Truth, consequences, fear, and courage. It is a cocktail that all business owners get served every day when they open their doors and boot their computers. I highlight business owners, but doesn’t everyone deal with these concepts and emotions in some way daily? Whether you are the CEO of Apple or a stay-at-home mom in the Midwest, you will deal with these every day. Perhaps the only difference is the immediacy of results afterward?
Truth And Consequences
This isn’t sermonizing; rather it’s a common-sense look at Life as we live it. For example, if I keep eating ice cream, will my jeans still fit at the end of the month? If I don’t feel like contributing to my community this week, won’t someone else step up and cover me? Truth can be objective and we each have our levels of truth. Consequences can be both positive and negative. We balance these back and forth in our waking hours all our lives. In business, the truth can be that something is not working quite right and the consequence is that productivity is falling behind. An owner or manager may recognize this but be reluctant to act unless and until there is a work-stopping crash. In that scenario, the focus will be on the drama of the catastrophe, and decisions about remedies can be made at that time.
Fear
So, the drama of the catastrophe is very often where Aptica comes in. Everything is broken! All work has stopped! Who could have seen it coming?! Fix it! Fix it! Fix it! Correct IT management works to prevent this from ever happening. That is our primary mission as a business. We know that your computer system is your most necessary supplier if you want to be competitive in your industry. It supplies you with names, phone numbers, market updates, bank account totals, prospective clients, current distribution data, product availability, payroll, profit projections—the list goes on and on. You could probably ask folks who were recently shut down because of power outages how hard it is to do business without electricity for desktop computers. We are woefully dependent, and I suspect, are appropriately fearful because of it.
Courage
Courage is a big word that implies larger-than-life deeds. I see courage as a virtue that most people exhibit every day. Courage at its most basic can be choosing to go just one step outside your comfort zone. Using my example of business computer systems, good maintenance, and planned upgrades can be a result of courage. Most often owners get comfortable with what they are paying for IT management. When advised that it’s time for upgrades, there is usually an instant resistance to investing more. But as you have heard me say before, there is a price and there is a cost. There may be a higher price for the upgrade, but what will be the cost of a shutdown? Without fanfare or medals, business owners have choices to be courageous in the most mundane ways. But it is still the opposite of fear, and fear is the underside of putting things off.
Running a business is an exercise in constant risk management whether you are thinking of personnel, markets, equipment, or competition. We embrace it and enjoy it and profit from it. Judge your daily risk assessments with a new awareness of the dichotomies of truth and consequences, fear and courage. If you are even a little fearful about your IT system, give us a call at Aptica. We want to talk about planning, stability, and peace of mind.
Jason Newburg, 260.243.5100, ext 2101, is the founder and owner of Aptica LLC. This IT management and support company has been serving small to medium-sized businesses for 19 years in the region that includes Angola, South Bend, and Fort Wayne, IN, Battle Creek, MI, and Toledo OH.