To Win In Business, You Must Stay ‘Positively Depressed’!

Business and life are full of problems and sometimes when you try to find a way out of a problem, things get worse. For instance, I had some problems recently and I knew I should aim to solve them myself, so I asked the assistant at a bookstore where the self-help section was. She said ‘If I told you that it would defeat the purpose!’

On the business front I have discovered that the most successful people are those who actually go looking for problems. I know that sounds neurotic but when you think about it, it’s not. Take the case of Mr A and Mr B: Mr A regularly goes for a health check and Mr B chooses not to; question, who will find the most health problems? Mr A of course. Next question, who is in control of his health? Mr A, again.

That’s how people take control of their health and the same principle applies to business control. You either go looking for problems or you don’t, and it is much wiser for us to look for problems than for the problems to come looking for us!

I am not suggesting that we should like finding problems, after all we are human and most of us hate encountering any form of problem. However, when we look for problems and find them, we gain control of our business. And when you look for and find problems, you become ‘positively depressed’. It is depressing to find problems, however when you go looking for problems and find them, the positive side is that you have time to fix the problems. To be ‘negatively depressed’ is to have problems and not know what they are, and so the problems fix you!

The greatest problem any business could have is not to know what its greatest problem is! And every business has problems, however most of them are not on show. Problems with staff are not likely to be presented to you, and neither are problems with customers. Suppliers might have problems too that affect your business, but again the problems will usually be kept under wraps. The reason for the secrecy is of course that most people don’t like telling other people about problems they are experiencing. Telling people about problems can often lead to arguments and conflict, so why bother. And this reality is enlarged if you happen to be a member of staff or a supplier, for to tell the boss/buyer about perceived problems is a dangerous practice! And the main reason customers don’t tell businesses about service problems is that they would rather go somewhere else than engage in a confrontation, and let’s face it there are no shortages of products these days.

So the challenge, and indeed the obligation, is to look for problems and then look even further for solutions. However, when talking to staff, don’t tell them you are looking for problems, tell them you need to know if they can see any ways to improve any aspect of the business. Explain that it would be helpful to you if they could find ways to improve teamwork, staff motivation, working conditions, customer service, sales, supplier relationships, etc. And this kind of activity must be organised, so that the staff are invited to write down their thoughts and to then explain their views to you. In this manner, ‘problems’ will be identified and discussed as opportunities to improve the business in future, rather than as difficulties associated with the past.

The same formula works with customers and suppliers: on a random basis, take customers on one side and ask them if they could help you to plan for improved service, by telling you what they feel could be improved in your business - in any area at all! This will force ‘ideas’ to be discussed that were previously seen as problems.

Ask your suppliers if they could help you to identify ways to improve sales or profits of their products in your pharmacy, and whatever they say will be a reflection of what they used to think of as ‘problems’.

In the final analysis, the only people who don’t have problems are those who have passed on from this world to a better life. This means that if you have problems, it’s a sign of life! I’m so ‘alive’ at the moment I can hardly stand it. Only yesterday morning as I was driving to a meeting in Sydney, my wife called me on the mobile phone to say that a news story had broken about an idiot driving the wrong way on the Harbour Bridge. I said ‘I’m on the bridge now and that story’s not really accurate, there are in fact hundreds of motorists driving the wrong way!



To Win In Business, You Must Stay ‘Positively Depressed’! - To learn more about this author, visit John Lees's Website.

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