What do you do in a personal or professional crisis?
Don’t stay in the problem longer than you should.
A business owner called me the other day who was going through a serious issue in their company.
Their employee had been both lying but possibly doing something illegal, and as the facts came out it began impacting their customer base, leading to hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue.
In these moments, it’s easy to be in shock.
You are emotionally reacting to each new bit of information, and just when you think everything is done… more comes out. You feel angry, shameful, upset, and you want to act.
It’s best to not act until all information is on the table.
This could take days, weeks, or even months. It’s not easy to stay in the problem until you have clarity about what’s happened, why it’s happened, and how it’s affecting everything.
Now is the time to get information and talk to others who can help you navigate the moment, including legal counsel.
This business owner is super successful. She is very savvy in business. The problem is in this moment it’s easy to emotionally react and make counterproductive decisions to their larger aims.
My recommendation to her was that it’s time to get some perspective on the problem.
Now that we know the details of what has happened, it’s time to choose how to move forward.
The fork in the road typically looks like this:
Perpetuate the problem by continuing to focus on the problem and how you feel about it emotionally (more than is needed).
Integrate the learnings from the problem to make your business or life better, and look for the opportunity.
With a new perspective “above” the details of the problem, what will you choose?
What I learned from reading Taleb is Antifragility means that everything bad that happens can make you stronger.
If there was a weakness in your business that wasn’t yet exposed, it’s not worse that you know about it now, it’s better.
The longer it went on unaddressed the more it would be a silent wrecking ball creating problems.
Once a problem has been identified, you can take steps to make the business more resilient later. You can update contracts, you can change a hiring process, you can build and renew client relationships.
When structural problems of a company show themselves, repair them so that your foundation is stronger.
When we get perspective we can use problems to create a better future.
As always, let me know how I can help,
What's one question or challenge you’d like to ask me?
Ask a question here. I’ll reply privately or write about it.
xx David
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How to Handle a Professional/Personal Crisis