#19 - Health is vital for entrepreneurial decision-making. Just like human body, business is complex machinery and that its health is vital for success.
When the health is normal, there’s satisfaction with processes and outcomes.
When there’s a sudden and unexpected shift above or below the normal, the system usually malfunctions. Certain change like suddenly cooling down the environment where body temperature has been increased above the normal creates internal disturbances. This can be understood as a well-performing business suddenly facing new constraints due to changes in its context. The business slows down to incorporate the regulatory, supply-demand related or whatever other new constraints.
If there’s a change from -10 degrees to -20 degrees or 40 degrees to 50 degrees Celsius, it’s not a sudden and unexpected shift above or below the normal and that the system continues as is but just with more extreme values of the current constraints. In such situations, the entrepreneur doesn’t alter the process fundamentals and the business doesn’t deliver out-of-ordinary outcomes.
A leap from the normal results in the system freezing up or burning down. We’ve seen this happen with the dot-com bubble and more recently with the accounting and other business scandals. This is the worst situation for the entrepreneur because it takes away whatever resources available for executing business processes and fixing any bad outcomes.
The entrepreneur must strengthen the health by ensuring that the immune and all the other systems along with all the glands that release the required chemicals are functioning properly. This is the only way that any sudden and unexpected shifts above or below the normal wouldn’t hurt the business. Of course, this is easier said than done. Otherwise, a cardiologist would be no more important than a car mechanic.
From life’s many analogies, it’s generally ok to gradually shift from cold to hot; however, going the other way should be done with caution.
