We seem to be wired to react and respond. When we encounter a problem, we immediately jump on it doing what we can do to correct it, getting back on course. It seems like a game of business/selling “whack a mole.” A problem pops up here, we put a fix in place, another one appears somewhere else, we fix that, another pops up…..
We move from problem to problem, “whacking” them, only to have more pop up elsewhere. And, too often, the things we thought we solved pop up again. We end up going in circles, forever, solving and re-solving the same problems. We repeat this, over and over, with each of our people–at least until they get frustrated and leave, or we get frustrated and fire them. Then we start the same thing again.
We fool ourselves, we are constantly busy “solving problems.” We have endless meetings, talking about the same thing, over and over. We see the same problems, we apply the same solutions: More outreach, fill your pipelines, more social, do more …….! We need better products, we need better pricing! It’s customer service’s problem, it’s marketing! It’s the economy! It’s those damned customers that don’t know what they are doing…..!
But are we making progress? Are we actually changing, learning, growing, changing and getting better?
We aren’t solving problems when the same problems keep recurring!
Doing the same thing over and over, at higher volumes and velocity may provide a temporary fix, but we know through experience the problem will recur.
We have to shift our approach. We have to think about, “What do we change? What do we do differently? What’s causing these problems to occur, how do we eliminate that?”
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