I think business can get frustrating for a lot of people because they have this illusion that there is some magic place where there are no problems.
Yet reality bears out that noone enjoys this fantasy. It doesn’t exist. The nature of business is that there are always things in flux, changing and in process. Customers make demands. Employees don’t do what they are supposed to. A vendor does not deliver on time.
If you are able to embrace reality and realize that you make money and enjoy prosperity proportionally to your expectations of problems, then business becomes a lot more enjoyable.
Think about it. You will have a lot of problems next week you can’t even predict. Life is not a static thing. It’s something to be lived out. And there are continual forces acting on your peace of mind both within your control and out of your control.
The only thing that you can control is how you manage problems. And here are some strategies to manage your problems well:
- Get Real. Don’t shy away from problems. Acknowledge them and put them out front and center. It’s so critical to solve them in the first place. You can’t solve a problem you don’t acknowledge.
- Simplify so you can execute. In your down times, get rid of stuff and clear the decks. You see firefighters, deck hands and anyone that is close to the work that ebbs and flow behave this way. It’s efficient and minimizes the drag on your ability to execute.
- Make a list. Executives work from lists. Keep them clean and updated so you know what to attack. You might want to make a front and center Google Tasks list that captures the problem crystal clear.
- Don’t rationalize. When you find yourself trying to minimize or make yourself feel better, then you are not dealing with your problems. You are rationalizing. Catch yourself and see if you can name it, the problem that is.
- Start now. Procrastination is terrible and a way to start attacking a problem is thinking about one small step. Get it clear. Then take it. Put it in motion. You would have created an open loop. And our minds like to close loops.
Just think of problems as money. The harder they are and the greater your ability to solve them, the more money you make.
How do you deal with problems?