PREP TALK
All Businesses
Are Loosely Functioning
Disasters
From Permanent Equity’s Ops Desk
Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
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Businesses are merely collections of people trying to accomplish something together.
And, people are messy.
Even the most put-together big company CEO, or clean cut church pastor, or deeply thoughtful public intellectual is a walking contradiction.
We want to be generous…
The internet goes down.
…and pound a tub of ice cream.
We want to complete the big project flawlessly…
Your largest supplier raises prices 40%…
A virus shuts down the world.
…but also yearn to be showered with applause.
…but also want to scroll social media.
Business would be messy even in a perfectly predictable world, but alas, we know it is not.
A ship captain gets food poisoning and a crashed tanker shuts down the Panama Canal.
That shutdown cascades into late product arrivals and increased demand on the transportation system.
Torrential rain washes out your 35 open construction projects.
Your CFO develops insomnia, starts drinking heavily, and moves to another state with his recently reconnected high school sweetheart.
Our desires are constantly changing and conflicting.
We want to be fit…
We want to give our teammates credit…
And the cycle continues.
We live and work in a complex adaptive system, where the nearly endless inputs create changing outputs, which become inputs.
At the company level, businesses are constantly getting sued, having employees leave, and getting weird things in the mail from the government.
This ripples into further delays, layoffs, shipping price increases, fuel price increases, and currency fluctuations.
…but also want to get a good deal.
When you add your shortcomings and contradictions to those of the dozens of people you work with, the results get interesting, fast.
A hastily sent email is interpreted as a slight.
That frustration causes the recipient to cut you off mid-sentence during your next group meeting…
…which in turn causes someone else to fret for days about why you think they’re a terrible co-worker.
So when it comes to running a successful business, we’re mixing together interdependent walking contradictions with a highly volatile and unpredictable world, hoping for predictability.
It’s no wonder most predictions turn out to be what they always are — merely bad guesses.
In this imperfect world, what’s the best way to operate?
CREATE REDUNDANCY
Small problems can be isolated and solved, unless there’s no slack in the system. Whether it’s debt, customers, suppliers, or expertise, count on stuff hitting the fan.
BUILD CULTURE
Culture is what happens when no one is looking. A little unaddressed bad behavior can lead to catastrophic results. Truly caring about people is the best protection.
TAKE THE LONG VIEW
Molehills can feel like mountains, and nothing is ever as good or bad as it seems. Ask yourself if this is something you’ll still be thinking about in a few years and roll with the punches.
The landlord sells the property for redevelopment.
The machine breaks.
The warehouse manager doesn’t show up.
…then says they’re out of stock for six weeks.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
