How to Confront the Brutal Facts

Let’s talk about neg­a­tive things in busi­ness that nobody wants to talk about – what Jim Collins calls the Bru­tal Facts. Fur­ther­more, let’s address how to con­front the bru­tal facts so it becomes a good thing.

Here’s an exam­ple: I once worked with a great com­pa­ny going through a rough patch with the finance team. Turns out, the CFO – who was won­der­ful and had grown with the com­pa­ny — was now way over his head. The demands of the role had grown five times, while the CFO and the team had only grown about three times, so there was a gap. As a result, the finance depart­ment was let­ting the com­pa­ny down. While the CEO had a sense of what was going on and pre­ferred not to have to deal with it, it was real­ly start­ing to hurt a lot of people.

In our two-day strate­gic plan­ning meet­ing, for this com­pa­ny, we found out that the finance team was­n’t able to give the busi­ness what it need­ed. Most peo­ple try to walk by such a sen­si­tive top­ic and leave that for anoth­er time. They just don’t want to get into it, in the room, for fear of how it might turn out and more, impor­tant­ly — out of com­pas­sion for their col­leagues – don’t want to embar­rass them in front of everybody.

But we have great tools to flush out and deal with the bru­tal facts — respect­ful­ly and professionally.

The chal­lenge in deal­ing with the bru­tal facts is that our expe­ri­ences are often about bru­tal opin­ions, not ground­ed in facts, which is a destruc­tive conversation.

What We Did

We broke peo­ple into four dif­fer­ent groups and asked them to list all the facts about the Bru­tal Facts. It’s impor­tant to note that we did­n’t ask for judg­ments or opin­ions. We only want­ed to dis­cuss the facts that could be verified.

Armed with these sheets of facts, we could then have a very con­struc­tive debate about what we could do. In the end we pri­or­i­tized the issues and the team came up with an action plan to address them.

It was a way of turn­ing an issue no one want­ed to address into a deep, con­struc­tive debate. In the end, this led to a very pos­i­tive out­come: the busi­ness got more of what it need­ed. And the CFO and team were able to feel much bet­ter about their work and take it up a notch.

The Chal­lenge

• What bru­tal facts are you not talk­ing about in your business?
• How can you con­struc­tive­ly gath­er the facts about the bru­tal facts, have a healthy debate and move ahead?

if you want to hear more about how to deal with bru­tal facts and the pow­er in con­fronting them, lis­ten to this episode of the Growth Whisperers.

And if you need help to deal con­struc­tive­ly with some bru­tal facts in your busi­ness, call us – we’d love to help.

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.