A LETTER FROM CHRIS SUAREZ

THIS ISN’T WORKING

We all enjoy growing. We like it when our business is advancing, when it’s improving, when it’s moving forward. All businesses will go through cycles. We have cycles of exponential growth. We have cycles of restrained growth. We have cycles of stabilization and levelling. And we at times have cycles of retraction or correction. Through each of these cycles, as the CEO and leader or as an entrepreneur we look for strategies to power through those cycles. 

Appropriately, we find strategies that have been tested or proven to work for others when they were at similar phases in their business as we are in ours. Perhaps we revisit strategies that have worked in the past to get us to where we are today. 

We review the strategy, we learn the process, we commit to the activity, and we get to work. A week goes by. A month goes by. A quarter goes by. The year goes by. If you are like me, you have found yourself at some point in that period of time saying, “This isn’t working.” The result we wanted didn’t show up when we wanted it to show up, so we blame “this”. Whatever “this” actually is.  

So we stop. We go back to what we were doing before. We find another shiny object to chase and try. We pivot, change directions, walk away to start something new. What if “this” is actually “you”. When things don’t go exactly as we’d like them to go, no matter who we are, we immediately look to blame something, someone, or some situation. But often, we are the thing. We are the one. We are the situation. We just blame “this.” 

What we’ve actually done in that moment is given away our agency. We think we are shifting blame. In reality, we’ve just overtly or covertly told ourselves that we don’t and can’t control the outcome. I don’t believe in that. Don’t give your potential impact away.

When we look closer, we took a plan or strategy and we tweaked it or changed it. We committed to do something, but we did it half-way, or did it half the time. We entered with all the energy, but lost the momentum or the enthusiasm.

Maybe “you” aren’t working. Before we blame the strategy, the plan, the playbook, the business model, or any other “this” or “that”, it’s only fair to challenge ourselves. I remind myself often - I am probably the one that isn’t working, or doing what it takes, or doing what I committed to do when I started this plan.

So next time you catch yourself saying “this isn’t working,” well, we might be forced to say “I’m not working.”

Chris Suarez