It’s a fact: The way we respond to challenges is a key factor in our commercial success.
This is why I want to share a simple piece of advice with you, which may help you make better decisions AND avoid making mistakes when you are next faced with a challenge (particularly, a BIG challenge!)
I have coached, mentored, trained and worked with thousands of businesspeople and have found that often, it’s their response to a problem that seals their fate and NOT the original challenge or problem itself.
This is because they go into a mindset, which I call scrambling mode.
Scrambling mode is the term I use to describe the wild and often illogical actions, which many entrepreneurs and business owners take, when they are suddenly faced with a big challenge. Scrambling mode sees the person so desperate to do “something,” that they become more focused on movement than they do on progress. Rather than develop a properly thought out plan of action, they panic. This leads to poor decision making, which in turn creates more and more problems. So, they start off with one, often easy to resolve issue and end up with a stack of far more serious challenges.
A common example I have heard of many, many times, is what business owners do, when they unexpectedly see a worrying drop in sales. Faced with this situation, the logical thing to do is figure out what caused the drop in sales and either fix it or replace it with a more effective way to attract new business. However, I have personally witnessed business owners decide instantly, to take seriously damaging action!
In one case I know of, the business owner immediately dropped her prices by 15%, without realising that her existing customers would expect a similar deal. She eventually offered the 15% discount to everyone, unaware that she NOW needed to increase sales by over 40%, just to cover the cost of the 15% discount – never mind recovering the lost revenue! She was broke within 4 months.
In short: Scrambling mode sees intelligent people looking for answers in all the wrong places and creating unnecessary additional problems.
How to avoid getting into scrambling mode
To learn how to avoid the damage caused by entering into scrambling mode, we need only observe how people that respond effectively to sudden, unexpected problems act.
In my experience, there are 2 steps, which these people take:
- They take time to identify exactly what the challenge actually is. As soon as they know what’s wrong, they focus all their attention on getting the challenge solved. I wrote about this last week in this post, focus on answers, not problems. When we focus on answers, one of the by products is that we start to feel more in control, which lowers our stress and makes us more resourceful.
- They immediately seek qualified advice, so they make good decisions. Typically, they will have already identified knowledgeable people in each key area of their business. This means they know exactly who to speak with, when something goes wrong and don’t have to blindly go into the marketplace and find someone. This means a good time to build YOUR team of advisors is now; not when you are working against the clock!
Your feedback
I would be interested to know what your experiences are, when it comes to making decisions under pressure. Also, do you have any tips you would like to share? If you do, please leave a comment!
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Photo: Jim Linwood
You have raised something here that is vitally important, not just to anyone in business, but also in life generally.
In every problem lies the seed of a tremendous benefit. We just have to keep our heads and look for it before responding.
I agree. I have often found great value in the learning I gained, from overcoming challenges. Good point Ash – thanks!
The world is getting smaller and faster. Mistakes can be magnified if not handled correctly. “Back Away from the Computer” – Get a Good Workout and Sleep on the issue for a day. You will feel more refreshed and will be thinking much clearer.
This works for me! Great Post This Afternoon!
Hey Brent. I also find it useful to get some distance from the problem, when coming up with some answers. Thanks for the suggestion sir.
Real life story:
Production facility gets decreased sales. So the managers decide to lay off some workers. From every department. To make it “fair” they laid off some sales people! (Actually it was at a time when other companies were looking for sales people.)
Crisis thinking must be calm and consequences must be considered in advance.
Sadly, this company hasn’t sought out qualified advice, because the company has been on the market long enough and the owners have been doing this business long enough and thought they know everything… the best!
Advice: Even if you have been doing the same your whole life, it doesn’t mean you have answers in every situation.
I have been to the company one year after and because they had goods worth millions in their warehouses, they are still shrinking…
External advisor can also help you find problems in your company that you would never think of.
How true! I can also add my observation that very often with the beginning of a crisis the communication stops. Management or owners pretend everything is normal and see no need to address the things everyone sees (e.g. nothing in the pipeline).
My advice: be open about what is going on. People know anyway and it is better to have an open talk and maybe get some great ideas from the people in the company. They might know a thing or two about where to save money or increase efficiency.
Talk and listen!
Jim:
I’ve followed you from afar, and read many a post. That is, by far, your most powerful yet. Kudos.
.-= Jon Aston´s last blog ..A Kind of Special Photo Credit =-.
That’s very kind of you Jon. I appreciate you taking time to connect here sir.
[...] of his services – Rather than a bargain basement fee, which he had been doing last year as he scrambled for new business [...]
Excellent post Jim. Like John said earlier, this is one of your best in a while and thats saying something.
[...] make things happen; to turn things around and create a big, positive impact. They see some of the challenges facing their business or their life in general, and use their imagination to visualise all the worst case scenarios, [...]