Shocking things happen when the information you give isn’t what the boss happens to want to hear.

For example, I was reading an article about 2 senior Russian oil executives who have died recently of what we'll term unnatural causes.

The two most recent cases are similar, with the oligarchs each accused of killing his wife and daughter before taking their own life. 

Two earlier deaths were also allegedly by suicide, with one of them having taken the initiative to stab himself multiple times.

Strange events indeed… 

I guess the boss wasn’t very forgiving.

American business owners tend to not be quite as “dramatic” as Putin and his band of thugs.

Sure, no business owner likes getting “bad news”. Many do their best to eliminate the delivery of said bad news by surrounding themselves with people who will either protect them like a firewall OR they wave a hand and dismiss it as “wrong”.

Elected government officials are notorious for this – choosing staff based on political affiliation, graft, or gender instead of competence. Fortunately, governments have become so large that even with the stupendous amount of stupidity at the top, activities function fairly normally thanks to the cadre of bureaucrats that get the work done.

However, in a small business, this kind of “voluntary aloofness” can easily damage (or bankrupt) a business.

Your job as a business owner is to consume ACCURATE information. Its formation may be summarized but must still allow you to look deep into the specifics. Without using accurate information, you are telling your staff you’re willing to make critical decisions based on hope, and opinions. 

This is NOT the way to run a successful business.

So why do so few business owners insist on nothing but accurate information?

In all my years of running my own businesses and looking at those that ran successful and unsuccessful companies, I saw one common denominator that differentiated the 2 different links of leaders – FEAR.

Successful leaders do not FEAR the data or the arrival of bad news. They embrace it and look at bad news as harbingers of things to come. This allows them to take corrective actions quickly and decisively.

Business owners who shun bad news live in fear. They believe that bad news reflects poorly on them (it might). But dismissing bad news and burying your head in the sand is not a plan, it’s betting the future viability of the company on luck. 

From 1955 to 2016 - 88% of Fortune 500 firms have disappeared. Many of these businesses are gone because their leaders ignored bad news and, as a result, failed to make decisions that would save their companies.

Knowing that, isn’t it time you embraced all the news – good AND bad, to keep your business prospering?

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