The Upside of a Business System Breakdown!
You can't turn on the news without hearing the word "system" thrown around, mostly related to the breakdown of systems in business and government.
Vehicles are being recalled due to faulty component parts. Massive oil spills damage the ecosystem. Terrorists get through airport security even when their name is on a no-fly list. Financial systems around the world are in crisis.
When will it ever end? . . . IT WON"T.
If left alone, systems are in a constant state of breaking down; they decline, decay, and deteriorate. It is Nature's way.
Natural forest fires rid the land of dead trees and wood on the forest floor. The heat of the fire immediately germinates buried seeds and soon a new forest begins to fill the land.
The cycle of life--birth to death--not only occurs in nature but there are similar patterns in business, including yours.
In the first few months of this year, sixty-eight banks have failed and many small businesses have closed their doors. As harsh as it sounds, this is a natural purging of the weakest elements of our economic system. Companies with inferior products, policies, systems, or management cannot withstand the financial stresses. Companies with better systems (or who get bailouts because they are "too big to fail") are able to weather the storms.
In tough times, only the fittest survive, those companies that daily work on building strong and durable business systems.
System Breakdowns Can Be Good
The upside of a system breakdown is that before the system fails completely, innovation can elevate it to a new and better way, a higher level of performance.
We expect to see future vehicles that are better, improved policies, technologies and systems that prevent oil disasters, terrorists that are unable to get on airplanes, and economic disasters that are averted. (This assumes that we learn from our mistakes--governments don't always seem to.)
In your business, customer complaints, low employee morale, poor cash flow, and so forth can always be traced to the breakdown of established systems.
A crisis, in fact, is a system change trying to take place. It is a scream for help. Reorganizing and reordering the system to a higher level is the only solution to prevent an eventual crash.
Caution: It is human nature when things are generally going well not to notice a breakdown that is occurring by small degrees.
Business systems that are continuously monitored, measured and improved break down much less often, and when they do, the cause is usually outside the business owner's control.
The System Thinker's Edge
Systems Thinkers have a distinct advantage. They understand how things work. They see problems in the early stages. They make timely course corrections. While they can't prevent every glitch, they can minimize the damage and overcome setbacks more effectively and faster than most everyone else.
Do you have any broken busines systems that are causing you to lose customers and money? Fix them while in the early stages, and save yourself a lot of grief later on!
Wishing You Prosperous Times,
Ron
P.S. - Box TheoryTM Gold software will get your business systems organized, humming, and resistant to breakdowns. Give a look at www.BoxTheoryGold.com/box-theory-gold-software.