It’s all about seeing the bigger picture
Have you ever been in a relationship and didn’t know why things weren’t working out?
You might have spoken to a friend about it, and they had quick and pertinent advice about why your relationship might be having problems. Does this resonate?
Just like when you are in a relationship, it can be tough to see the issues when you’re in the weeds trying to make it work every day.
It often takes others to see the systematic flaws in our logic and thinking, and in this way, a consultant is no different. In business consulting, we look at the bigger picture when working with a client and tries to find patterns as well as opportunities within existing systems.
A phrase consultants hear frequently is, ‘We’ve always done business this way.’ This phrase is both frustrating and depressing as it can mean that business owners are completely closed to new ways of working, or looking at other avenues to improve their success. When we hear this at Take the Stairs, we immediately know two things: 1) that it might take a little more work to show an owner how change can be a powerfully good thing, and 2) that small tweaks here and there can make a world of difference to the owner’s success.
The legendary consultant, Jim Collins, said, “Good is the enemy of great” and boy, was he right. Many practices work functionally on the day-to-day and do well enough, but when analyzing across a longer period of time, you can often see lost production because greatness was not pursued. We believe it’s important to strive for greatness in all areas that affect your bottom line.
Businesses aren’t perfect
Most people believe when they are growing up (and sometimes as adults) that businesses that advertise have it all figured out, right?
An example might be the company Equifax, known as one of the three standards for consumer credit reporting. As consumers, our ability to get loans is highly based on their credit scores. Yet in 2017, it announced that 145.5 million consumers’ information had been breached.
How is it possible that a business of this size wasn’t prepared for a data breach?
The truth of the matter is that no business has it all figured out. Businesses are constantly uncovering new challenges and their business grows or downsizes across all departments as a result of how it manages those challenges.