Happy Monday!

This one should hit hard if you’ve ever inherited a messy process… or created one yourself.

I know I have! Let’s jump into it. 👇

Every growing business has a Temporary Fix Person.

We all have worked with this person and to be honest, we’ve all been this person in our careers as well.

It’s the one applying band-aids and duct tape like there’s no tomorrow.

They mean well. They’re helpful. They’re resourceful. They’re fast.

But, they’re also creating future problems.

That’s what makes temporary fixes so seductive.

They solve the problem right now.

The spreadsheet upload you use instead of an API connection. (it just takes a few more minutes).

The approvals done outside of the system because you don’t feel like training the client.

and that messy inter-company consolidation sheet you’ve used for 15 years.

Note: Why is excel always the culprit for workarounds??

None of these feel painful on their own.

But over time, they stack. And then stack some more.

Before you know it, your week is full of 20-30 “temporary” tasks before you can even touch the work that actually matters.

That’s the trap.

Temporary fixes feel efficient because they solve the problem immediately.

And that’s exactly what makes them dangerous.

This is where the real problems start.

The workaround used for the last 6 months is somehow now the way things get done.

A new staff member gets put on the client, and inherits the task.

They learn your shortcut as if it’s the real process.

And they apply it elsewhere too, thinking that it’s just the way to do things.

Just like that, your shortcut becomes the way your firm does things.

That’s how fragile systems are built.

Not because someone sat down and designed a bad process but because someone’s workaround became the SOP.

The Temporary Fix Person didn't just appear out of nowhere.

Someone rewarded them.

Early in every firm's life, moving fast is the whole game. The person who figures it out on the fly, ships the workaround, and keeps the client happy. That gets praised. And honestly, it should. It worked.

But the same behavior that made them a hero at 10 clients makes them a liability at 40. The incentives never changed. So they kept doing what worked.

The Temporary Fix Person isn't the problem. They are the symptom.

The real issue is a firm that never built the bridge between "scrappy and fast" and "stable and scalable." Most firms never really do, they just kind of hire and hope the chaos eventually works itself out.

P.S. It doesn't.

What feels harmless at 15 clients, becomes problematic at 30 clients.

A “few extra minutes” adds up to hours, and then days.

What you can manage in your head becomes very difficult to hand off to the next person.

This is where it starts to become a bit expensive.

Things like these start to add up:

And sometimes the workaround makes sense in the moment.

But treat it like it’s a debt owed.

Name it. Document it. Assign it an owner. Set a date to revisit it.

Because some of the most expensive words in business are usually:

“Just for now”

I hate to pile on with the Claude conversations lately but I’m so genuinely impressed.

Claude CoWork is incredible. The scheduling, the integrations, and the potential is just so big.

If you haven’t heard of it, it’s Claude but with the ability to run tasks on your computer, with your files, and even send/read texts and emails (Don’t connect your main phone lol). You can even use your phone to control things on your desktop now too!

Okay, so a few things I’ve successfully done in the last 2 weeks with Cowork:

Have you tried it? If so, I’d love to hear what you’ve done so far. If not, I HIGHLY recommend giving it a shot.

P.S. don’t put sensitive or client data into Cowork yet, it’s not there yet.

Have a great week!

Tailor