Papers Blowing in the Wind
Channel: Business of Architecture
Date: 25/06/2019

This morning as I pulled into my neighborhood, I saw a stack of white papers littering the side of the road.

They had begun to blow down the street creating a huge eye-sore.

As I drove past I wondered, “who will clean up those papers?”

My initial reaction was to leave them for someone else to clean up.

Then I realized that no one else would clean them up. They would likely sit there for days littering the street and blowing into adjacent yards if someone didn't collect them up.

I realized that if they bothered me, it was up to me to clean them up.

So I turned my car around, parked on the side of the street and collected the stack of papers and all the strays.

This experience is similar to all areas of life, including business.

I have figurative ‘papers' littering my life, my business, my relationships and my health.

These are the things that are keeping me from getting the result I want in life.

Instead of recognizing them and cleaning them up, I continue to let them blow around in the wind.

For example, in my business one team member has the duty to fill out a spreadsheet at the end of the day.

The reason for doing this is so that I can see where the business is headed and make corrections if necessary.

Well, yesterday afternoon I noticed that the spreadsheet hadn't been filled out.

I had an internal conflict.

Should I point this out to this team member and risk making this person feel annoyed or defensive?

Or should I just let it go?

Then I realized that if I ignore the small but important things, big things follow.

New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani cleaned up Manhattan by cracking down on small offenses like littering and jay-walking.

Because of his attention to the small things, New York City saw a steep decline in both violent crimes and quality-of-life crimes.

Attention to the small stuff created a new culture in New York City.

The same principle applies in your business.

What culture are you creating by either ignoring or not ignoring the small stuff – both for yourself and your staff?

The question I'd have you consider today is this:

Where across the domains of body, being, balance and business do you have figurative ‘papers' blowing around that need to be cleaned up?

Where are you driving by and letting them litter your neighborhood without taking action?

Write that thing down and make a decision, do you want this part of your neighborhood littered or clean?

Then take the steps to make it happen.

If you know you have a lot of papers blowing around and you want a shortcut to cleaning them up and building the firm of your dreams, you may be a fit for my DREAM Practice Accelerator.

Visit https://www.businessofarchitecture.com/reviews to find out more and discover if the DREAM Practice Accelerator is for you.

Carpe diem.

Enoch Bartlett Sears