Sometimes, as leaders in the mortgage industry, we have to deal with difficult situations. We encounter problems in our organizations for which we need to quickly find solutions before they get out of hand. However, the temptation is always there to simply ignore the problems in hopes that they'll go away. We may try to downplay them or brush them under the rug. We don't want those big, hairy problems to get us sidetracked, right? We want to stay optimistic and focus on more positive things, don't we?
Here's the thing, though. When you ignore problems, they don't go away. Oftentimes, they only get bigger. You cannot just ignore your problems, you've got to confront them, wrestle with them and eventually come to the point that you can solve them. Before you find a solution to your problems, you have to identify them. You have to confront the elephant in the room.
Problems can come in many forms. It could be something with your business process. There could be bottlenecks in the work flow that are slowing things down. Addressing the issue may rock the boat and cause a lot of people to change the way they work, so you may be tempted to let it go and just hope that it works itself out. But, you know that won't work, the only way is to address the problem.
The issue could also be that there is an employee that is causing disruption in the culture of the organization. You may not want to confront the employee about it but, if you don't, things could quickly spiral out of control. As the leader, you've got to be the one to have that tough conversation. Whatever it is, with you processes or with your people, you've got to confront the problem. Problems are stubborn … they won't simply go away unless you meet them head on and force them to.
David Lykken, a 43-year veteran of the mortgage industry, is president of Transformational Mortgage Solutions (TMS), a management consulting firm that provides transformative business strategies to owners and “C-Level” executives via consulting, executive coaching and various communications strategies. He is a frequent guest on FOX Business News and hosts his own weekly podcast called “Lykken On Lending” heard Monday’s at 1:00 p.m. ET at LykkenOnLending.com. David’s phone number is (512) 759-0999 and his e-mail is [email protected].
