- Impact
- 4
Problems. They can ruin your day if you don't have the right perspective. Here's a secret and a few mind tricks. Handle any problem. Make your business more successful.
Every business has problems.
Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings. This, of course, excludes Go Daddy customers. For the record most of you are perfect. The bottom line is that there are many things that can and will go wrong.
I like everything to be perfect.
Like most business people, I want every aspect of my business to be perfect. I know that this goal is unachievable, but it is nevertheless what I strive to achieve.
I use lots of quality assurance.
To keep problems to a minimum, I have installed no less than three separate and specialized departments at The Go Daddy Group. These “swat teams” do nothing but monitor and improve the quality of the products and services that we provide. Each of these three quality assurance departments specialize in improving our interactions with customers.
No business will ever be perfect.
But, as I said earlier, even though Go Daddy is staffed with dedicated, intelligent and hardworking employees, they are all human and, like the rest of us, imperfect. I am proud to say that Go Daddy is now approaching the four (4) million active customer mark. But like our employees, each of these customers is also human and seems to look at our services in their own individual way. We also now register a new domain name at the rate of one every 5 seconds or so. Because of this high volume and interaction between humans, we are always afforded many opportunities to improve – thus, my three quality assurance departments.
I used to cringe when I became aware of problems.
There was a time, back when I owned Parsons Technology and also during the early days of The Go Daddy Group, that I would cringe when a significant problem came to my attention. In fact, when I would go on vacation (during the few times I actually went on vacation) and was contacted and advised of a major problem, I would become preoccupied, let the problem own me and essentially ruin my vacation.
What I’ve learned through reading.
All my life I’ve been a slow but avid reader. I go through books at the rate of one every other week. I read all sorts of works. I like history, philosophy, historical fiction, non-fiction military accounts, etc. Often I will read something that affects me in a profound way, but it takes quite a while to actually sink in and have an effect.
Two “life changing” things I read somewhere (I don’t remember where) are that:
1. Our measure is taken by how we handle the difficult times. Anyone can manage their way through good times. It’s how we handle the difficult times, that all of us are sure to have, that determines how happy and/or successful we will eventually become.
2. The obstacles we all have to face – be they personal or business – do not get in the way of us living our life. The obstacles are our life.
Each and every one of us is imperfect.
The gist of both of the above facts is that we are imperfect beings in a very imperfect world, and the one thing we can count on is that things will go wrong, and that each and every one of us will have problems.
My grandmother’s secret.
My grandmother, quite out of the blue, first told me this to me when I was just a young man. I was fretting to her about some problem I had at the time. She sat down across from me, held my hand and looked me straight in the eye. Then she said, “let me tell you a secret…everybody has a problem…you will always have problems…if you want to be happy you have got to learn to not let them get you so upset.” I’ve come to learn that she was right. Our problems might differ, but we each have one or more. And almost the moment we deal with and overcome the current problem — we are served up another. So it makes sense to learn how to deal with them.
A mini-disaster that hit Go Daddy.
About four years ago, when Go Daddy was just coming into its own, what seemed like a calamity struck our server farm. It happened as a result of a comedy of errors. The fact that this particular comedy of errors would happen in exactly the right sequence to spell disaster was incredible, but happen it did.
My staff alerted me at 7 PM in the evening.
I received a call from my office at about 7 PM that our servers were down. I was advised that the problem appeared to be severe. It was 8 PM by the time I was able to get to the office. My senior executive was there, as well as all of my systems programmers and computer hardware staff. Everyone was incredibly upset and seemed to be going in different directions. The situation was indeed serious.
I knew the wrong thing to do was to become upset.
Upon seeing the staff as they were, and having some idea about the gravity of the problem, I initially also became upset for about a minute or two. Then I took hold of myself when those two things I read long ago hit home to me. I knew that if we were going to be successful I had to deal with this crisis and work our way through it.
I first spent ten minutes meditating about the right course of action.
I took about ten minutes and sat alone thinking. During that time I had a revelation. The revelation was similar to the one that struck me when I was a combat Marine in Viet Nam (back then I simply accepted the fact that I would probably be killed, so I no longer worried about that happening. Instead I lived each day looking forward only to mail call).
I realized that it was important to keep my mind in the present moment.
I decided not to worry one bit about the consequences of the outage, but instead to stay in the moment. I resisted the temptation to visit the past and waste time with non-productive things like blaming anyone for the problem. I also resisted thinking about the future and worrying about the consequences of the crash. Neither of these things would get the problem handled. Instead, I resolved to think and do only those things that would get us back online.
