Vol. I, Issue 01

Hello to All,

Welcome to this issue of The ART of Business newsletter. I hope you all had a nice holiday and were able to spend time with your loved ones.

This issue's feature article, Proactive Problem Solving, highlights the importance of keeping our businesses alive by solving problems with a proactive approach. I hope you find it informative and inspirational.

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Proactive Problem Solving

In business, it is important to handle negative situations quickly and effectively. The goal is to minimize the disruption to your operations. By using a solutions-based approach, you can identify the most immediate problem and resolve that first, before trying to diagnose what, or who, caused it. Those issues can be dealt with later.

The following are some hypothetical situations that illustrate this more clearly, with suggestions for resolving issues using a solutions-based approach.

• You own a floral shop and you’ve got twenty fresh flower centerpieces to deliver to a wedding reception that afternoon. The delivery van breaks down on the way to the reception hall. What do you do first?
  1. Identify the immediate problem: The most urgent matter in this situation is not the van--it's getting the flowers to the reception hall. The van will wait, the wedding won't.
  2. Consider your options for resolving the problem, and take action: Don't panic--start making phone calls to friends, relatives, or a taxicab service to get those flowers delivered.
  3. Deal with the secondary problem while you wait for your rescuers: Get the van out of the way of traffic and leave a note on the windshield for the police to let them know you'll have the vehicle towed later that day.
  4. After you get the flowers delivered, arrange for a tow truck to pick up the van and get it to a repair shop.
  5. Make arrangements to have an alternative vehicle available for making deliveries while the van is being fixed.

• You're a freelance writer and the article you're working on is due by 5:00p.m. that day. Your computer crashes and you can't retrieve the article. What do you do?
  1. Identify the immediate problem: You have to get the article finished. Wasting time troubleshooting what happened to the computer isn't going to get the article written. If you still aren't able to access your file after spending 15 or 20 minutes trying to bring the computer back to life, don't panic--move on!
  2. Gather up your article research paperwork and your back-up disk or CD and find another computer to work on. If you live in a remote area and there isn't a FedEx/Kinko's type place that you can work from, call the editor and ask for a one-day extension. Stay calm--you can do this! Get to another computer and get the article finished.
  3. After you've solved the immediate problem and turned in the finished article, find a computer technician to get your computer fixed, or at least retrieve the data from your hard drive to reinstall on another computer.

  If you haven't got a regular back-up system in place, this should be your motivation to do so immediately. Back up your files every day, without fail. This can be a life saver in a worst-case scenario like the one mentioned here.

  While most problems that occur in business aren't life threatening, they can endanger your operations, which could impact your company's financial health. Think of how doctors in an emergency room act--their immediate goal is to get incoming patients stabilized, to keep them alive. The most urgent matter must be handled first, before the diagnostics and long-term treatment begins.

  It's the same for business problems. Your goal is to keep your business alive, to keep the work flow going, and then deal with the long-term effects. Using a proactive, solutions-based approach allows you to minimize the disruption to your operations while planning ahead to keep the problem from recurring.

  Things happen; that's just the way life is. But we don't have to lose sleep over situations we can't control. By doing what we can, with the resources we have, in the most efficient manner possible, we keep moving forward. That's how we keep our business, and our dreams, alive.

  
  Wishing you all the best,

  Angel Brown

  www.womens-business-gallery.com

  
  Please feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends and co-workers. You can subscribe to this newsletter by visiting: http://www.womens-business-gallery.com/newsletter.html

  
  

  Copyright 2005 by Angel Brown. All rights reserved.

  Published by the Womens Business Gallery, Woodland Park, Colorado