Case of Change

What do you want to change in your business? Printers commonly say earning more money or having more sales or more cash, spending less time with the business, or reducing the hassle factor, or even exiting the business are changes they want. It could even be less obvious, such as being happy or getting family members to work together. Whatever—it is change.

A printer who recently attended my Surviving the Economic Downturn seminar said, "I know what to change, but I never do it." Hmm. Let's explore that concept. Why do we not do what we often know we should do? There's really a straightforward answer.

Let's begin by understanding that we business owners often want to change outcomes without changing behavior. We're spoiled. We want more customers, but haven't done the basic steps to get them. We want more cash, but we don't have financials, let alone operate with a cash flow budget. We want to take the hassle out of running the business, but we organize around what we like to do rather than what we should do. Yes, we sometimes whine.

This article won't help you with that condition because you're not motivated. Motivation isn't just thoughts and feelings, motivation includes actions. If you want, but you aren't willing to act, then you're not motivated and need to explore why. But if you are motivated and try to change, but for some reason it never sticks; well, this article can help you with that.

Presto Change-O!

Why don't we change when we clearly know it would be for the better? There is a mysterious force hard at work to keep things the way they are, both individually and within our business. It is called homeostasis; a big word for a state of equilibrium or a tendency to keep things the same.

You may find your situation stressful and chaotic. You have little money and live mail delivery to mail delivery. You have hired folks who don't perform. Your schedule is set by which customer is on the phone demanding their job. Whatever the cause, you've lived like this for some time now and there is comfort in the chaos.

Yes, comfort.

Dan Ariely in his book, "Predictably Irrational," says there is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in all of us. Our rational self is Dr. Jekyll, and when operating in that mode, we can easily intellectualize that we know what we need to do. Now, why we don't actually do it is because we have to do it in an aroused state, in the heat of battle, or when we are Mr. Hyde, so to speak. Ariely demonstrates through his experiments that we often cannot predict what we will decide in the heat of battle.

So, our rational, seminar attending self knows that change is needed. But we often wilt on the change when faced with the reality of telling someone they have to do something different or actually making a change.

A Question of Hours

I worked with a printer who had lost his house by continuing to take the money out of his equity and dumping into the business. He had a key worker who came in at five in the morning and worked only until two in the afternoon. This and several other work hour situations prevented the owner from doing what he needed to do (sell something to someone) because he needed to be in the shop.

My friend knew this was a problem, but did nothing. He called us in to assist him and we, too, identified this worker's hours as well as a couple other things as being significant impediments to what needed to be done. He agreed. We developed an action plan detailing the various steps, one of which was to change the worker's hours. Actually, my friend explained that the reason for the worker's hours had changed so it should be no problem. Excellent! The job was done, right? Not exactly.

During the first follow up, many suggestions had been taken, but changing the worker's hours was not one of them. Okay, let's do it next week. He didn't do it then, either.