What my people really needed was a leader.
It occurred to me that dealing with something as serious as this system outage appeared to be — and would be — a heck of a leadership test. So I made it my goal to be positive, upbeat and a man of action – and do whatever it took to get the servers back on line quickly. My people all felt terrible over the failure. What the company needed now was a leader. I resolved to step up and do everything possible to fulfill that role.
All that mattered was getting our servers back on line.
I gathered the senior person from each affected department into an office in the programming area, and had them brief me on their "take" of the problem. I made it a point to stay away from “who shot John” talk. For us that didn’t matter. All that mattered was working our way though the problem and getting our servers back on line.
I stayed at the office and even took a nap on the floor.
After about a half an hour I had a firm understanding of the problem, and I had our managers stop each of their employees from what they were doing. Then we all agreed upon a plan and went to work to implement it. We worked through the night to resolve the problem. Like most of the staff, I stayed at the office during the entire time. When fatigue overcame me, I took a brief nap on the floor. Eventually everything came together. It took us the better part of a day but we got our servers back on line.
The problem was bad but could have been much worse.
Being down for the better part of a day in our business was definitely not good. But if I wasn’t there to provide calm, positive and focused leadership the situation could have, and would have, been a lot worse.
We are now fanatical about uptime.
We learned quite a bit from that mini-disaster. We’ve learned to become fanatical about uptime. We’ve built triple redundancy into all of our systems. Many of our systems are also not only redundant based on hardware, but are also geographically redundant. As a result of all this, quite often we have the best uptime of any company we compete with. When we don’t have the best uptime, we’re only a few seconds behind. So in hindsight, that bleak day, long ago, was a blessing.
I seldom become upset over bad news.
I seldom allow myself to become upset over seemingly bad news. In fact, I insist on being made aware of problems as soon as they arise. Like everybody I enjoy hearing good news, but it’s not imperative that I know good news. It is vitally important that I immediately became aware of bad news. I now know that I (and all of us for that matter) learn by solving problems as they arise. Rarely do we learn significant lessons, or significantly improve, any other way.
I now look at bad news as an opportunity.
Now when I hear bad news, I look at it as another leadership test that will determine how successful Go Daddy will become. So I no longer dread it. Instead, I enjoy the game of finding the very best way to deal with it, and take great satisfaction in having a hand in resolving the issues that come my way. Like me, my executives and managers also deal with problems head on, and as a result all of us enjoy working at Go Daddy.
Look at bad news or problems as your test.
So remember, the next time bad news surfaces — look at it as your test. You are being given a chance to determine how successful you will be. If you can lighten up and deal with whatever the problem is, you will be better in three ways:
1. You’ll have the satisfaction of handling a problem.
2. You’ll be wiser when it comes to dealing with future issues.
3. Those around you will respect and welcome your leadership.
Never shoot the messenger.
It’s important to stay away from “who shot John” types of fretting – if necessary, there will be plenty of time for that after the problem is resolved. It’s also incredibly important to welcome, not shoot, the messenger. Those around you need to be encouraged to bring problems to your attention.
An important key to happiness.
Once you get in the habit of enjoying the process of dealing with and resolving problems, you will indeed become happier. You will then discover that what I read long ago is indeed true. The obstacles you face do not get in the way of you living your life – the obstacles you face are your life. So why not change your perspective and simply enjoy the process of dealing with them.
A mental trick for dealing with problems.
I've noticed over the years that it's easy to hear about someone else's problems and to offer a solution. It only becomes difficult when the problem at hand is yours and not someone else's. An interesting drill to help deal with problem situations is to mentally step outside the situation. Try to think of the problem as being someone else's instead of yours. The trick here is to not worry or even think about the consequences. Instead, deal with the problem at hand and only that.
Look at each day like batting practice.
I often tell my managers to look at each day like baseball players look at batting practice. I tell them to swing at each pitch (or problem) that comes their way. Some they will knock out of the park. Others they will miss completely. And for the ones they miss — simply swing at them again tomorrow.
************** Check out our new commercials **************
Click on the following link to see the internet only version of "Car Wash" as well as any of our past or present commercials.
To see the internet only version of “Car Wash,” and all our commercials, past and present, just click on the following link.
www.godaddy.com/gdshop/superbowl05/landing.asp
http://www.bobparsons.com/ProblemsTheycanruinyourdayifyoudonthavetherightperspectiveHeresasecretandafewmindtricksHandleanyproblemMakeyourbusinessmoresuccessful.html
Every business has problems.
Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings. This, of course, excludes Go Daddy customers. For the record most of you are perfect. The bottom line is that there are many things that can and will go wrong.
I like everything to be perfect.
Like most business people, I want every aspect of my business to be perfect. I know that this goal is unachievable, but it is nevertheless what I strive to achieve.
I use lots of quality assurance.
To keep problems to a minimum, I have installed no less than three separate and specialized departments at The Go Daddy Group. These “swat teams” do nothing but monitor and improve the quality of the products and services that we provide. Each of these three quality assurance departments specialize in improving our interactions with customers.
No business will ever be perfect.
But, as I said earlier, even though Go Daddy is staffed with dedicated, intelligent and hardworking employees, they are all human and, like the rest of us, imperfect. I am proud to say that Go Daddy is now approaching the four (4) million active customer mark. But like our employees, each of these customers is also human and seems to look at our services in their own individual way. We also now register a new domain name at the rate of one every 5 seconds or so. Because of this high volume and interaction between humans, we are always afforded many opportunities to improve – thus, my three quality assurance departments.
I used to cringe when I became aware of problems.
There was a time, back when I owned Parsons Technology and also during the early days of The Go Daddy Group, that I would cringe when a significant problem came to my attention. In fact, when I would go on vacation (during the few times I actually went on vacation) and was contacted and advised of a major problem, I would become preoccupied, let the problem own me and essentially ruin my vacation.
What I’ve learned through reading.
All my life I’ve been a slow but avid reader. I go through books at the rate of one every other week. I read all sorts of works. I like history, philosophy, historical fiction, non-fiction military accounts, etc. Often I will read something that affects me in a profound way, but it takes quite a while to actually sink in and have an effect.
Two “life changing” things I read somewhere (I don’t remember where) are that:
1. Our measure is taken by how we handle the difficult times. Anyone can manage their way through good times. It’s how we handle the difficult times, that all of us are sure to have, that determines how happy and/or successful we will eventually become.
2. The obstacles we all have to face – be they personal or business – do not get in the way of us living our life. The obstacles are our life.
Each and every one of us is imperfect.
The gist of both of the above facts is that we are imperfect beings in a very imperfect world, and the one thing we can count on is that things will go wrong, and that each and every one of us will have problems.
My grandmother’s secret.
My grandmother, quite out of the blue, first told me this to me when I was just a young man. I was fretting to her about some problem I had at the time. She sat down across from me, held my hand and looked me straight in the eye. Then she said, “let me tell you a secret…everybody has a problem…you will always have problems…if you want to be happy you have got to learn to not let them get you so upset.” I’ve come to learn that she was right. Our problems might differ, but we each have one or more. And almost the moment we deal with and overcome the current problem — we are served up another. So it makes sense to learn how to deal with them.
A mini-disaster that hit Go Daddy.
About four years ago, when Go Daddy was just coming into its own, what seemed like a calamity struck our server farm. It happened as a result of a comedy of errors. The fact that this particular comedy of errors would happen in exactly the right sequence to spell disaster was incredible, but happen it did.
My staff alerted me at 7 PM in the evening.
I received a call from my office at about 7 PM that our servers were down. I was advised that the problem appeared to be severe. It was 8 PM by the time I was able to get to the office. My senior executive was there, as well as all of my systems programmers and computer hardware staff. Everyone was incredibly upset and seemed to be going in different directions. The situation was indeed serious.
I knew the wrong thing to do was to become upset.
Upon seeing the staff as they were, and having some idea about the gravity of the problem, I initially also became upset for about a minute or two. Then I took hold of myself when those two things I read long ago hit home to me. I knew that if we were going to be successful I had to deal with this crisis and work our way through it.
I first spent ten minutes meditating about the right course of action.
I took about ten minutes and sat alone thinking. During that time I had a revelation. The revelation was similar to the one that struck me when I was a combat Marine in Viet Nam (back then I simply accepted the fact that I would probably be killed, so I no longer worried about that happening. Instead I lived each day looking forward only to mail call).
I realized that it was important to keep my mind in the present moment.
I decided not to worry one bit about the consequences of the outage, but instead to stay in the moment. I resisted the temptation to visit the past and waste time with non-productive things like blaming anyone for the problem. I also resisted thinking about the future and worrying about the consequences of the crash. Neither of these things would get the problem handled. Instead, I resolved to think and do only those things that would get us back online.
