I am sure this isn't the first time you've read this quote, it certainly became a regular saying in my business. This isn't because we had lots of unpleasant tasks to complete, but instead as a reminder not to make a big thing of tasks we just needed to get on with, "just eat the frog".
It had a twin, "get __it done" (I'm sure you have imaginations and can understand why I'm focusing on the frogs, Mark Twain had more flare for the English language than we managed).
To us it meant not delaying decisions, avoiding truths and taking actions you know to be necessary. Just get on with it.
Sometimes by simply acting quickly, you stop the build up of worry, stress and anxiety. Most of the time once you've "eaten the frog" so to speak, you realise it wasn't that big a problem in the first place. Or at least you are now in the fixing phase, not the worrying phase.
Example - "everything is fine, diary is full and everyone is happy" I was once reassured by a senior manager, exactly what I wanted to hear. Unfortunately revenues fell off a cliff the very next month, the diary was only at 50% and I was certainly not happy. It took us 3 months to get back on track. This expensive lesson taught us to introduce forecasting, pipelines and transparency. Not the way I would have chosen to learn, however, getting the financial and operational transparency done was invaluable as we grew.
Example - During covid I remember the difficulties we faced in staffing our projects, it was a pressure we worked on constantly. This was an old problem we were used to dealing with but at new levels. Clients were starting to notice and internal anxiety levels were rising. During our routine weekly operations meetings, I asked managers to phone their key clients and be honest about the difficulties, how they impacted the whole market and request flexibility. I then asked for feedback from each of them as they made the calls that day. The team did an excellent job and anxiety reduced throughout the day, as clients offered support and understanding, immovables and flexibles were identified and we were soon back on track. Eating that frog at the first opportunity would have saved the team stress and worry.
Example - I always hated it when we had made a mistake, let a customer down. It was the worst feeling as an owner and I'm glad to honestly say it didn't happen often. But we were only human and so it did happen. We had one situation where the client had reported a mistake on site, this client had very high standards and there was genuine concern they could move to another consultant. Our normal robust investigation was promptly completed and a summary report sent to me. The team had done an excellent job and I needed to call the client and send the report, but instead I waited, anxious, deciding to look again the next morning. I didn't sleep much that night and dragged it out till lunchtime. When I finally sent the email and made the call, the client thanked me, then explained that our reaction to mistakes was one of the reasons they liked us, they then promptly introduced us to a client who would become one of our largest. If only I had simply eaten the frog I would have gone home happy and proud that night, not stressed and anxious.
Example - For many years my business partner and I tried to operate our business alone, even after it had become far too large for us to reasonably be able to. Visibly exhausted but still going well, it was our external consultants that waved a flag and advised we employ an operations manger. We had known we needed to for some time but this intervention pushed us to finally make the decision. It was honestly one of the best decisions we made and we could have made it years earlier. We would have had an enjoyable lifestyle business years earlier had we eaten that frog.
Whatever the truth, decision or task is, do it now, today.
This doesn't mean acting rashly, it simply means whatever the next step is, which could just be finding out more information, don't delay.
Allowing truths, decisions and actions to hang unresolved in the air, makes every task you do more stressful and tiring. Help yourself, help your team, start eating your frogs.
What frogs do you need to eat today?
Thank you for reading. To read other blog posts click here: https://pivotaluk.co.uk/my-blog
I have been lucky enough to successfully buy, grow, mature, sell and exit my own business. I now use this experience to help other business owners on their journey.
Retained Advisor // Mentor or Coach // Strategy // Business Health Check