Let me tell you a story.
I have a high tech Scandi log burner which is invaluable during the winter. I have raved about its economy and efficiency down in the pub for many years but this year something went wrong. It needed double the number of logs to generate the same amount of heat. It became difficult to manage, either roaring or fizzling out. In short it went from Scandi high performer to sloth like indifference that was costing me money.
I knew that something was wrong, underperformance is not hard to spot, so I poked and prodded it to no effect other than my own tedious monologue on the subject. Eventually, my wife acted and summoned the chimney sweep who arrived 2 days later and fixed the problem after 30 minutes knowledgeable tinkering. Now the stove is returned to its normal efficient glory.
So my question is, why didn’t I take action sooner? That I can’t answer except to say that I adopted a “head in the sand attitude” in the vain hope that it would fix itself or maybe the “pain” just wasn’t great enough to trigger action. Either way it cost me time and money.
The same can be said for many underperforming or inefficient organisations and businesses. You know there is something wrong but like me cant fix it so you do nothing. This costs you not only time and money but will have an effect on your reputation.
So what?
The moral of the story is that if something is slowing down your organisation, take action to sort it. Either deal with it yourself if you have the competence and capacity, or call in the “chimney sweep” to do it for you.
#tuningteams #teamwork #teamleadership