Every business has a NET – Notable Elements of Triumph.  But not many businesses have identified the few critical elements that contribute the most to their success or failure and therefore end up investing their time, energy, and money to treat symptoms with a band-aid instead of diagnosing and curing the true disease.

Two examples:

An undercapitalized company may be having difficulty making payroll and paying bills in a timely manner so they treat the symptom by working to cut costs and often times as a result, their level of service to the customer rather than increasing inventory turns or collecting accounts receivable more quickly to stretch their cash.

A company with a growing DSO (days sales outstanding) tighten their billing practices by placing all new potential customers on strict COD (cash on delivery) terms, and often times as a result, reduce their overall sales rather than developing and implementing a credit application process in order to expand their list of ‘worthy long term paying customers’.

In each of these examples the disease is evident.  Quick solutions to problems are always easy to come up with, but unless the underlying disease is diagnosed and cured the symptoms will quickly return resulting in continued wasted effort and time, or worse yet, the implementation of cures that invariably become even more damaging than the original disease that may be affecting the bottom line!

It’s critical to look beyond the obvious, band-aid solutions, and ask if the proposed solution will cure the true disease and either eliminate it completely or reduce it to a point where it ceases to be a major problem.  Question whether the fix for a problem will become part of your NET, Notable Elements of Triumph.

If a business continues to work on improving their notable elements there is a higher probability of success while reducing the slow bleed on resources that comes from slapping a band-aid on the problem.

From James Callaghan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1976-1979):

…Some food for thought.  Thinking pays.