Crisis Management The Archenemy
The lake was a little choppy that day. As my motorboat sliced through the waves I came upon a sailboat that seemed to be dead in the water. It's quite normal for boaters to anchor out, or lazily drift along, but this boat was being tossed about in the waves in a way that looked like there might be trouble.Pulling abeam, I called over to see if any assistance was needed. As the sweat-drenched head of the occupant popped up, simultaneous with a pale-full of water splashing over the rail, I could see the problem - this boat was taking on water. Down went the head again, then back up, and more water over the rail, along with the explanation: He did in fact have a leak and his bilge pump wasn't working.
Calling over again, I asked if I could help him repair the pump. To which he replied, "Don't have time to fix the bilge pump. I've got to keep bailing or I'll sink."
Hmmm. His remark reminded me of responses I've heard small business owners make.
In The Bilge Of Boats And Businesses
Deep down in the hold of a ship, a well-maintained bilge pump performs its critical task automatically, allowing the captain to steer around hazards, navigate through choppy waters, and sail to a safe harbor.
Deep inside a business, operating systems and technology perform their critical tasks automatically, allowing the owner to steer around marketplace hazards, navigate through choppy competitive waters, and sail the business to the safe harbors of successful plan execution.
Unfortunately, many small business owners are like the captain of that sailboat - too busy bailing to fix the bilge pump. Too focused on the short-term problem to find a long-term solution. In other words: crisis management.
Crisis Management
Crisis management occurs when you focus on a problem only when and where it manifests itself, rather than investing the time and resources to install a long-term solution, which would ultimately prevent the crisis from occurring at all. Or put another way, crisis management is treating the symptom instead of the disease.
Here's what crisis management might sound like: "I don't have time to learn how to computerize my monthly billing. I barely have time to keep up with my bookkeeping ledger as it is."
But if you purchase and invest the time to learn how to use accounting software, entering sales activity once not only produces your invoices and statements automatically, it simultaneously creates the revenue portion of your accounting. Result: Several tasks are accomplished with one step. Automation and technology: Maximum benefit - minimum effort.
If crisis management is the archenemy of small business, and I think it is, automation and technology are the enemies of crisis management.
Here's another example - a true story - of the sound of crisis management. Once I recommended to a client that he stop reacting to everything long enough to pay attention to the root of his organizational problems. His actual response was: "I don't have time. I've got too many problems that have to be solved right now." Crisis management.
If It's A Problem, Why Don't We Just Fix It?
If you're going to put an end to crisis management, you've got to get out in front of the problems and stop them before they occur. Here's what that looks like:
• Recognize inefficiencies and operational impediments in the organization
• Identify opportunities and quantify the benefits of making improvements
• Find solutions such as training, automated systems, and technology
• Acquire the appropriate products and training
• Fund those purchases
• Identify, and sometimes hire, personnel who will receive training and conduct the systems
• Manage the successful execution of these systems
The steps to avoid crisis management are the same for both large and small businesses. But when a big business manager reads my list, he or she says, "Yeah, that's about right." When a small business owner reads the list, he or she says, "Whew!" And then, cutting to the chase, "When am I going to find the time, the people, and the money to do all that?"
It's not that small business owners don't want to nip problems in the bud, but doing so requires goodly portions of the two precious commodities we're usually short on: time and money.
Big businesses have many challenges to deal with, but typically, crisis management isn't one of them. They have multiple layers of management and people whose sole professional purpose in life is to perform the tasks on the list above while somebody else runs the business.
In small business, too often, those assignments typically fall on the owner. And of course, simultaneously, all of the other duties of an owner have to be performed. Whew!
Since there are always more tasks than people to do them in a small business, it's easy to see why crisis management is so prevalent; why we just keep bailing instead of fixing the bilge pump. When you're fighting for your life, whether on a boat or in your business, the urge to bail is instinctive and understandable. You feel like you're sinking, your perspective is diminished, short-term survival instincts kick in, and you just keep bailing.
But still, you can't sail while you're bailing, and you can't manage if you're always in a crisis.
Eliminate Crisis Management One Step At A Time
You didn't build your small business all at once. You did it one small step at a time. It's the same with eliminating crisis management. Here are some steps to consider:
1. The next time you're faced with a problem, ask yourself, and your staff, where it began. Find the root cause. Even if today you don't have the time or resources to fix the fundamental cause of the problem, just by identifying it you have made progress, albeit a baby step, in eliminating crisis management in your organization.
2. Identify the low-hanging fruit. There probably are many disruptive things that can be fixed by making small changes.
3. Kill the sacred cows. When these cows moo, it sound like, "We've always done it that way." In a small business "always" can be a very expensive word.
4. You MUST automate. Yes, you will likely feel vulnerable during the period when you stop bailing long enough to fix or install your bilge pump, an automated system, but you and your staff are humans who can only bail for so long. You MUST automate.
5. You MUST install technology. The only way for small businesses to gain and maintain a competitive advantage is through leverage. And small business's leverage is not people or capital, it's technology. You MUST install and adopt technology.
6. Use your brain trust. Ask your people their thoughts and suggestions for improving the organization. You MUST use your brain trust.
Write this on a rock... If you don't have time to fix the bilge pump, how long can you keep bailing? Crisis management is the archenemy of small business, and automation and technology are the enemies of crisis management. Stop bailing, automate your systems, and leverage technology.
