As an Ology Business Coach, I often talk to business owners who are trying to solve their ‘key frustrations’. I advise them to begin by looking for the underlying cause of the frustrations, in other words, the business conditions that may be causing the problems.

This is a very important first step - one that clients sometimes ignore. In fact, they often want to try to ‘fix’ the frustrations without fully understanding why they occur. The result of this way of thinking is to blame others or more likely themselves, or even to fire the wrong person! Obviously, then, a shift in thinking must occur.

In the presence of frustrations, instead of blaming themselves and thinking "it’s all my fault" or blaming others and thinking "it’s all their fault" clients must ask themselves, "I wonder what is causing these frustrations to occur? What standard, procedure or system is missing, or not being followed, that is allowing these frustrations to exist?"

If they can think in terms of searching for the cause of the problem, rather than concentrating all their energy on apportioning blame, they will be on their way to finding a ‘process solution’ which is a repeatable method to resolve that, or a similar problem. Otherwise, if they continue to be reactive and implement quick fixes, the frustrations may subside for a while, but they will always return.

I've often asked my clients to stop and notice when they feel frustrated in their business. I coach them to consider exactly what is going on in the business at that point in time, and to write it down in a notebook. That way, they can more easily see what the frustrations are, and can examine them more closely. For example, entries may say, "Bob in the Sales Department was late again today, and missed an important customer telephone call", or "The Despatch Department did not send that package out on time, and the customer did not get it when they should have." This process will help them to see the cause AND effect of things that happen in their business.

After they have followed this process for a few weeks, we use the coaching relationship to examine these experiences. They will be able to clearly see whether there are any commonalities about their frustrations, such as whether they all happen in the same area or department of the company, within the same team, on the same day, at the same time of day, only when it rains, at certain times of the month, with certain clients, and so on. If they can identify and analyse the common elements, it may be easier to systematically pinpoint what has to change.

Clearly, after they shift their thinking about the need to identify the underlying cause of frustrations, their actions will also shift. Increased awareness will help them to then prioritise how they want to change and solve things, versus running around blaming people and coming up with short-term fixes. If this shift in thinking does not occur or is resisted, however, then they will continue to suffer from their key frustrations over and over again!! More on Coaching Here

By Steve Lane - Ology Business Coach, Birmingham

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