ARTICLE :: Small Business Center

Find the Cause of Your Problems/Courtesy of Corey (Tenofnine) via flickr

Courtesy Of: E-Myth

22. May. 2008

The approach

As an E-Myth Business Coach, I often talk to small business owners trying to solve key frustrations. My advice to them is to search for underlying causes of frustration, i.e., the business conditions that are causing the problems. This is a fundamental step that our clients sometimes ignore. Clients will often try to 'fix' a frustrating problem without understanding why the problem occurred. A result of this sort of 'fix' is often to blame others or blame themselves.

A blame-free environment

Given frustrations, and instead of blaming themselves thinking "it's all my fault" or blaming others thinking "it's all their fault" business owners must ask themselves, "What is causing these frustrations to occur? What standard procedure is missing (or isn't being followed) that is allowing these frustrations to exist?"

If business owners can think in terms of searching for the cause of the problem, rather than concentrating on fixing blame, they will be on their way to building a system to repetitively and predictably solve that problem. If one continues to be reactive and implement quick-and-dirty sorts of fixes, the frustrations may temporarily subside, but they will always return.

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What People Are Saying

From: Christos
10:45 EDT, 31.May.08

The key is always finding the "root cause," oftentimes the problem you are trying to fix isn't the reason you're frustrated. The blame game has become become an expensive excuse for not accepting responsibility for your actions. You are absolutely right; resolve the root cause of the problem, irrespective of who is at fault and take the high ground. Everyone learns and everyone wins.

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