Is your business on track or is there bad news ahead?

Don’t Sidestep the Ugly Truth

Tinderbox consultants talk a lot about the need to adopt a positive rather than a limiting mindset. This is because we know from our experience that limiting mindsets can strangle development opportunities and therefore really impact the growth of a business and its ultimate potential. However, positive mindsets should never mask the reality, the (sometimes) ugly truth that pretty well every single business has to face at some time in its life.

What gets measured gets managed

The most successful small businesses will measure every aspect of their business - financial, operational, customers, employees, suppliers, partners. They will also regularly review and challenge their performance in each area - either with independent experts, their fellow directors, their managers, their accountant, or with their bank or financial stakeholder. They use financial reports, forecasts, key performance Indicators (KPI’s), dashboards, metrics. Its just like an airline pilot monitoring speed, direction, trim, engines, and fuel, in order to stay on course. The review often identifies some challenges in the business, and it’s vital that as a business leader, you identify any negative trends, and take appropriate action.

Don’t ignore the truth about your business, because the sooner you identify what is really causing the problem you are facing and tackle that challenge, the sooner you will be back on course. However, don’t fall into the trap of rushing in with ‘knee jerk’ reactions. Assess each negative indicator. How serious is it? How urgent is it? Is it getting better or worse over time? Ultimately you will want to identify all of the options for returning that indicator to where you want it. That means generation options, choosing the best and effecting action.

There is a well-known Steven Covey quote that should guide this - “The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities”.

Here are some other signs that you may like to watch out for, as they may indicate you are about to sidestep the ugly truth in your business:

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Pushing the positive and discounting the negative

Negative data can be too easily explained away rather than presuming that something might be wrong and investigating properly.

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Aiming high without evaluation

Setting ambitious goals can be a really good thing. Setting aggressive targets has been proven to generate better results in many situations, but you cannot aim high if that aim flies in the face of the facts that currently exist in your business. You need a firm base to start with otherwise those rocky foundation will shatter any ambitious plans.

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Incurring risk based an ambiguous data

I’ve learned the hard way that if you are not sure about something, it’s normally because you don’t have sufficient information. When faced with ambiguous data and decisions that can have a potentially severe or catastrophic downside, resist the temptation to simply adopt a positive view of the data.

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Loss of healthy team debate

Dialogue and debate happens less and less within the business, both in a qualitative and quantitative sense. There is a clear shift to what seems more like dictatorial management rather than the process of healthy disagreement and differing opinions. As a result, there is less of a unified team commitment to the decisions made.

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Blaming external factors

Rather than accepting responsibility for setbacks and failures, leaders point to external factors or other people to affix blame “What can we do in this market?”, “This is all down to our customers pressurising us on price”.

Face the truth

A simple question for you as a business owner - ‘’can you recognise any of the above traits in your business?’’ Now is the time to be truthful, for ignoring these could cost you and your business significantly in the future. If none apply to you, good. If any do apply take action to resolve what is the REAL cause of the issues you face and confront that ugly truth, tackling it head on with the right solutions. By doing this you could save your business from having to grasp at lifelines further down the road.

So, face the truth and take the right course of action. I learned at an early stage of my career that what gets measured gets managed. The opposite is equally true!

Is your business on track?

What are the challenges in your business at the moment?

• Declining or plateauing sales performance?
• Over-reliance on a major customer or customers?
• Struggling to enter new markets?
• Constant pressure on sales prices and margins?
• Suppliers not delivering the right product at the right time?
• Retaining good staff and expensive recruitment?

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How will you deal with these? Do you and your team have all the answers?

If you do, just get implementing.

If you would advice on how to ensure your business stays on track, please message me for a free / no obligation chat, email [email protected] or call me on 07889 539814. We can help you evaluate where your really are honestly and objectively, and once done can put you on the path to success and more success. You can read how we do this through our case studies https://www.tinderboxbusinessdevelopment.co.uk/case-studies/

Ian Taylor ?? Empowering Your Success ?? is one of the Tinderbox Regional Directors, helping make SME businesses successful in Northamptonshire, Milton Keynes and Bedford.

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Why not have a look at our online learning platform, E-Learn, where you can find our interactive video-based online courses which combine professional presenters, animated graphics, interactive games and questions to keep participants engaged and are available anytime, anyplace on any web-enabled device. E-Learn courses are developed in accordance with current legislation, accredited by industry leading associations and approved by professional bodies.