Over the last couple of decades, I’ve been involved in a large number of conversations of business owners chatting about solving problems in their businesses. In most cases, one person shares how they’re facing a difficult business problem that is common across businesses (delegation, process documentation, lead generation, etc.). In turn, each person shares their experience with the problem and how they try to solve it.
Often, one of the business owners will share the most rose-colored possible answer. An answer that says: “Not only have we defeated this problem, but we do this business function perfectly. I don’t even have to think about it. We’re so good at it.”
Some of the time, that’s probably true. They may truly be exceptional at solving that problem.
But I think at least half of the time, they have blinders on to reality. They’re probably better than the average but they also likely have some room for improvement. They close themselves off to that improvement with their description of their process, though. Is it pride, or ignorance, or just a hopefulness that goes past real life? I’m not so sure.
Why does this matter to you?
- Next time you’re at a conference, peer group, or other group of small business owners – listen for this phenomenon. It’s fun.
- Are you the type of person to speak like this? If so, it’s probably worth doing a review of your business processes to see if you feel this way about any of them. Is your view accurate? Is there room for improvement? Is it possible it’s not going as well as you think? Or perhaps you’re right, and if you spoke this way, your description would be accurate!
Finally – BONUS – new business terms!
I asked Claude for some made up business words to describe this. Here are my favorites:
Rosetimation – rose-colored estimation (portmanteau of “rose” + “estimation”)
Aspiractual – treating aspirational goals as actual facts (portmanteau of “aspirational” + “actual”)
Belief creep – when your belief in what should be happening creeps into your memory of what is happening
Goal-state recall – remembering the goal state rather than the actual state
Aspirational amnesia – forgetting the gap between intention and execution
My favorites are aspiractual and rosetimation. What are yours?