What if you could identify the early-warning signs of a business problem? Sometimes, though, there's no data available to predict a business problem. Think about infrastructure problems, such as a bridge collapsing. Typically a bridge will collapse without any signs.  To predict it, you would need data. "How on earth can they do that," you ask? Right now engineers are designing sensors that would allow bridges to notify authorities of problems such as cracks or loosening of bolts.  Yep! You guessed it. Bridges will be tweeting their activity.

 

Sometimes you simply don't have the time in a busy day to examine all the details or possible problems that may be about to happen. Consider Van Halen. Yes, I said "Van Halen!" In the 80's, the band had a clause in its touring contract that demanded a bowl of M&Ms backstage, but with all the brown ones removed. The story is true and verified! Don't place judgment quite yet, Rhinos! Van Halen would show up with nine 18-wheelers full of gear. Because of the technical needs of the show's set up, the band's standard contract with venues was thick. A typical "article" in the contract might say, "There will be 15 amperage voltage sockets at 20-foot spaces, evenly, providing 19 amperes." 

 

Van Halen was strategic in burying a special clause in the middle of the contract. It was called Article 126. It read, "There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation." So when Roth would arrive at a new venue, he'd walk backstage and glance at the M&M bowl. If he saw a brown M&M, he'd demand a line check of the entire production. "Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error," he wrote in his autobiography. "They didn't read the contract.... Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show." In Roth's world, a brown M&M was the "canary in the coal mine." 

 

Ok Rhinos, like me (and David Lee Roth), none of us has the time and energy to dig into every aspect of our businesses. But, if we're smart, we wouldn't need to.

 

Get out there and uncover your brown M&Ms today! Charge!
Dave

 

 

1.) Identify the brown M&Ms in your business. One day, it could save you hundreds, thousands, millions of dollars.

 

2.) What systems can you put in place where problems would announce themselves before they arrived?

 

3.) What are you going to do so that others in your organization start thinking proactively... not reactively?