We all like to make progress. And when we don’t, it can be incredibly frustrating. That has been incredibly apparent over the last few weeks with snow filled roads that have not been drivable. The anxiety has been building up with people and you can see it in how some are driving. The reality is, the road conditions are not conducive in many areas to high rates of speed. But for some, the desire to make progress gets the better of them, resulting in the road being littered with cars in the ditch or on the embankments. They just want to get out of the house and are tired being stuck on a slow moving road making no progress.

It’s easy to get frustrated with making slow or no progress. As a leader, it is important not to let that frustration get the better of you and make mistakes by taking reckless risks. There is a difference between moving quickly and moving too fast for the conditions and not recognizing the risk. How do you ensure you are making rapid progress, but not taking unnecessary risks?

Last week I wrote about a water leak at a house I walk by on a daily basis. After two weeks, two calls to the water department, three attempts at knocking on their front door, and knocking on three neighbors doors, the water is still flowing heavily down the hill and down the drain. This house is on a fairly busy corner. Many people walk by at all times of the day. So it raises several questions: do people walk by and not do anything? Do they walk by and not notice? Or, do they attempt to reach the people, like me, to no avail?

All of these situations are problematic and not what you would want in your business. In business, it is important that people are paying attention and notice when things go sideways. They are engaged in the business and care. They do notice and raise the flag to get issues corrected. And when the red flag goes up, there is a mechanism such that it is easy to resolve and the person is recognized for doing the right thing. Do you have a company culture where people are engaged and it is easy to get things done? Or is it hard to resolve situations and people just don’t care? How are you creating the culture you want in your company?

You know those embarrassing moments when the solution is so obvious, but you have somehow overlooked it? I had one of those moments recently. My dog decided it would be entertaining to shred both ends of a bag of potting soil and spread some of the soil around the garage. It was a brand new bag. And with both ends opened, I needed to figure out what to do with it. While it was not a priority, it would annoy me every time I looked at it. There it sat for several weeks, until I looked six or so feet past the bag to a pile of empty tubs. All I had to do was carefully pick up the bag and dump it into the tub. It was an obvious solution. And it had been there the whole time.

Many times the solution to the issue you are working in business is already there. It may be the experience of a person somewhere else in the company, or it may be right there staring you in the face waiting for you to look up. The solution presents itself when you declare the issue and are open to the solution. By doing this, it opens the conversation for the people with the knowledge to come forward. Or it shifts your focus to resolving the issue. How are you making sure you don’t miss the solutions that are right in front of you?

Ever since the port closed in Portland for cargo shipments, the volume of trucks on the road has increased. It makes sense – if the goods aren’t going out on ship, you’d expect the rail and truck volumes to increase. The highways are three lanes each way, sometimes two lanes. The trucks typically travel in the middle lane, in very close proximity to each other. I call it the truck blockade because it is incredibly difficult to get from the right lane to the left lane as the trucks are typically too close together and too many of them to maneuver easily. After a bit of research, it turns out that the reason for this is safety (being in the center lane – more opportunity to maneuver) and fuel efficiency (driving close together – drafting).

It may or may not be obvious why certain actions are being taken based on your background and experience. Within a company, helping people understand why actions are being taken can help keep efficient, forward momentum. At the same time, it is important to understand if there are unintended consequences to the actions being taken that rise to the level of needing to make tweaks to the actions to keep efficient, forward momentum. How are you making sure that you the actions in your company are intentional, efficient and effective?

I was recently speaking with someone about an effort that is getting underway that can have a transformational impact on their business over the longer term. But, there isn’t a long-term owner at this point. The short-term perspective is a couple of discrete actions that can get the ball rolling and ultimately support the longer term. The company will make some progress if it only does the short tem work, but the impact of the work will diminish over time without the longer term. The question: do something or do nothing?

It is funny how many times over the last few months I’ve come across this exact dilemma in one form or another. My advice is always to start. By getting the ball rolling, progress starts. It ultimately allows for further critical thinking that creates better focus, revisions and course corrections. It may not always work, but insights will be gained along the way. In the case above, the work started and internal support started to build, even without a long-term owner. The key was to just get started. How are you starting things without having the 100% solution?