If you read my articles, you know that I’m very involved in athletics and fitness as both an instructor and competitor. Also, I have specific training and even certification in working with injuries, movement and injury prevention.

Recently, I started a new training regimen that has an emphasis on building power. So, heavy weights and explosive movements.

It’s a regimen that I’ve done before, but on one particular day, I was feeling good. So, I loaded up with additional weight.

While I was training, I felt great. But after, I felt a painful discomfort deep in the back of both hips. It wouldn’t go away. I also felt very tight. It was hard to sit, stand up, bend over or any movement that included my hips.

At first, I thought that I must have strained some muscles. Like many athletes, my standard relationship to pain is to just ignore it. I brushed it off, planning on resting a couple of days.

But when I woke up the next morning, it was difficult to get out of bed. This bothered me, but once I got up and about, the pain subsided. My movement was significantly restricted but I was able to go about my day.

Finally, in the afternoon, I got tired of it and stopped to really notice what was going on in my body.

As I reflected on what I was experiencing and the symptoms, I realized I might just be very tight. So, I did a couple of simple myofascial manipulations. It took just a few minutes.

And all of the pain and stiffness disappeared.  I was fine. There was no injury. I had needlessly spent all that time in pain.

Why do we let problems go on so long?

Businesses routinely allow needless problems to accumulate and build up unaddressed.

The top issues that I see include:

• Under-performance
• Toxic employees
• Chronic conflicts
• Poor communication/miscommunication

The problem is that they are often seen as “normal” or, as in my case, almost no thought is given to them at all. Especially when the pain or irritation goes away.

But why?

In my case, I normally “tune up” my body on a daily basis and work out those tight spots. But we recently moved and I’ve been traveling a lot and my routines and schedules were thrown up in the air.

I just hadn’t gotten back around to doing regular maintenance work on myself.

Over a couple of months, I hadn’t even noticed that I was getting stiffer and tighter. I was building up an inventory of “deferred maintenance” on my body. Finally, my hips (actually, my iliopsoas) said, “Enough!” and demanded my attention.

Too many leaders are distracted.

Most leaders I meet are running from crisis, to fire, to urgency, to issue, to whatever. Constantly busy, no time to really reflect on the state of their team or people or processes.

It’s not even just an issue of being too busy. It’s often an issue of wanting to do something else more.

It’s an issue of priorities. Leaders usually forget that teams and people and processes need maintenance. And even when they don’t forget, maintenance work is never as exciting as, well, basically anything else.

So, they allow themselves to be distracted.

Leaders should know where they are going, why, and what is important. They know their direction will never be achieved without strong teams/people/processes. Leaders shouldn’t wander. Pay attention.

Too many leaders don’t know what healthy feels like.

I knew a man who ate at McDonald’s so much that when he didn’t eat there, he felt sick.

Physically, most people are so deconditioned and so accustomed to a poor diet that it feels normal. They don’t know what healthy feels like. Whatever it might be, it doesn’t seem worth the effort.

Many leaders also have no idea what a high functioning, healthy team or business might look like, feel like, or be able to accomplish.

As far as they know, they feel fine right now. (You know, except for those nagging issues… and that staff problem… and that production situation…)

Leaders define what is “normal” for others. What is your sense of “normal” tuned in to? Who or what calibrates your settings? Are you accepting too little?

Too many leaders are fatalists.

Many leaders just assume that for all of life, “it is what it is.” You just accept it and move on.

They will say, “There is no more market for our service,” ignoring the growing competitor down the street.

They will say, “You can’t find good people in this field/city/state/generation,” ignoring all of the other local companies who have fantastic teams generating record-breaking performance.

They will say, “We can’t really control the economy, things are hard right now,” ignoring everyone else who control how they respond to the economy and launch successful start-ups or expand their businesses or improve their practices.

Leaders are definers and shapers of the future. For good, for bad or for mediocre. Actively build the future you want to live in.

Stop putting it off.

The four issues I mentioned above (and there are others) aren’t usually that difficult to resolve.

Maybe that’s a little misleading. They do usually require:

• Effort
• Commitment
• Willingness to change
• Tolerance for discomfort
• Ability to address difficult topics effectively

But when I say they aren’t difficult to resolve, in my experience, most clients who make a committed effort do resolve these issues relatively quickly.

For most, this is usually a matter of weeks. Maybe a few months.

And then they start to experience healthy.

Start addressing issues.

When my clients start to address neglected issues, they frequently make startlingly large leaps forward.

Many not only improve profitability but also set records for themselves, with their best years ever. They also just enjoy their work more.

Start addressing the issues in your organization. In most cases, it’s not that we don’t know what to do. It’s that we just don’t want to do it.

But, if you don’t know what to do, get help. It costs you more to allow these issues to go unresolved than it will to resolve them.

Take good care,

Christian

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