Our company has problems. Every company does.
In fact, it is the very ability to find problems and overcome them quickly that separates the very best from the rest. Look at it this way. A company is a never ending journey of improvement, and you can only improve where problems exist.
Stop finding problems = stop improving = close your doors.
The question is then , how do you create an environment where you can find problems quickly and then solve them?
It is difficult to do because people naturally want to hide problems. At least I thought so until I started asking why people were hiding problems.
My belief is that people hide problems mainly out of fear. Fear of embarrassment, Fear of failure, Fear of demotion, or worse!
I’ll give you a recent example.
The other day, a member of my team came into my office with a problem on our site. The products were entered incorrectly online and the error was causing the products to rate too high when customers tried to get a shipping rate. The team member also said that it had been happening for quite awhile, obviously hurting customer perception and sales all the while.
In this example, I had a number of choices.
1) Be angry!!! Scream, outwardly vent at how many sales we had lost in the meantime.
2) Be angry quietly!!! Stew about how many sales we had lost.
3) Be happy!!!! Celebrate this team member for finding the problem.
The thing to remember is that it is impossible to change the past. You learn from it and try not to repeat mistakes. If I want to find problems quickly then, the simple answer is to be happy and celebrate finding the problem. That way, people will want to find and fix more of them and our business will grow faster.
I started this post saying that our company has problems. The exciting part is that we have the people who recognize them and move to overcome them quickly.
This in turn gives me a sense of endless opportunity.
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Not every leader has the ability to see misteps as an opportunity plus not all employees have the guts to bring out and showcase problems which is a stumbling block and have the foresight to fix it for the future. It’s great to see you foster such a positive environment where mistkaes are celebrated as an opportunity to become better and create opportunities for the future. Great to see you are asking your employess to see fear in a positive manner.
Maybe this is why I love Build Direct so much! You guys just GET IT!
I’ve commented before on your corporate culture but I’ll bet you’d find a lot of great people who would want to work for you when you’re obviously so on the same team!
Bravo for creating the business and kudos for appreciating the remarkable team you have! (I vote you as Boss of the year!)
With out new problems and challenges my business would be boring everything would run too smooth and once something major happened it would end-up like the stock exchange crash. Having an outlook like you do Jeff will make you a leader in your industry and your workers will be proud to be apart of your team, congratulations.
I totally agree! Everyone has problems – it’s how you address those problems that makes you different. Love your attitude on this subject!!