In Business, 90 Percent of Issues Come from the Same 10 Percent

In business, most of your challenges come from the same 10 percent – meaning, if you gained some confidence to fix that 10 percent, perhaps your happiness in business would improve.

Take someone in your organization who does great work, but you know doesn’t follow your core values. You will constantly make excuses for why you keep that person, even though you know they are not healthy for the long-term success of the organization. But their work is good. But the clients love them. But, but, but.

Take an operational flaw. Let’s say customers complain about how long it takes to get your burger to their mouths. Your excuse is that it’s because it’s a damn good burger. The true indicator, however, is that while it may be a good burger, your customer doesn’t think the wait overrules the flavor. Thus, it is either priced too high or not good enough for the wait. Your problem is in expectation setting. It’s 90 percent of your 10 percent.

Take a KPI challenge. Let’s say you complain about never having enough time to hit your goals or KPIs. You say, “But, I put in the effort,” yet you know you leave at 5 p.m., don’t hit the effort marks (lie on your call numbers) and don’t ask for help. You too have the same challenge – 90 percent of your issues are in the same 10 percent of your work ethic and approach to the job.

When the majority of problems come from the same 10 percent, it is easy to identify opportunity. However, very few of us do anything with that information.

Why?

It’s super hard to take our own advice. And change is hard.

But, what if you decided to change just one percent of your problem? What would that do for your business, work or relationship happiness?

With me, it’s weird – change doesn’t bug me. But big moves do.

The best example I have is that when my wife tells me she would like to travel to China, I suggest we start smaller with baby steps to get to China. Meaning, let’s go to Ireland (which is a shorter flight) first.

I like baby steps to big change. But, I think that philosophy has helped me in that I identify the 90 percent in the 10 percent and then, in baby steps, break down the solution into easy to digest solutions.

Once you identify the problems within your organization, you gain control. You get to decide your pace of fix. You get to decide if you want to change at all. Control is an important step toward creating little resolutions within those challenge spots.