You Shoes are on Fire, Stop Combing Your Hair!

I remember being on a call with one of my clients who was working to start their own business.

We were reviewing the goals and discussing next steps. I could tell something was off with them and about 20 minutes into the call, I asked if anything else was going on that we needed to address or they needed to talk about?

At first they said no…then casually mentioned that they had not spoken to their teenage daughter in 5 days ... .they got into a fight and were cold shouldering each other the entire week.

Ok, time out…hang on a second. How is this affecting you?

We spent some time talking about techniques for effective communication and got to a good place and they were able to not only resolve the issue but also start communicating in a healthier way.

Now, they were able to put their focus back into their business.

This pattern of being in denial about how an issue might be draining you reminded me of a saying I once heard:

"Sometimes people's shoes are on fire and they are looking in the mirror straightening their hair!"

I have seen this in business as well.

Hopefully you've got some sort of operating system in place in your business; EOS, Pinnacle, Scaling Up, etc. and you've got rocks or well defined quarterly goals with KPIs. etc.

I’ve seen exec teams get so focused on the specific rocks that they're not paying attention to some critical issue or issues that are going on.

It could even be a good thing. It could be some huge opportunity.

Goals are set for a reason but sometimes stuff happens and priorities may need to shift…there’s got to be flexibility.

Now if you’re constantly putting out fires, that unto itself, could be the next goal to fix.

How do you stay focused on the right thing to make sure your shoes are not on fire?

#Leadership

#TeamBuilding

#Motivation

#BusinessStrategy

#ExecutiveCoaching