In our last blog post (Lessons From Fixer Upper) we talked about one of our mottos, “accept, adapt and overcome.” We wanted to share a few more with you today and how to apply them to your own daily grind.
High Speed, Low Drag
With the number of customers we service, the devices we service and the projects we execute…time is literally money. Anything that slows us down has to be eliminated. Now, this doesn’t mean that we stop planning. That we stop communicating or that we stop being thoughtful in our approach. High speed, low drag isn’t about being reckless; speed for the sake of speed is irresponsible.
It is, however, about operational efficiency. Knowing what barriers need to be removed. Figuring out what extra weight we can drop to gain just a bit more speed. We’re constantly looking at our operations to find ways to shave time off of tasks. Time is the modern day currency and reducing drag (without being reckless) is a requirement.
Let The Facts Lead You Forward
Everyone has an opinion. And debating opinions is a waste of time when problem solving. We choose to chase facts. Present facts. And let those facts lead us forward. You’ll see that several of these mottos tie in together. By letting the facts lead us forward, we also reduce unnecessary drag.
It’s not that we don’t care about another’s opinion, it’s that when trouble shooting issues, what someone “thinks” is the issue is irrelevant in the absence of facts. Think about it this way…you go to the doctor and before you even talk about your symptoms, he tells you it’s a cold. You’ve given him no information to go on, but he “believes” it’s a cold.
Just like a doctor, we gather facts and let that information lead us to a diagnosis.
Reduce The Variables
Going back to the doctor example, when you first walk through the door you could have anything from a common cold, to a broken arm to something worse. The doctor’s first job in gathering facts is to reduce the variables. Each new “fact” reduces down what you could have; if you’re not talking about your arm pain, it’s not a broken arm. There’s no for the doctor to investigate that. Our job is similar. Some data is just that…data. Noise. It’s not relevant.
In today’s IT environments, we’re bombarded with data. We’re overwhelmed with complexity. If we don’t reduce the variables, we won’t ever move forward. We’ll be too busy chasing shadows.
Accept, Adapt, Overcome
We talked about this motto in the Fixer Upper blog post, but we’ll add some more color to it. In our work, we are constantly having conversations with customers about how something was “supposed” to work. We have found that it’s hard for people to “accept” without thinking there’s judgement involved.
Our job isn’t to judge. We accept. No judgement and begin planning for how to adapt and overcome the issue. So much energy (and time!) is wasted in deflecting, blaming and denial. Our IT environments are complex…things happen. We design things wrong. We don’t anticipate the future state like we should. That’s OK! Instead of spending energy on justifying why…just accept where you are today and start making plans to adapt and overcome the issue.
These mottos enable us to serve large and small customers across all different verticals. Applying them to your own IT organization will accelerate your success.
