{"id":1989,"date":"2010-08-19T08:48:58","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T12:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thegrowthcoach.com\/boston-west\/how-to-combat-growing-business-complexity"},"modified":"2010-08-19T08:48:58","modified_gmt":"2010-08-19T12:48:58","slug":"how-to-combat-growing-business-complexity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thegrowthcoach.com\/boston-west\/how-to-combat-growing-business-complexity","title":{"rendered":"How to Combat Growing Business Complexity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Small business owners and entrepreneurs continually\u00a0have to battle against the economy, competition, government interference, employee issues, cash flow, changing technologies, surprises, busyness, denial, distractions,\u00a0and a host of other challenges.\u00a0 Such COMPLEXITY<\/strong> is\u00a0simply the “price of admission”\u00a0for being a\u00a0successful entrepreneur. <\/strong>While business ownership and management, done right, can give you tremendous freedom, flexibility, fulfillment and financial success, it can come with its share of chaos, confusion and complexity. As an owner, if you don’t learn to manage such complexity, it will crush you and your business. <\/strong><\/p>\n

As your personal Growth Coach<\/a>, I urge you to please don’t become overwhelmed by all the above issues. In fact, having these issues is NOT the real problem for you.\u00a0 The real problem is that most business owners, maybe you as well, DO\u00a0NOT <\/strong>know how to think about and tackle these issues … that’s the real problem.<\/strong> You have no simple framework to identify and address your challenges on a regular and logical basis\u2026and then they mount up.\u00a0 Again, it\u2019s not your problems and opportunities that overwhelm you\u2026it\u2019s probably that you don\u2019t have an effective and consistent method to go about tackling your problems and seizing your opportunities.<\/strong> Agreed?<\/p>\n

Entrepreneurs tend to\u00a0lack a timely and structured process to think about and resolve their problems and seize their opportunities. <\/strong> They are so \u201cbusy being busy\u201d and have so much junk in their heads and stuff on their plates at any given time that they can’t even think.\u00a0 Instead, they get overwhelmed, stressed out and very often go into a state of denial.<\/strong> Denial is a bad, bad place to go.\u00a0 That’s\u00a0how neglected issues fester and become raging and serious problems.\u00a0 Denial is NOT an effective problem-fighting strategy.<\/strong> Stop kidding yourself.<\/p>\n

As your virtual business coach, I’m going to ask you to slow down, catch your breath, face reality, and have you realize that all your issues\/challenges are NOT created equally.\u00a0 In fact, not all problems should get equal weight, attention, action, and your emotional energy.\u00a0 You need to learn to discriminate<\/strong>.\u00a0 Like your goals, you must put your issues and problems\u00a0in the proper perspective and prioritize them<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0A<\/strong>s your Growth Coach, I want to help you more effectively own and run your business and combat the growing fog of complexity. Ready for some business coaching?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a simple but effective framework for you to identify, prioritize, and tackle all the issues you face. <\/strong>I would like to re-introduce you to an old friend, the business planning model known as SWOT Analysis<\/strong>.\u00a0 SWOT\u00a0stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.<\/strong> Relax \u2026 I’m not going to ask you to draft a new business plan.\u00a0 Instead, I want you to use a form of SWOT to respond better to your daily business issues, challenges, and opportunities.\u00a0 As your business coach, I beg you to stop reacting to your daily challenges and going into denial or hyper mode. \u00a0It does you, your employees and your business NO GOOD.\u00a0 Use this re-purposed SWOT tool to help you respond calmly, coolly, and effectively to your daily problems and opportunities<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But before you use this new application for SWOT, you need to: (1)<\/strong> Face the truth <\/strong>about where your business is right now (good, bad and ugly – what’s working and what’s not),\u00a0(2)<\/strong> Gain clarity<\/strong> about where you\u00a0want your business to be in one year and three years (paint that ideal future), and (3)<\/strong> Commit to\u00a0close\u00a0the performance gap<\/strong> between your current reality and your desired future with an action plan you continually update.\u00a0 By the way, I just described a key component of The Growth Coach strategic-focusing, year-round process<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This new application of SWOT below will help you prioritize your challenges and improve the way you go about closing your performance gap<\/strong>, the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. In brief,\u00a0you should look at how to leverage your strengths, neutralize weaknesses, seize the best opportunities, and eliminate the greatest threats\/dangers<\/strong>. Again, not all your problems and opportunities are worth your time, talent and treasure.\u00a0 Choose wisely<\/strong>.\u00a0 Here are a series of questions to help you get your arms around and prioritize your issues and opportunities using the simple SWOT framework:<\/p>\n

STRENGTHS (assets):<\/span><\/strong>
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