small business model. End of second seminar.
Coming this October first will be the completion of my fortieth year of being a part of managing some kind of small business. Forty years doing stuff that a small business owner does. That is an amazing process to describe. It has become a long history of ups and downs. Good times were had and awful things have occurred. Family damages run common. Trust has been built and trust has been broken. Shame has been avoided on most fronts and public surfaces but lurks heavily under the top of the skin where it bubbles on fire with threatening reminders. Every small business owner completely understands what I just described. The public eye sees a lot of what is not really going on, inside. Inside the soul of the ones in charge is a long list of serious challenges being managed away from everyone they can afford to avoid. This is how the heart of a small business owner behaves. They work diligently to avoid showing the bruises they acquire. They spend "over-time" energy cleaning up the face after it has been damaged with loss. The small business owner has the real view of how bad circumstances burn hard behind closed doors. They spin this view out of the sight of anyone who could judge them wrongly. End of third seminar.
How much pressure can one person endure? How much secrecy can one small business owner protect? How much strength will it take to admit lacking the skills to win more often? These are some of the quiet questions a small business owner ponders. They wrestle inside their minds about revealing bad stuff that reflects the truth about the weakness they own. Remember, their small business has grown up to define who they are. If that small business has developed some serious problems, it will not reflect well on the character and knowledge of the owners skills. Bad things happen to every small business. Everyone gets behind on their payment obligations. It happens to everyone, some time or another. Unfortunately, each small business owner does not understand this simple truth. Hence, the spin to protect this truth begins its motions. The small business owner starts to work more on hiding these rotten truths long before any one of them can become comfortably resolved. They spend countless hours and too much energy on protecting the wrongs they have come to protect. The messes they grow to protect and manage become suppressed beneath the sight of others. It becomes some of the most serious work these owners have ever performed. In addition to becoming consumed by this "personal protection" game, they avoid the help that others can share. Pride takes over. Pride expands to cover every surface it can find. Pride wins this war. End of seminar number four.
Small business leadership is not the work for a weakened heart. It will weaken a heart, but it cannot be managed by a weakened heart. This is where the collision occurs. When the challenges grow too big for the owner to manage the suppression gets set on fire. No fire will burn under control when the suppression is fueled by the wrong prevention techniques. No man is an island. No island is a part of a larger country. And no connections to a larger country becomes the first break of some needed help. Most small business owners wait too long before they ask for help. They allow the gusty winds of the small business world to blow down their house and destroy their properties of protection well before the real hurricane comes to shore. It is when that real hurricane hits and everything begins to fly away into the sea that this small business owner cries for help on this tiny island. They send out messages that describe the winds that have taken them down. The storm they define becomes the reasons why they admit their loss. A really bad storm becomes an acceptable excuse for they way their business never performed. This becomes the best time to begin the work on repairing the loss. Hopefully, the helpers arrive and do not investigate how the home and the properties where not initially built to survive these winds. No blame may be found and the repairs can come about without injuring or bruising the ego at hand. This is how the small business owner will spin what has been going on wrong, all along. End of the fifth seminar.
What seminar is left?
Page two.
Lessons of loss become the road we take to adjust our business failures when they arrive. If the loss is great enough, we make changes. Otherwise, we continue to do what we were already doing. There is certainly no need to risk anymore than what we have already ponied up in our business venture if the losses we create are not big enough to worry about. Everyone looses money in a small business. That makes it OK for us to do as well. Right? At least we are not going under! We become attached to protecting the minimums. The minimums become our constant goal. They drive our relaxed thoughts and are governed with ease. This is where the ownership of our business has landed its ways. We have become comfortable with owning our own job. Just as long as someone will not take it from us in a bankruptcy, we will protect how we manage what we manage. Seminar double credits.
At some point a small business owner becomes less excited about where their business model has learned to move. It is not producing the returns they feel they should be receiving. These kinds of business owners become dissatisfied with what they are earning from the lack of growth their small business model is delivering. Somehow, they want more. Somehow, they become tired of losing so often. Somehow they begin to recognize the long term negative effects that begin to arrive from all of the lost experiences their business model discovers. They are tired of racking up too much debt. In fact, the growth of their debt is beginning to deliver some very unwanted experiences. They begin ducking the calls from their bill collectors. They work extra hard to become more invisible in their business venture. This is the pattern that starts how this business spirals downward. New habits of frustration slip into their daily routines. The business becomes much like a small enemy. It traps them into thinking it will govern how they move. If allowed to grow in this way, these trapped business owners will develop some nasty business habits. They will also protect those nasty habits with all of their might. They will define how necessary their ways have become. It will eventually take over any chance for producing a business model built on excellence. Their future will be limited, if not destroyed. Seminar major.
Candid perspectives about the flaws of business leadership is one of the most difficult things to comfortably talk about. No one person likes to be told they are operating incorrectly. Even when their business model is on fire and burning down, they do not want to talk about the lack of fire extinguishers. They prefer to ignore what the truth has to deliver. Every failed business model has a bit of this atmosphere running alive and well. They all circle the subject of denial and missed adjustments. In my world of business repair, this pattern is as common as the earth rotates around the sun. All of the above is predictable stuff with a good deal of certainty included. It is also the stuff that is hated to see, hear and feel. We all despise what the truth delivers. That includes me. All of it brings home some unfriendly stuff. We do not welcome what we need to learn. Seminar major, major.
So what do we do next? How do we repair our broken business models? How do we avoid being crushed in the process? How do we correct what we do not want to correct? How do we modify what we cannot see and understand? Where do we start playing this kind of game? How can a self-taught small business owner develop this new path for leading their troubled business out of the darkened halls of hate, disgust and misunderstanding? How do we become completely sincere about where we truly want to be?
These are the best questions a troubled leader needs to examine. To be candid, sincere views about small business understanding is as tough a challenge as anyone could ever endure. It is one of the most unfriendly processes a person could invite. I have sat in on some of the most difficult personal discoveries any person would care to witness. These ugly things become the lives of the owners that develop them. When an owner decides to modify their ways, it gets real ugly before the repairs begin. This is the toughest seminar yet.
Go get help. Hire a tough leader who can allow this process to walk its path. Remember this, it is not a race. It is an extremely slow process. All I can say for that kind of slow speed to recovery is this...it's a good thing it is slow. This kind of repair needs to be slow. Too fast is too damaging, too painful and often less productive. Every wholesale change brings with it a wholesale of unwanted outcomes. One bite at a time is plenty enough.
Go begin your seminars. Go find your candid leaders. Become sincere about building your business the way it ought to grow. Change how you do it and change who you are. These are not fun steps to take. They will not feel good to do. Fortunately, some day you will be able to look back and recognize how much better off you and your business model have become. There is a certain level of pride that comes back to your life when this kind of repair happens well. None of it will tickle your ears when you begin the process, however. Get candid, get sincere...and good luck with your patience.
Until next time...
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