Yesterday I spoke with a close friend about the current business landscape. He’s an avid investor and regularly trades his own stocks. Throughout the day, he checks the market’s performance, and he always knows how each of his positions is performing. The conversation turned to the market downturn and all the negative economic news. I asked him how his portfolio was doing, and to my surprise he said he didn’t know. I probed a little more and he admitted being too scared to look.

Reflecting on this, I realized I had once done something similar. Every morning at CCAW I was provided with and reviewed a series of reports and metrics. They detailed our current state (MTD revenue, cash position, A/P balance, etc.) and projected our future revenue and profitability. These reports were critical to my understanding of our current performance and where we would probably end up. If I didn’t like our trajectory, I could be proactive and initiate actions to change it.

We had a rough patch when we were constantly being hit with bad news. Week after week, macro things were happening that affected us negatively. After a while, I stopped reviewing the daily metrics and reports. I told myself I was too busy and tired, but the truth was that I didn’t want to see the data quantifying how bad things were.

I realized that I didn’t have the experience to navigate these rough waters on my own. I owed it to the team to do better, so I hired an advisor with experience in grappling with challenging business environments. One of the first things he asked me was how bad it was. I told him it was bad, but I didn’t have exact numbers because I hadn’t looked at the data. I expected him to chastise me, but he told me that was normal. (In fact, he had done something similar when one of his companies struggled.) It’s human nature, he said, to avoid bad news during difficult times. He encouraged me to start looking at the data regularly and discuss it with him. I did.

Takeaways:

• Don’t avoid – A bad situation doesn’t get better because you avoid it. Look at important information regularly so you can make better decisions.
• Data availability – If you don’t consistently have access to critical information, you can’t plot a course. Consider taking time to put processes in place to make that information available.
• Communication – Whether your numbers are good or bad, share the news. People will appreciate not being kept in the dark. You never know—someone may have an idea that could change things.

Have you ever found yourself avoiding during a difficult time? If so, what did you learn?