As a business leader, your first priority is to define reality for your organization.  To make sure everyone is seeing and dealing with the truth...the good, the bad and the ugly.  After all, a person or company cannot get better results unless they are standing on the firm ground of TRUTH.  Never forget, all progress starts with defining and accepting the truth...the truth is the strong foundation upon which to build a better business.

However, "dealing in the truth" is not easy to pull off and quite rare in most small businesses.  As a business coach for over eighteen years, I can tell you with full confidence that the vast majority of businesses are not regularly defining reality and accepting the truth.  They are playing a dangerous game of delusions and denial.  Are you?

At The Growth Coach, we firmly believe that YOU cannot build a better business and improve your results if you and your employees are not seeing and dealing with the truth.  Therefore, as a business owner, you have to take full responsibility for being the keeper of reality and the speaker of the truth for your company, employees, suppliers, lenders, etc.  As such, one of your primary tasks is to continually help define reality for everyone...to remove the blinders, prevent denial, reveal delusions, expose vulnerabilities, eliminate excuses, and stop any blaming.  Are you up to the challenge?

After clearly establishing your vision (where the company is going), there is nothing more important than helping your organization to continually confront reality and make critical adjustments to stay on course.  Your job is to get everyone to see where the company is right now (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and what needs to change to get the company to the promised land of the vision.  That's the job of a leader.

Here are some simple business coaching tips to help you define reality for your company and help your team make continual adjustments:

• Be neither a gushing optimist nor a panicked pessimist.  Be a realist with undying faith in the potential and promise of your company and employees. 
• Get everyone to acknowledge your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  Again,  establish firm footing by getting everyone to accept the truth and build from there.
• Get internal and external stakeholders to see the company's ever-changing situation for what it really is...and not what it was or what you or others wish it to be.  Get everyone focused on the TRUTH and the NOW. 
• Do not allow delusions, denial, excuses, blaming, or blind spots to take your company down.  Burn off the fog that is clouding an objective view. Get everyone to see the truth and take FULL RESPONSIBILITY for it.
• Armed with the facts and a strong dose of reality, your organization can always make necessary adjustments to improve.  Give that message of hope to your troops. 

To remain the keeper of the truth, you need to get beyond yourself and your own belief system.  At The Growth Coach, we believe one great way to keep a grip on reality is to ask your employees, suppliers, vendors, advisers, etc. for brutally honest answers to the following questions:

• If you were the owner, what would you change and why?
• What strengths are we not properly leveraging?
• Where do you think we have weaknesses?
• What opportunities are we overlooking?
• What dangers/threats do you see for our company and how are we vulnerable?

Once you get the honest answers, be willing to share them with your team.  Again, you must help everyone to see and accept the truth, even if it's painful at first.  Do not underestimate the critical importance of dealing with the truth in your business and personal life.  Again, all progress starts with defining and accepting the truth. 

I hope you found this short but powerful business coaching blog helpful. It's now up to you to implement.  The truth will set you free.

Daniel M. Murphy
President, Founder & Business Coach
The Growth Coach
Business Coaching Franchise System
Certified Business Coaches throughout North America