Okay, so this one may be a little cliched, but we believe it is a powerful reminder and a reason why things just don’t get done.

When it comes to getting things done, you can’t do things tomorrow, as tomorrow doesn’t exist; there is only ever today. If you think with a 'tomorrow' attitude, things won't get done.

Tomorrow and the future are just concepts, handy tools for planning, but they simply don’t exist where getting things done is concerned. Infatuation with the future only leads to unrealistic expectations and procrastination.

So, if you want to get things done, do it today. When we work with clients and ask them to ‘begin with the end in mind’, we look for adjustments that they can make that turn their ‘strategic business plan’ - in essence, ADJUSTING a plan for tomorrow - into a plan for NOW.

Another phrase that’s easy to say but hard to act on, but an important consideration nonetheless. After all, if your business is going to plan, or at least you’re enjoying some fruits of success, why would you want to ruin the ‘gravy train’? Three words: Intoxication, complacency and denial.

A firm's owners or leaders can become intoxicated with success, a happy thought maybe, but intoxication can lead to dependency. If your business becomes too reliant on a specific product or service, you may fail to see trends that suggest this may be short lived or coming to a natural end, what will you be left with?

Understanding product life cycles, or more important appreciating and respecting them, has never been more important than in today’s action packed, hi-tech driven markets. Sentiment can turn, new competitors appear almost overnight and from countries you may not operate in. Many factors can upset the continued success of a product that has become the life blood of the firm.

While we are not actually advocating stopping the product and its current success, we do advocate an adjustment in thinking, one that motivates a business’s owners and leaders to drive towards the company’s ‘next big thing’. Again, planning to do this doesn’t achieve anything; doing it does!

You’ll hear us say this many times: “Complacency kills businesses”. The trouble is, many business owners never see it coming until it’s too late. Often, having a successful business, one enjoying good revenues and margins from a strong product or service, can lead to a level of ‘comfort’; a feeling of security even. If not careful, a business can become complacent and not see that the bright light in the distance isn’t another sunrise, but an oncoming express train.

Denial is another business killer, if not company killer. Owners, leaders, managers, can often become so set in their ways, they simply won’t believe ‘the writing is on the wall’, and that they simply must change, evolve, or die. In many cases, the reason why a company ends up in liquidation as opposed to business rescue, is because a business owner either procrastinated or just refused to believe in the inevitable and take decisive actions to avert disaster. Sometimes, the ‘adjustment spanner’ we have to use is a bit larger than others! This is also where our role as ‘Chief Reality Officers’ plays a strong part.

“Work smarter, not harder”. It’s a familiar mantra for today’s successful businesses and not bad for everyday life either. We embrace this, but we also believe in something else, something that helps define a successful approach to the whole business, not just a way to work.

“Don’t chase horses, grow grass and horses will come”.

In a nutshell, what we mean is: Create an attractive and beneficial environment customised for your intended customers, and they will come to you. This extends right across your business operating landscape. This is why Amazon and other similar companies in the retail world are so successful. People hear about it, wander in, enjoy the experience, graze a while and buy, then they tell others to come too.

For some businesses, this may be a relatively simple adjustment in thinking and approach, one requiring communication and buy-in across the company. For others though, it may require a larger adjustment spanner!

We all want our company employees and indeed ourselves to feel comfortable and relaxed in what we do, after all, stress is a bad thing. Comfort in business life though, is a double edged sword. On one side, one may feel happy, content and relaxed about situations, but on the other side, the dark side, lurks complacency.

If one becomes too comfortable, complacency seeps in. It’s slow at first, maybe making one too many incorrect assumptions based on out of date information, not following up on a job, being content with the status quo, etc. But as it progresses, it can become cancerous, resulting in communication failures, lapses in basic due diligence, failing to notice what competitors are up to or how your clients really perceive your products, services and brand as a whole.

It’s a slippery slope and one that some companies find incredibly hard to recover from. At the Adjustment Agency we like to say; “if you are feeling too comfortable, it's likely there's a problem brewing”. There’s nothing wrong with a little adrenalin in business, it’s what keeps people sharp and on their toes.

The Adjustment Agency actively looks for complacency in your business and helps you turn that around through a small injection of adrenalin - our adrenalin formula.

Board and management team meetings to discuss current problems and strategies, abound with competing arguments, explanations and agendas. Walking into this charged environment, one needs to be able to maintain a healthy degree of dissociation while still grasping the key elements of the problems. Critical to this is the ability to reduce the wide range of apparent problems to a smaller number of actual problems. Often the real problems are masked by more superficial issues, and dare we say it, sometimes this is deliberate.

Arriving at a theory as to what the real problems to be resolved are requires a degree of reduction; listening to, exploring and examining each of the arguments and supporting information to decide which ones are the most likely candidates actually causing the problems. Often, among competing ideas, it’s useful to imply ‘Occam’s Razor’.

Simply put, Occam’s Razor states that: A simple theory, when all else seems equal, is better than a more complex one. Another way to put it is: When faced with competing explanations for the same problem, the simplest one is likely the correct one.

Company dynamics are complex on many levels, from the personalities involved to the intellectual challenges posed. While Occam’s Razor is not without its critics, it is used effectively in science, especially theoretical physics and chemistry. We believe it has its place in solving problems within the complex dynamics prevalent in companies. Even small businesses can benefit, often more than larger ones, as business owners can be struggling with relatively complex challenges facing their businesses and need help with directional decision making.

These three R’s encompass our whole Adjustment philosophy.

Realise: The first step is to truly grasp the reality of your situation, realise that the situation has to change - NOW. Denial, complacency and procrastination can kill your business and company if you don’t act quickly.

Rationalise: Take a cold, long hard look at how things stand - what works, what is not working? Or, if it’s all working what would happen if it broke and how would you change tactics. Be objective and go back to your business plan and current perceived objectives and outcomes - do they still match? Your business landscape, customer expectations and needs can change quickly; are you ready for that? Be realistic and pragmatic in your thinking, at least for today, as you can only act NOW.

Readjust: Based on your rationalisation of the problems your business faces, decide what aspects of the business need adjusting and create a decisive plan that outlines what you are going to do to fix it.