What my people really needed was a leader.
It occurred to me that dealing with something as serious as this system outage appeared to be — and would be — a heck of a leadership test. So I made it my goal to be positive, upbeat and a man of action – and do whatever it took to get the servers back on line quickly. My people all felt terrible over the failure. What the company needed now was a leader. I resolved to step up and do everything possible to fulfill that role.
All that mattered was getting our servers back on line.
I gathered the senior person from each affected department into an office in the programming area, and had them brief me on their "take" of the problem. I made it a point to stay away from “who shot John” talk. For us that didn’t matter. All that mattered was working our way though the problem and getting our servers back on line.
I stayed at the office and even took a nap on the floor.
After about a half an hour I had a firm understanding of the problem, and I had our managers stop each of their employees from what they were doing. Then we all agreed upon a plan and went to work to implement it. We worked through the night to resolve the problem. Like most of the staff, I stayed at the office during the entire time. When fatigue overcame me, I took a brief nap on the floor. Eventually everything came together. It took us the better part of a day but we got our servers back on line.
The problem was bad but could have been much worse.
Being down for the better part of a day in our business was definitely not good. But if I wasn’t there to provide calm, positive and focused leadership the situation could have, and would have, been a lot worse.
We are now fanatical about uptime.
We learned quite a bit from that mini-disaster. We’ve learned to become fanatical about uptime. We’ve built triple redundancy into all of our systems. Many of our systems are also not only redundant based on hardware, but are also geographically redundant. As a result of all this, quite often we have the best uptime of any company we compete with. When we don’t have the best uptime, we’re only a few seconds behind. So in hindsight, that bleak day, long ago, was a blessing.
I seldom become upset over bad news.
I seldom allow myself to become upset over seemingly bad news. In fact, I insist on being made aware of problems as soon as they arise. Like everybody I enjoy hearing good news, but it’s not imperative that I know good news. It is vitally important that I immediately became aware of bad news. I now know that I (and all of us for that matter) learn by solving problems as they arise. Rarely do we learn significant lessons, or significantly improve, any other way.
I now look at bad news as an opportunity.
Now when I hear bad news, I look at it as another leadership test that will determine how successful Go Daddy will become. So I no longer dread it. Instead, I enjoy the game of finding the very best way to deal with it, and take great satisfaction in having a hand in resolving the issues that come my way. Like me, my executives and managers also deal with problems head on, and as a result all of us enjoy working at Go Daddy.
Look at bad news or problems as your test.
So remember, the next time bad news surfaces — look at it as your test. You are being given a chance to determine how successful you will be. If you can lighten up and deal with whatever the problem is, you will be better in three ways:
1. You’ll have the satisfaction of handling a problem.
2. You’ll be wiser when it comes to dealing with future issues.
3. Those around you will respect and welcome your leadership.
Never shoot the messenger.
It’s important to stay away from “who shot John” types of fretting – if necessary, there will be plenty of time for that after the problem is resolved. It’s also incredibly important to welcome, not shoot, the messenger. Those around you need to be encouraged to bring problems to your attention.
An important key to happiness.
Once you get in the habit of enjoying the process of dealing with and resolving problems, you will indeed become happier. You will then discover that what I read long ago is indeed true. The obstacles you face do not get in the way of you living your life – the obstacles you face are your life. So why not change your perspective and simply enjoy the process of dealing with them.
A mental trick for dealing with problems.
I've noticed over the years that it's easy to hear about someone else's problems and to offer a solution. It only becomes difficult when the problem at hand is yours and not someone else's. An interesting drill to help deal with problem situations is to mentally step outside the situation. Try to think of the problem as being someone else's instead of yours. The trick here is to not worry or even think about the consequences. Instead, deal with the problem at hand and only that.
Look at each day like batting practice.
I often tell my managers to look at each day like baseball players look at batting practice. I tell them to swing at each pitch (or problem) that comes their way. Some they will knock out of the park. Others they will miss completely. And for the ones they miss — simply swing at them again tomorrow.
************** Check out our new commercials **************
Click on the following link to see the internet only version of "Car Wash" as well as any of our past or present commercials.
To see the internet only version of “Car Wash,” and all our commercials, past and present, just click on the following link.
www.godaddy.com/gdshop/superbowl05/landing.asp
http://www.bobparsons.com/ProblemsTheycanruinyourdayifyoudonthavetherightperspectiveHeresasecretandafewmindtricksHandleanyproblemMakeyourbusinessmoresuccessful.html
