Have you ever had a toothache that progressively got worse as you continued to ignore it? For some reason, many of us have learned to accept some level of pain as normal while allowing the condition to worsen. In the same way that the pain of a toothache can often go unaddressed for an uncomfortable amount of time, sometimes it’s also a person or situation in our business that we refuse to address as well.
Dr. Henry Cloud discusses the principle of “pulling the tooth” in his book “9 Things you Simply Must Do.” In short, Dr. Cloud discusses the tendency of most people to deal with pain rather than treat the root of the problem. He goes on to describe that successful people train themselves to deal with problem situations and people quickly, before they become a bigger problem.
Don’t Settle
In my business for example, I’ve had many relationships with vendors, contractors or even business partners over the years that were not optimum. Sometimes this involved a person that brought down the rest of the team by setting a negative tone. Sometimes it was an established business partner that simply wasn’t performing to the standard I had set for my business. Unfortunately, in most of these cases, I had subconsciously trained myself to deal with the pain and hassle of these shortcomings rather than addressing them head on.
For those people who tend to be loyal (to a fault) or non-confrontational, it can be hard to honestly assess people in your business that are causing some level of stress or pain. Sometimes we believe it’s less painful to live with the difficult person or situation rather than deal with the temporary pain of addressing the problem head on. Dr. Cloud would argue that successful people learn to eliminate the negative …read more