Working with People

For the most part, no matter what business you are in, you still have to deal with the one common wildcard – PEOPLE. People are part of our current situation and will be part of our future. It is the way it is so we might as well accept it.

What are some of the common issues that businesses face and these peer groups tackle?

Life/work balance

Hiring and managing people

Delegation and creating a leadership structure

Becoming a sales and marketing organization

Developing process

Plan and set measurable goals

Have financial accountability and controls

Have an exit strategy

Train their team

Communication in every form

The list is much longer but these areas are ones that affect every business owner, no matter what kind of business they are in. These are all PEOPLE issues. Nowhere do you see any mention of learning to be a better technician, because most owners already have a passion for that. They started their business by being good at that, and they continue to enjoy it. The problem is that no one likes the things on this list, so they want to ignore them. After ignoring quits working – they want to push it on someone else without giving any guidance.

The sad fact is that many small businesses fail because they just don’t deal with these items. After all, they were in business yesterday, so it will be the same today. Right? Well that is true most days. And the reality is that the problems they ignored yesterday will be there when they show up for work today, and tomorrow, and forever until they get frustrated and quit, or the business self-destructs. You cannot ignore PEOPLE stuff forever and get away with it. Things will blow up in your face. The day will come when you have to become an adult and meet the challenges head on.

That is one of the dilemmas we face. No one ever told us we would have to deal with all this stuff when we started our businesses many years ago. After all, we were good at what we did. We fixed things and made it happen. It seemed so easy to hire a few more good people like ourselves and make this thing called a small business grow. That works for a while – the honeymoon period can be really fun – but one morning reality will call, and then the issues have to be addressed. Peers are the best way to address them along with a steadfast commitment to be accountable to execute. As Edison said: “Vision without execution is hallucination” and unfortunately, there is a lot of hallucination going on in every small business.

Written by RLO Training