🔊Don’t find fault, find a remedy🔊
This is another powerhouse of a quote from Henry Ford. Business issues are part and parcel of business, they happen! There should be no blame game, in fact, one of my favorite phrases to say refers to this.
“Bomb the Blame game and Embrace the Error Culture.”
In order to eradicate or mitigate business issues, everyone must work together!
And that involves putting your hand up when you make a mistake.
💥 But the environment must enable that
Protecting Business Issues
As a common practice, I was working on a business issue that existed with a client for 30 years. As you can imagine it was a difficult one to solve. Through the process, we uncovered many business issues, but the main driver proved elusive. Eventually, we got there, I remember discussing this in a meeting with the board of directors.
I had told them that I had discovered the root cause of this business issue that had existed for so long. They were delighted to hear this news, the CEO asked to tell me what it is. They weren’t so delighted when I told them the root cause though. I told them that they, as in the directors, were the root cause, their faces dropped.
I went on to explain that the staff was in genuine fear of their jobs. Which was an accurate assessment of the situation. This was an old-style family business that did more dictating than leading.
I explained that they were afraid of owning up to issues in their areas
🛡 So much so they protected these business issues
My gut had told me there were more business issues like this…
So one of my recommendations (i.e. solutions) was for one of the directors to go down and thank the staff in question for finding and solving this issue.
They weren’t too keen when I told them my instincts were that there were more business issues like this in other areas. Only when the staff would see this was a safe environment to share business issues, more root causes would follow!
✅ That turned out to be correct
Working Together makes everything better
We are all human at the end of the day, we make mistakes and we can solve these business issues.
💲Unsolved business issues accumulate to be substantial hidden costs. They can’t ever be explained on a balance sheet, therefore, get written off.
The power of problem-solving is finding a remedy! Which is one of the most powerful ways to improve your business performance.
So don’t find fault, find a remedy!
I hope this helps, If you have any questions, please get in touch
In the meantime, have a great day
