Are you in a Death Spiral?

Does it feel like everything in your business is falling apart? Just as you are starting to grow strongly, does it feel like you are failing, disappointing customers and success is slipping through your fingers? You are probably now in a Death Spiral.

When you are in a death spiral nothing you do works, more labour, longer hours, more money[1], nothing fixes the problem. Nothing fixes the problem because you don’t understand what the problem is, it’s just everywhere.

Most likely you've been running along just fine up until now, You had a handle on everything that was going on in your business and through hard work and diligence you were on top of every issue. But now you are growing and it's just getting beyond the ability of any single person to control. Staff are stressed, they can't keep up with the workload and they certainly can't keep up with the customer complaints. Some staff are thinking of leaving, or have already left, due to the stress. You have one or two long standing team members that you depend on who would leave your business crippled if they left.

The reason you are in a Death Spiral is because of poor processes right throughout your business. There is a simple formula for this:

Poor Process + Low Volume = Works OK.

Poor Process + High Volume = Death Spiral

You can have bad processes but still function, because humans are smart and can fix all the mistakes that are generated. Yes, you will be aware that there are some issues but if it’s not broken, you won’t fix it. Low volume of activity lulls you into a false sense of security thinking your business is running OK. You assume your staff know what to do and can handle the issues that come up – and maybe they can. Until you start selling more. You run an ad that works, people just find out about you and start spreading the word. Your sales go up. This is fantastic, right? But then the cracks appear, and your staff can’t keep up with the increased workload or the large volume of mistakes that are generated by bad processes.

The only way out of a death spiral is to redesign the poor and ineffective processes to make them effective. They may not be all that efficient initially, but effectiveness is what you need first. This will take time and a lot of effort and there are no shortcuts. Try not to go broke whilst you work your way out.

But you (dear reader) want to avoid the death spiral before it comes or find your way out if you are in it. That is why you are here. But this is just the diagnosis. I'll be revealing the principles of process design that will help you avoid or get out of the death spiral over the coming days. If your need is urgent you should probably message me or find out more about how I can help you at www.logisticshelp.com

The 12 Principles of Process Design are being revealed on short linked in posts and in the full article at (not yet published)

[1] Death spirals are terribly expensive, and if you can get out, it will not be cheap. Some businesses do not get out, they either fall back to their level of competence or fail entirely.