What's The Next Step? I Need Help.

Find The Source Of Your Business Fire

Did you ever wonder what goes on in the mind of a business owner who is struggling with the business they own?  I do.  Sometimes I feel like a first responder at an accident scene.  I see some wreckage and I move to find where to help.  My instincts immediately move closer to find the business leadership when I see signs of business trouble.  I quietly examine their scene to see if they recognize the fires are burning out of control.  You see, every business manages small fires.  Challenges lurk around every corner in all business models.  Nobody escapes this truth.  Smoke flows from one office to the next as each leader works to find ways to put them out.  That is exactly what good businesses do for a living.  They put out fires.  I look for the smoke that looks like it is out of control.  I look for something brewing in that business that can damage its long term future.  I look to see if and where the fire is burning out of control?

When some serious smoke finds its way out of the hidden halls of the shops, showrooms and back office spaces of a business model I tend to walk closer to it.  I go looking for hidden trouble.  I search for the source of the fire.  I was always told that where's there's smoke, there's fire.  Guess what?  It is true.

Most business owners would just as soon hide their business fires.  They even hide the ones that require more help to put out.  Sometimes their water bucket is not large enough to arrest the size of the flames.  It is so hard for a business leader to admit their fire is burning out of control.  They have always managed these small fires in the past...just fine.  Then it begins.  The fire gets out of control.  It consumes and damages some of the very crucial stuff the business needs to protect.  The business begins to spiral out of control.  It happens.

When the business gets out of control, the leader usually panics and hides the fire.  They try to salvage what is not yet burned.  Unfortunately, managing the wreckage a big fire produces tends to consume the time of the best staff, suppliers and institutional support.  The energy of the business begins to sour.  The stingy fire becomes a permanent smell.  The business finds itself operating in pain, long term.  It is now pushing behind the eight ball.  It is trying to keep from losing its ground.  The process becomes exhausting.  The spirit runs tired and becomes easily consumed with the other ashes.  Everything looks like trouble.  The leader tries hard to cover it all up.  Nobody wants to wear this kind of business blame.  Nobody.

Big fires are hard to get under control.  The leaders try extra hard to push away the first responders.  It takes a while for the rescue crew to find how to get in.  In the meantime, damage is continuing on.  The source of the fire is running out of control.  Most business owners disguise the source of the fires that burn this damage into their business models.  It is a common thing to witness.

Very few serious business problems come from the bottom up.  The more serious business problems come top down. The business leadership usually causes the worst fires.  This is also the main reason why the leaders disguise the source of their most serious business fires.  They do not want to become caught holding the match that struck the flammable stuff.  What's more, they are likely the reason why fire prevention was ignored.  This keeps the first responders outside the core of the business model guessing where the source really remains.  It protects the image of the business leaders.  This image usually runs higher than the need to arrest the fire.

The first step to business repair is to weave about the halls and find where the most deception is taking place.  This is usually where the first responder, the repair specialist, will likely find the source of the fire.  The business leaders tend to give out the best clues by funneling the path of the needed repairs with deceptive finger pointing.  The leaders holding the matches usually move the repair work in the direction away from where the source began.  They tend to protect who holds the match.  In my three decades of  business experiences, this is a very normal pattern to see.  If you plan to repair the broken work of a business model, keep this truth close to your side.  The leaders will deceive you in their efforts to protect how much they were involved.  It will aid you in getting to the source of the problems much sooner.  When a business is in great need for repair, sooner is always better.  Find the source quickly, before the whole house burns down.

For those of you who are leaders of business that are experiencing some out of control fires, listen up.  Get past the hiding of the truth.  It is a very damaging game to play.  The sooner you get some corrective actions put in place the sooner your business will deliver what you have always expected it to deliver.  Sooner is always better.  This is true even if it needs to crush your ego a little bit.  A bruised ego does not feel good but it pays well.  I think good pay is one of the reasons why you elected to go into business for yourself.  Is it not?  Fess up, reveal the source problems and allow the repair guys to do what they do best.  Then begin to receive what you always believed your business should return.  This is how you find the fruits of what it can deliver.

Page two.

Find The Source Of Your Business Fire

What's the next step?  Admit you need help.  Get serious about not knowing everything.  I do not know everything.  I make that truth very clear.  I am short on knowledge in a lot of places in my career.  I learn as I go.  I gather new information every single day.  A lot of the new information I find was always flashing nearby but I was not willing at that time to take it in when it first flashed near my path.  I enjoy meeting business leaders who describe how they know what they know.  Often times I can snag a nugget of good information here and there.  Sometimes they share what they do not know.  I learn from that experience as well.  None of us knows it all.  Go check out every book in a library...read them...there is a lot of information that none of us knows.  I know little.  You know little.  Accept help from someone who knows more about what we do not know.  It is very O.K. to do so.

If you are trying to put out an out-of-control fire in your business model, your first step is to admit you are the reason why it exists.  Let's face it, you are the main one who decides what goes and what does not.  Every result comes from the patterns you allowed to be laid down.  Your business path is travelled by your business direction.  Your business direction is governed by your business permissions, allowances, tolerances, restrictions, limits and lures.  You drive every one of these actions.  Your ways become the ways your business travels.  If that path turns up on an ugly road, you drove it there.  Your first step is to accept this terrible mood and begin to correct why it feels the way it feels.  Accept who drove the business in the way it turned out.  Your business model is a reflection of the business path you allowed it to follow.  That is your next step, accept this truth.

Once this step is accepted, the work of repair can truly begin.  All else is only a false effort of repair that will eventually begin to produce reports of more bad news.  This is how it usually works.  If the bad news is becoming too much to bear, accept who is at fault and move on.  The best winners in the world of business are the ones who have already practiced this awful task.  They are the ones who faced this reality and got over the bruised ego portion from admitting they were the cause.  This is truly when the business model begins its maturity.  Maturation is not a clean process.  It is a cleaning process.  Most secure and thriving business models will validate this truth, when asked.  Go visit with one.  That should be your next step, once you admit it begins with you, go visit one who has corrected their ills and moved on to become a bigger success.  Do not talk to those who are losing.  Talk to those who have found a way to win.  The two sources think hugely different.

Every next step plays an important role in finding your corrections begin their life to the business of producing long term success.  Find the source of the fires, get them arrested well.  Get on a personal plan to improve who you are.  Find the things and people who can help you repair what you believe to be next and start working to change how you view what you do.  Your business can thrive.  Your customers can feel welcomed and appreciated.  Your staff can enjoy going to work and will work to grow if only you knew how to make all of that happen.  Get on the right tracks.  Put out the fires.  Begin the hard work of repairing you.  Your business will follow closely what you do for this personal repair.  Success is from within.  It is not something that comes by accident.  Success is the result of a planned event.  It comes when you plan and control how it arrives.  Unfortunately, this is also true for failure.  Failure is not something that comes by accident.  You control its arrival.

What is the next step?  I usually find mine in the mirror.

Until next time...