[PART 3] HOW TO CREATE MOMENTUM FOR GOOD - AVOID FIREFIGHTING
As socialpreneurs, knowing how to avoid The Firefighting Doom Cycle will increase our ability to do more good. When we put down our fire extinguishers and stop making all the surprises, last minute deadlines, escalated tasks, rescued “rework,” and other crises a matter of routine, we can focus on doing some good in the world.
Part 1 of this series covered how, although we may want to create momentum for good, our well-intentioned but faulty logic has a tendency to instead prime us for a downward spiral.
Rather than identifying a chain reaction or sequence of activities that link together to continuously create and accelerate momentum in the direction of more togetherness, too many of us start accumulating effort in a consistently doomed direction. These doom cycles push us farther away from our bold vision for good. The good news is there’s an antidote that can get us out and prevent us from ever entering one.
But, it’s critical to know how to recognize if we’re currently stuck in a doom cycle.
So, Part 2 covered The Megaphone Marketing Doom Cycle, which is often the first doom cycle socialpreneurs unknowingly enter and one of the most common.
Part 3 outlines The Firefighting Doom Cycle, how it begins, and what the signs are that this doom cycle is underway.
THE FiREfighting DOOM CYCLE
In this doom cycle, problem-solving is mistaken for momentum.
Socialpreneurs in this cycle have no clear, consistent set of priorities. We’re notoriously rushing from one task to another, often without completing a task before being interrupted by the next.
Some get into this cycle because we’re constantly shifting approaches hoping to find something that works. Others are endlessly searching for the one big thing, next big thing, new priority, or new challenge. And, some do it all in the name of someone with a bigger title.
Whatever’s causing you to constantly gear up to fight the fire in front of you, the downward spiral is very real.
Once you fight one fire, you begin to develop a reputation (or confidence) as someone who solves problems. That seems like a good thing at first, but then you keep getting or creating fires to fight. It’s the fast track to being overwhelmed, frustrated, and burnt out.
When we’re constantly fighting fires, all of our best laid plans go up in flames fast.
There’s never enough time to get to what really matters.
The pressure keeps increasing - the pressure of knowing we’re behind, the pressure of dealing with folks who are upset about it, and the pressure of not being able to create momentum for good.
The really bad news is that when we’re in The Firefighting Doom Cycle, we’re never able to work on a problem long enough to figure out what’s causing it. We end up diagnosing the problem based on how we feel in our gut… even if it’s wrong… and then triage the problem instead of actually solve it.
So, the blaze will only get bigger, and that blaze will eventually turn into a crisis that is even more time consuming and challenging to address.
SIGNS THE FIREFIGHTING DOOM CYCLE IS UNDERWAY
One of the most common signs you’re in The Firefighting Doom Cycle is feeling spread too thin or constantly stressed deciding which “fire” needs to be put out next.
You’ll likely see at least three of these signs:
There isn’t enough time to solve all the problems
You can never resolve the underlying cause of a problem or a category of problems (it’s all band-aids, triage, quick fixes, and patch jobs)
You can’t prioritizing what’s actually important because you:
need to investigate every problem or new opportunity
must work on everything asked of you
prioritize based on the closest deadline
prioritize based on the rank or title of the person requesting it
are constantly juggling unrealistic deadlines
The same problems keep flaring up or sparking new ones (because the original issue was never fully addressed)
Crises emerge because the solutions you’ve been able to advance are incomplete at best
Inefficiencies increase (e.g., everyone who might be affected or able to help is asked to come to meetings; you end up coming in early, staying late, or working over the weekends trying to buy yourself a little more time; you cut corners to meet short deadlines)
In this doom cycle, it’s impossible to do more good because the focus is on solving the problem that’s in front of you at this very moment or what gets hurled in your direction next.
WHY FIREFIGHTING BECOMES A DOOM CYCLE
On closer inspection, firefighting is actually a cycle of shortcuts, rework, shortcuts, and more rework.
It starts because we lack the resources to advance a complete solution.
As socialprenuers, we’re juggling limited resources so we often take shortcuts to get enough done to keep moving forward as best we can for now. Because we took shortcuts, we often face unintended consequences of those incomplete solutions down the road.
But, when those unintended consequences flare up, we still lack the resources we’d need to fully resolve the issue.
So, in the face of these unintended consequences, we advance another incomplete solution so we can keep moving forward as best we can for now.
These incomplete solutions cause more problems, more unintended consequences.
Ultimately, we’re moving from one crisis to another, implementing band-aid solutions just to temporarily stop the flames.
In other words, lack of resources causes problems, which lead to incomplete solutions, which only cause more problems.
Just like that, we advance The Firefighting Doom Cycle.
We keep accumulating effort in the direction of more problem-solving.
By confusing problem-solving for momentum, we’ve entered a downward spiral away from the sense of belonging we so desperately want to ignite.
Worse, some of us get so far into The Firefighting Doom Cycle that, eventually, there become too many fires to put out that triaging is no longer an option, which leads right into The Culture Collapse Doom Cycle.
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