Firefighting in your wedding business
Another contributor to wedding season overwhelm is firefighting within your wedding business.
When we talk about firefighting in your wedding business, we are referring to the feeling that problems never really get solved and that you are just bouncing from one issue “fire” to the next.
It can also feel like a constant game of whack-a-mole which while fun in an arcade by the beach is also a great metaphor for reactive leadership. In reactive leadership we give high energy and focus to whatever priority pops up there and then, but another priority, problem or even crisis pops up somewhere else when we aren’t looking.
Firefighting like this is incredibly draining and can contribute to feeling overwhelmed and demotivated. It can also cause issues to arise within your team and have a knock-on effect on your clients.
Firefighting in business can also result in missing great opportunities, either because you are simply too bogged down to see them, or because you don’t have the physical and mental energy to pursue them.
In summary, the problem with firefighting is that time, talent, and budget resources are spent on fighting urgent but unimportant fires and these are resources that can’t be properly invested elsewhere to support the execution of your strategy.
How do we break the cycle of firefighting?
You should adopt a response policy for both you and your team of pausing to think about it. Doing this helps to remind everyone not to react and jump in feet first but consider the fie relative to the other items currently being worked on. Do you REALLY need to attend to this? Is it my responsibility? How did the fire start?
What do these fires look like?
Internally they could be something as mundane as attendance at meetings that are not directly relevant or initiatives that aren’t fully planned out or related to a strategic plan. An example here would be last minute meetings called with the aim of capitalising on a national day such as Black Friday, which doesn’t have a strategy behind it, is short notice and doesn’t fit the industry or product on offer. This last minute initiative likely doesn’t fit both target audience demographics and planned strategy.
Externally these might be meetings to discuss partnerships or alliances without sufficient business rationale or creating proposals that don’t match your business acquisition criteria aka your target audience.
How do we combat both firefighting culture and the fires themselves?
First you need to ascertain the cause and appropriate action.
Determine the impact if left unattended, of course if this is an on event situation absolutely tend to it, if your toilets are broken fight that fire asap, however if it’s that you have a list of suppliers that all want meetings with you to become recommended, this isn’t urgent and while I am incredibly pro building relationships it has to be the right time and you have to be available to do your due diligence on each and every one of them as well as meet with them.
Next you need to look at whether you can reduce or eliminate the possibility of future similar fires. In recent years absent staff due to covid has been a huge stressor and caused many a fire. Creating processes and back up plans so the fire can be dealt with in a controlled, calm, and seamless manner is a great option.
Remember to stop and think before diverting your resources, ask the following questions:
1. Do I/we need to attend to this?
2. Is this my/our responsibility?
3. Can someone else handle this more efficiently?
4. How did this fire start?
5. What steps can I/we take to prevent it in the future?
A certain amount of firefighting is inevitable, especially when you operate in an industry where there is only one shot for you to fulfil the brief for each wedding. However by assessing which fires should be responded to and putting systems in place to help reduce the number of fires this should help to reduce contribution to wedding season overwhelm and help you run a smoother operation.
Wedding industry leaders you have enough work on your plates without having your time consumed by fire drills!