We talk about the analogy of fire fighting in business today.  Fire fighting refers to the unseen or devastating problems that come up during a project or even in your company’s public relations. The analogy we are discussing is the idea that your business is a forest. We have talked about businesses as forests before with in the context of seeing the whole picture. But today the forest represents your business as a place you are trying to protect.

Fire fighting at its core is just finding solutions to sudden problems that come up in a project. Being a firefighter in your team is proof you care what happens to the business, to the team, to the industry in which you work.  Too often businesses ignore fires or quickly settle the issue, but never plan for flare ups. We discuss why this is a bad strategy and what is a good strategy.

We also cover:

How to find the root causes of a fire.

Why dealing with a fire will better prepare your team for other fires.

Hiten’s fire fighting story.

Steli’s approach to fire fighting.

Tips on how to deal with a fire the right way.

Resources Mentioned During Today’s Episode:

KissMetrics

Data Nice

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

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Steli : Hey, this is Steli Efti.

 

Hiten: And this is Hiten Shah. And today, we’re talking about fire fighting.

 

Steli : Yes. So in the context of business and life, this is not like real physical putting out fires.

 

Hiten: Well, if anybody here has any – is a fire fighter, has anyone that’s ever been fire fighting, or knows somebody who is a fire fighter, I’d like to get their take on this episode because I don’t know anything about fire fighting. I just know what I see. And we’re going to use the analogy and probably butcher it, but it was the best one I had for something that I’m just always thinking about now.

 

Steli : Which is?

 

Hiten: Fire fighting.

 

Steli : Which means?

 

Hiten: There’s a bigger analogy here. But the simple framework here is like the weeds of a business, the trees of a business. Those are just tactical things that you’re doing.  That’s why they say you’re in the weeds.  You’re really deep in.  Or you’re looking at the trees, but you’re not looking at the forest.  So the forest is the higher level. So to me, fire fighting is like there are some trees on fire. And you’re coming in fire fighting, right?

 

Steli : Yeah.

 

Hiten: And if you’re constantly in that mode as a founder, CEO, leader of a team, manager, even a team member often times, and you can’t go up and see the bigger picture of the whole forest, then you’re constantly only able to attack what’s in front of you.