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The hardest challenges in business are often not the tasks, but the people—and being quick and action-oriented applies to both.
As a guy I worked with once said, “If something is going on with my people (whether employees or vendors), we have the hard conversation early. I can’t carry that stuff around in my head all the time.”
You gain a reputation as someone who will call things out and meet them head-on. That’s strong positioning and it earns you a lot of respect—especially when you can do this fairly and cleanly.
Whether it’s in your business or even in your relationships outside of work—allowing things to drag on takes up headspace, distracts your focus, and has you carrying unresolved problems around for far too long. It’s draining—and an anchor you don’t need and shouldn’t have.
When I was fresh out of grad school doing work in forensics, there was the concept that applied to kidnapping but also happens to apply to business: “Fight up front, and never let them take you to a secondary location.”
No matter what the outcome is when you take on the challenge early, if you wait, then wherever you’re going will be unpredictable—and it will be worse. Do everything in your power to not let that happen.
In the analogy with kidnapping → you fight up front to never allow someone to push you in that van and take you to that secondary location. Things will get considerably worse.
In the analogy applied to work → you have the hard conversations early and “fight up front” so that you don’t go to that unpredictable secondary location either. It will also be worse.
The best are fighting up front, but it’s important to understand how they do it.
It’s not always a drag-out fight, but it’s almost always a challenge. There are tactical ways to approach problems early, and reasons why it pays off big—both in your headspace and in your bottom line. Let’s walk through this power move, and I’ll show you how to add it to your arsenal.
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