Last year our business had a massive metaphorical blaze. The term fighting fires was a dramatic understatement as we fought to contain a major issue that caused people grief and cost a heap of money.
As I pondered this shot that I took of a big warehouse fire at Tristram Marine a couple of thoughts struck me.
Firstly firewalls. The fire in this building was contained to the point that they will be reopening the showroom at the other end of the building tomorrow.
My second observation is hot spots. Today, the same fire appliance that was in this shot was still at the fire to dampen down hotspots.
Last year we lacked firewalls. Processes and systems to contain issues as they arose, and stop them becoming a raging uncontrolled blaze. As a result we spent a lot of time dampening down hot spots.
I’m reminded that as leaders and managers we need build firewalls. Simple purposeful systems, that protect our organisations from large disruptive metaphorical fires.