I hear you saying…
- I’m too busy.
- My team never finishes anything on time.
- I keep getting ghosted by prospects.
- I’m so tired of managing my tight cash flow.
- Why am I the only one who ever does anything around here!
But if you are serious about growing your firm, you can’t be talking like this.
Victim or Creator
In each of these statements, the person speaking is in a situation that they don’t like, that they’d like to be different, but none of those statements take any responsibility for the outcome!
Each statement assumes that the situation is beyond their control, and they can’t (or won’t) change it.
When we see the world as acting on us, we deny responsibility for our situation; we disempower ourselves, giving up our power and diminishing our creativity to find a solution.
Take the wheel
If, instead of thinking that the world is acting on you, you see that you have agency, power, and creativity, you can create any outcome from the situation you are in.
Don’t believe me, here are some ideas:
- Too busy? Set standards for what earns a slot on your calendar and enforce those standards. Add time blocks that your clients and team can’t schedule over. Finally, tolerate people’s disappointment when they have to wait for you to have free time!
- Is your team always late? Bring folks together to identify the root cause of the last three missed deadlines. (Be open to the possibility that you might be the root cause!) Resolve those issues and make it clear that as soon as anyone sees things happening that will jeopardize the deadline, they need to talk to you directly about it.
- Are prospects ghosting you? You can set the next meeting at the end of each call, so you always have the next meeting on the calendar. Are they blowing those off? You didn’t make a big enough difference for them in the first call – they don’t see how you can help them.
- Tight cash flow? Cut costs now.
- Resentful of your team? Start delegating and holding folks accountable.
I’m sure none of these are perfect solutions for your problem, and that’s not the point. The point is that you have choices; use them!
The situation you are in right now is the perfect result of the systems you have and the decisions you’ve made. Don’t like it? Make different decisions or change your methods.
You can do it.
