The One Thing You Need to Know What to Fix Next

Every business has problems. You can't fix them all at once. But most business owners don't have a system to capture what's broken—so they walk past the same problems every day without seeing them.

Scott introduces the concept of frictions: the little annoyances throughout the day. "I have to do this one more time." The moments that slow you down, slow your team down, and impact the customer experience.

The system is simple: Post-it notes. A wall. Make it a game. For remote teams, use a virtual whiteboard. Call them friction points—for every one your team submits, they get friction points. Fight for simplicity. Don't vibe code some fancy tool. You're just creating more friction.

Where frictions hide: email, Slack, repeated questions, manual triggers, things you've trained over and over but still answer yourself.

Ask your team every day: "What do you hate doing?" First time, they'll think you're crazy. Ask anyway. What's annoying you? What system is broken?

Scott shares the open gate story from his VP days at a rental car company. Cars were being stolen. Walking the lot after hours, the gate was open. The manager walked right past it. Scott stopped. "Why is that gate open?" The manager said maybe someone's working inside. Scott said maybe they're not—let's go check. We train ourselves to walk past problems. Frictions hide because we stop seeing them.

But not everything should be fixed. Prioritize by impact. Look at the wall of Post-it notes and find the one that, if fixed, fixes everything else.

The bottom line: Grab a Post-it note right now. What's annoying you about your business? Dedicate time every day to capturing frictions. Make it a game. You'll be further down the road of improvement than you ever imagined—if you stop walking past the open gate.

Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask