Noise Levels

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.” Max Erhman

When I refer to noise I am referring to the level of direct or indirect involvement of people from outside the core team. In my experience noise level reach unacceptable levels especially in family/friend businesses, when you share information regarding progress, performance and difficulties you are facing with your immediate circle. It starts with you sharing with your wife, girl friend, mother, father or other, how person X is just not pulling their weight in the team thereby causing problems. This then turns into the game, telephone , the next person who hears about it will get a distorted version and it continues to become worse. The problem now is, that if it is a family business or close friends, this news is going to get around and things then tend to get ugly between you and partner X.

The same also holds true if you are going through a dry patch and facing some cyclical difficulties with your business. Over the years I have incorporated a much higher level of candor in the organizations I work with, to keep the level of noise to the bare minimum. This factor needs to be controlled very tightly to insure the livelihood of the team as a whole. All partners especially if they are closely related should keep strict controls on what is to be shared outside of the core group. It is has dramatically relieved stressed levels and has made everyone more comfortable with talking things out among each other.

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