When you think about it, it’s a strange saying – “eat the elephant.”
We all know it means that when there’s a big challenge or problem to deal with, it can be so daunting that we avoid it and it gets bigger and bigger – until it’s the size of an elephant.
The rationale is to deal with one small piece of the problem at a time and soon the big problem will disappear.
But how often have you avoided eating any of the elephant at all – even a small piece?
Why?
Well I think if it was that easy to deal with you’d have done it by now – right?
So maybe eating the elephant doesn’t ‘taste’ good and that’s why people avoid it!
Rationally, you know that avoiding problems and hoping they will go away never works, but sometimes actually facing up to and dealing with it seems worse than the problem itself.
No one wants to leave a problem until it becomes unmanageable . But, if you don’t resolve to start, no matter how daunting it might be, things will inevitably get bigger, tougher and even harder to deal with.
Which brings me to the question of how to tackle big problems?
To continue the elephant metaphor, there are 3 steps:
1. Bite
2. Chew
3. Swallow
Firstly bite – you need to identify one element of the bigger problem to start with. Maybe it’s an aspect of your marketing, perhaps it’s about pricing, possibly it’s a staffing issue, or could it be about developing a new product? I’m sure you know what that first bite is for you. Clarity is key – you must be specific about the problem you’re dealing with. Just look at one small aspect of that problem to begin with.
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Next is chew – what’s that all about? In this context it’s exploring what your options are for solving the problem. Do you need to talk it over with someone, or ask your team for ideas, or maybe you need to sit in a darkened room for a couple of hours to come up with a solution? The approach to take will differ according the nature of the problem. But it’s time to chew on that small piece of the elephant – what are your options, what ideas do you have to resolving the issue?
Finally swallow – you might feel during the chewing phase that it doesn’t taste good, but you’ve come too far to wimp out now! You’re at the action stage. What are you going to do? This is often when things go wrong. Taking action can also be hard. But you must commit and do it quickly – if possible within 24 hours. Why wait?
Ok so you’ve followed the 3 steps and it might not have been a pleasant experience, but you did it.
What next? Well you start on the next piece of the elephant – repeating the same 3 steps.
My conclusion…
Elephants might not taste good, but eating them is really good for you and for your business. Especially when we all know that problems are a normal and inevitable feature of business and life.
So which bit of your elephant are you going to start eating today?
Just thinking… 😊