Are you facing reality?

Are you facing reality?
Ah, sweet delusion. It comes in so many forms. There are so many ways we cleverly keep ourselves from seeing the truth.

Pictures from the past.
Ever look at a picture of yourself from years ago and wonder how you got where you are today?! Last weeks column on incremental change dovetails with this week's look at reality. Reality changes very slowly, just like you do, day by day. It's only when you shift time and look back further than yesterday that you can see your new reality.

One of the most instructive financial reports I get from QuickBooks is the "Previous Year Comparison" for balance sheets, income statements, sales reports, etc. Instead of looking at where you are right now, you look at the reality of where you are compared to the past.

Why does this matter? Reality might be escaping you. If you made a $10,000 sale this week and the check just cleared the bank, you might think that reality is very good! If you review your sales Year-To-Date and you are behind by $20,000, you made a great sale, but there's still lots of work to do.

People, then and now.
Your people change too. My trial for the week is an employee whose performance was great last fall, has, very slowly over the past months, allowed his/her performance and appropriateness deteriorate.

Had I truly taken a look sooner, I would have compared the employee's performance against last year's and seen that it was nowhere close to our standard, but performance slipped so slowly, I thought it wasn't too much worse each week.

Reality has caught up with me and the employee and I must take action I should have taken months ago.

Keepin' it real.
Do you have a system by which you "check-in" on reality with your financials, people, experience, inventory, sales, etc.? Are you keepin' it real?

Set-up benchmarks by which you can check the things you need to check. Take the time to take a realistic view your business and your people. As I found out, you will deal with reality sooner or later. It might as well be sooner and on your terms.

Have a great week. - Hugh

PS Got a story to share about keepin' it real? Send it my way and let me know if you'd like to share it with our readers.