Running In Circles, Squares and Triangles
Life can sometimes feel like you are running on a treadmill, but your shoes are tied together, your shirt is on backwards, and your water bottle is full of sand. It takes getting off the treadmill to realize how screwy your situation is. But the treadmill doesn’t stop; the treadmill keeps going whether you are running or not.
It is hard to get off the treadmill, but in the sense of Abe Lincoln’s quote that you have to take the time to sharpen your axe rather than chopping with a dull axe, you have to get off the treadmill to fix your problems.
Over the last year, as our business has grown, it has become evident that the previous solutions we’ve used for the problems we’ve encountered will not work on the new obstacles in our path. The new obstacles require a new set of solutions. The strategy we have taken up until this point has gotten us here, which is great, but it will not take us where we want to go. In a sense, we are like a fish that has finally evolved and has legs now. We must learn to live on land. Surprisingly (or not to anyone’s surprise, depending on your thoughts about me), this took me a while to figure out.
I was running in circles, and nothing was changing, so I tried running in squares, and nothing changed, and finally I tried running in triangles, and still nothing got better. The shape wasn’t the issue; it was the fact that I was running
Okay, so we’re on the same page now, new problems = new solutions.
How do we find new solutions, and more importantly, how do we identify our problems?
Problems come in all shapes and sizes.
Small problems can be simple, like fixing your email signature.
Big problems can be overhauling your marketing strategy.
Generally speaking, they both matter, but big problems kill you, small problems make life unpleasant. A splinter hurts; getting hit by a car is a lot worse.
To find problems, ask yourself a few questions.
What am I doing that someone else can do?
What things should I spend less time doing and more time doing?
If I could only focus on one thing to improve my business, what would that be?
What am I doing poorly right now?
What are some things that I do really well?
The solutions to problems should lead to one of five outcomes.
Making more profit
Reducing costs
Improving turnaround time or customer experience
Improving your or your team’s experience
Saving time
From here, we’ve got to do a few things.
List out problems
Arrange problems in order of importance
Think about how you can solve the problems, if you don’t know who can you ask who might know
Break the steps for solving the problems into as small steps as possible
Start working to implement the solution.
This general framework can be applied not only to business but to most areas of your life to identify and solve problems that get in the way of you living a better, happier, healthier life. At the end of the day, life is just a very long, non-obvious, person-specific, strategy game with very few clearly defined rules. It is up to you to play your game.