Implosions

You know what is the most common cause of stress on the workplace? Implosions. Not low pay, long hours, or a mean boss.

An implosion happens when outside pressures hit the company and instead of dealing with them as outside pressures, we try to overcome them internally.

Service companies understand this well. You have a client who is great, but let's say they are under their own pressures and don't live up to their promises to you. Those promises could include timely response, timely payments, consistent feedback, etc. If the client doesn't live up to that, then you will:

Deal with the client
Ignore the problem
Try to solve the problems ourselves so we don't bother/anger the client

The problem is that if we try to solve the problem totally on our own, we can't. If we ignore it, it probably get worse. Our fear is that if we deal with the client, we'll lose something--their friendship, happiness or business.

So, if we either ignore the issue or take it on internally, that's where we implode. With the best of intentions, we try to solve, we try to re-do, and we try to please. But that will seldom to be the answer, in fact, it will add stress to an already stressful situation.

We have to do the tough thing, to solve the issue at the source. That does not mean it is always the customer's fault. It does mean the customer has a role and a voice in solving it.

Barry LaBov
LaBov & Beyond
www.labov.com