As I am contemplating whether or not the new star of “Footloose” has six degrees of separation to Kevin Bacon, the Kenny Loggins’ title song starts playing in my head.  Because of that, I start to think.  Do we really have to cut loose?  And because I can somehow relate an obscure reference to what we see here at Assurance, I can tell you the answer.  When it relates to how our current lines of thinking keep us from implementing needed change, or when we are unhappy about a specific result we are getting in our organization, the answer of course is yes.

Cut loose from the way things have always been.

Especially, if you know it isn’t working.  I can’t tell you how many times we meet with prospective clients who tell us they “need to implement something different soon”, and then months and months go by without any changes.  There is a prospect we have been talking with that will send us email after email about different subcontractors they have used which end up failing.  And we always ask them when they are going to be ready to change?  We can never mitigate away all risk, but putting different systems and checkpoints in place can decrease the frequency of which our clients are affected by beginning with a more diligent selection process at the start.  Soon never happens soon enough, and sometimes turns into never.

Cut loose from the fear of what might happen.

If you are afraid of repeating the same issues and mistakes, be afraid instead of what will surely happen again if no change is implemented.   If there is a giant elephant in the room, are you going to continue to ignore it while it stomps all over your profits or reputation?  How many times has your organization worked with a vendor or subcontractor for years and “felt like you knew them”, to only have them suddenly be gone?  That sting hurts, however we see a lot of firms who are still completing their qualification process in the same ways they have done in the past.  Remember, the partnership you build with your subcontractors and vendors is a synergy.  They must trust in you that if they contract to you, you will fulfill your end of the bargain by paying them what is due.  All you would be doing is implementing an updated system to make sure they can fulfill their end.  How many of you feel like you may be “insulting” them if you ask them to go through a more detailed qualification process?  If you know your system has gaps, it is time to do something about it, and delete out the fear of the unknown.

Going back to the beginning, with the degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon question, I will end this post with a fun little fact about myself.  I am actually two degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.  If you get through this, and are interested in how it is so, feel free to email me at Karen@proqualverified.com.  I’d be happy to share.