How Quickly Do You Bounce Back? - Jana Uselton

We face many situations in our business that call for a bounce back. Like you, there are multiple factors in our day that give us an opportunity to respond or react.

Examples: A team member calls in sick, or we receive a bill that is astronomical, your right-hand person resigns, and the list goes on.

As owners, we sometimes think if we knew what we know now we may have made different decisions. Let’s face it, a good 50% of our time can be allocated to solving problems, pivoting, and responding to setbacks.

How quickly we respond matters! We call this the bounce-back ratio. Your ability to resolve, find solutions, and enhance processes to avoid the typical challenges we face in business matters. We use setbacks as setups for solutions. As you grow, this becomes more important for your teams to practice.

Let’s use a scenario that is less complicated. In fact, on a scale of 1 to 10 with one being simple and 10 being the most difficult, we may rate this as a level four challenge. Situation: you receive a call that your delivery truck has broken down on the side of the road on the way to a stage. How do you react? Better yet, how has your team been trained to respond to the situation without getting you involved? Your bounce-back rate, and your ability to train your team to respond in the same manner, are pivotal to the ultimate success of your company.

If we as business owners cannot make quick and accurate decisions in a situation like this, how do we expect to train our teams to do the same? This level four situation could easily turn into a level ten and derail the day. This adds stress and frustration, eventually contributing to the loss of clients and teammates.

Our bounce-back rate matters... our quick decisions matter... how long we carry the burden of past decisions matters. Great companies move forward in the presence of adversity. Incredible companies move forward faster! This gives them a competitive advantage. When you lose that teammate, you replace them with someone two times better. You have the confidence to know past occurrences can actually create a better future.

Football teams go through tough and grueling practices to learn new plays on how they can respond when their opponent attacks. Their bounce-back rate will determine if they win the game. If we don’t learn from “past injuries” or mistakes, we run the risk of moving forward disabled and at a disadvantage.

I encourage you to take a moment and write down anything on your mind weighing you down, past or present and determine to have a quick resolve allowing you to move forward quickly.

Remember, that we cannot change the past, only learn from it. Rate each challenge you are faced with on a level of 1 to 10 and then face that challenge head-on to solve it quickly. Let’s reduce your bounce-back rate by half the typical time it would take you to get over a situation, learn creative solutions, and move forward in confidence.

If we avoid the opportunity to make something better, we lose future time and money. I believe we can all accomplish the ability to reduce our bounce-back rate by 50%.

Who’s with me? If this article spoke to you in some way, please email me at info@myhsra.com and let me know.