What’s the first thing you do when you hit a bump in the proverbial road? Do you beat yourself up, feel regretful or down? Or do you try to look at the up side? Life is always going to have bumps. How we deal with them makes all the difference.

I look forward to our team’s sessions here at roux. Reviews have become an essential function that keep us balanced, on task, and in sync with each other and our clients. But, even the best teams hit bumps from time to time. How do we deal with them?

We start with gratitude and acknowledge everything we’re doing well. Then we make a list of what we want to keep. If it’s client-related, we discuss what the client likes or doesn’t like. We take an honest look at whatever is tripping us up and decide if we need to tweak it, refine it, or drop it completely.

Regardless of the outcome, we make it a priority to recognize what’s working. When there are struggles within a team, it’s often easy to lose gratitude for each person’s talents and all the good they bring to the table.

By focusing on the good, we’ve noticed something along the way. We discovered that acknowledging our genuine gratitude for each other spills over into our relationships with our clients and helps us serve them better. They feel it, too, and it makes our trust deeper and our bond stronger.

The next time you’re met with a challenge, I encourage you to start with the sunny side by acknowledging all the good work your team is doing, sharing gratitude for each other, and recommitting to serve your clients with a grateful heart and mind.

Have you and your team adopted similar habits? I’d love to hear about it!