The hardest part of business is getting real. Getting real is being honest, truthful, and accurate about what is going on in your company, with your employees, the market, and your products. It’s confronting the reality of your business. It’s seeing your business for what it really is, not as you’d like it to be.

Getting real is difficult. It is unpopular, painful, political, and uncomfortable. It takes courage, humility and a willingness to be critical.

If we can’t get real with what’s going on, execution becomes impossible. Growing the business, defeating the competition, improving margins, being innovative, surviving a recession requires we confront reality.

Getting real is hard. We don’t like to think we hired the wrong people, or built the wrong product. It’s hard to accept a new competitor is building a better product and taking our customers. It’s frustrating to know our supply chain is anything but “real-time”. It is painful to know we’ve made poor decisions; decisions that haven’t been the best for the company. But, we have to. Success depends on it.

Most of us become defensive when asked to face reality. We deflect, defend, and argue. Rarely is ownership taken. No one wants to be THAT guy or work for that company. The reality is, we are ALL that guy and we ALL work for that company. That’s the first reality to accept. Everything/everyone isn’t going right today and everything/everyone won’t be right tomorrow. Accept it, take ownership, be honest, make the right change and move on.

The only thing worse than not accepting reality are the results from not doing so. By not getting real, we don’t make enemies in the office, and we remain in our comfort zones. When we don’t confront reality, we don’t have to call our baby ugly and that feels good.

Just because we don’t call our baby ugly doesn’t mean it’s not. Don’t deny and defend, get real and confront reality. The rest becomes easier.