Are you a driver or a passenger? I read quite a bit, and it seems a lot of the things I’ve been reading and observing lately are related to this question. I’ll give you a few examples of what I’m talking about.

In a book that I just finished reading, a group conducted a study in which participants were to watch a video and afterwards would be tested on what they had seen. While they were focusing on the subject of the video, a person in a monkey suit walked pasted in the background. When they were tested on what they saw in the video, almost no one remembered seeing the monkey. As a driver, you need to be focused on the task at hand, but also need to be aware of what’s going on around you.

To support one of my hobbies, I subscribe to over ten aviation publications that come at least once per month, and in many of the publications there are summaries of accident reports. I read these religiously, because in this case, I would rather learn from the mistakes of others, than learn from my own. In one case, an airplane with two pilots crashed when a warning indicator light came on and in an attempt to troubleshoot the problem, both pilots focused on finding the source of the failure, and neither pilot remembered to fly the airplane. The result wasn’t pretty.

Here’s one we all see every day. Someone “driving” down the road while talking on the phone, sending a text message, eating, you name it. They clearly are not aware of what’s happening around them because they don’t maintain constant speed, they wander about in their lane, don’t go forward when the light turns green, or any number of other obvious non-driver acts. I argue that many of these people are passengers in a car with no driver.

One last example that hits close to home. My mom recently told me that when she and another person are traveling together, one person is behind the wheel and the other is driving. I’m not sure what to think of that one.

My point to all this is; when running your business (driving), and while focusing on the task at hand, don’t forget to pay attention to your peripheral vision. You might regrettably find that the task you’re focused on is being handled very well, while the business is crashing around you.

- Ken Hilton, President

If it works, don’t fix it. I’m sure everyone has heard that statement, but is this philosophy always good to live by? That depends on what it is that “works”. In some cases, you can get away with letting things fail, and then take the action to fix or replace them. In other cases, it’s a good idea to fix things at the first sign of trouble, and sometimes things should be “fixed” even before anything appears to be wrong. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Let’s say the speakers on your computer are making a funny noise, and it’s not because you’re watching hilarious YouTube videos. It might be okay to put up with the noise because if the speakers fail, it’s probably not critical to running your business. Or, your car is making a noise that you have identified and it is not compromising safety. In this case, you can turn the speakers up and not hear the noise anymore.

A while back, I saw oil coming from underneath the engine of my airplane. It was running fine, but was sending me a message that something was wrong. This got my attention right away, as I don’t have a backup in case it decides to fail. I fixed it!

Speaking of backups, how is your computer running? I’ll bet it’s running just fine, so why would you need to back up your information? Computers rarely give you a sign that something is about to go haywire. That doesn’t mean you don’t need a backup. And, while we’re talking about technology, how old is the computer and/or software that your business is relying on?

Eventually, the computer will fail, and the old software on it may not run on new equipment. Are you prepared to re-enter all of the information you need to run your business because your data will not move to newer software? Think about it.

Sometimes things need to be fixed, even if they still work.

Ken Hilton, President