Fixing a business without breaking it sounds like trying to repair a plane midair while the passengers order more coffee. It can be done, but only with calm hands, clear checklists, and a respect for gravity.
If you manage a portfolio inside a holding company, or you operate a single enterprise that feels like a crowded toolbox, the goal is the same. You want to improve performance, protect momentum, and leave customers blissfully unaware that any wrenching was happening at all.
Every repair changes forces inside the system. The art is to sequence improvements so that benefits arrive before side effects demand attention. That starts with acknowledging what is working. Your first job is to name those jewels and keep them off the operating table.
Create a short list of sacred assets. Think of the brand promises customers repeat, the front line rituals that make work flow, the pricing logic that keeps margins sane. Treat these as fences, not suggestions. Any proposed fix must fit inside those fences.
Speed is exciting, ruin is faster. Pick a cadence that people can absorb without losing competence and clarity.
Diagnosis is not a scavenger hunt for villains. It is the practical work of finding where energy leaks. Study four areas in quiet detail, customers, unit economics, operating rhythm, and decision rights.
Write down the few customer jobs that drive the bulk of revenue. If you sell software, list the tasks users brag about finishing faster. If you run a service company, capture the moments that make clients exhale with relief. Improvements that amplify those payoffs are safer than experiments that chase applause with no invoice attached. The closer a change sits to a paying moment, the more likely it is to help rather than harm.
Price minus fully loaded cost is the truth that keeps the lights on. Track it at the smallest repeatable level, the ride, the widget, the ticket, the seat, the hour. When you find units that lose money even on good days, do not decorate them with strategy. Shrink, fix, or retire them.
Healthy businesses move with a rhythm, daily huddles, weekly reviews, monthly closes. Map the rhythm and look for syncopation that does not serve. Meetings that do not decide anything, reports that no one reads, fire drills that chew up Fridays. Cleaning this up returns capacity without touching the customer.
People make better choices when they know who chooses what. Draw a simple chart that states who recommends, who approves, who executes, and who is informed. When the chart is fuzzy, politics grows.
Once diagnosis is in hand, design a path that keeps the business flying. The core tools are staging, isolation, and reversible moves. Tie each step to a clear owner, a deadline, and a metric that cannot be argued with.
Break the fix into steps that produce unambiguous outcomes. Migrate one product line to a new pricing model before touching the rest. Run the first plant on the revised schedule before rewriting the enterprise playbook. Milestones should settle arguments by revealing facts.
If a change might ripple through the organism, quarantine it first. Sandboxes in software, pilot routes in logistics, and trial menus help you learn cheaply.
Prefer screws to glue. Adopt tools that can be rolled back, contracts with off ramps, processes that retain the old path until the new one proves itself. Reversibility gives you courage without turning you into a gambler.
Fixes do not land in spreadsheets, they land in human beings. If you want the organization to keep its balance, engage hearts and habits.
Adults handle change when they can connect it to purpose and timeline. Say why the old way is running out of road, what the new way unlocks, and how long it will take.
Confidence is an economic asset. When people trust their tools and their leaders, they move faster and make fewer errors. Keep training short, fix broken equipment quickly, and reward clean execution. These rituals tell the front line that you value their time and skill.
Nothing breaks a business like a dozen half grown projects fighting for sunlight. Curate the portfolio. If an initiative will not move a core metric, prune it. Empty calendars are not a moral failure, they are a competitive advantage.
Most fixes ask for money. Spend it where the payback is near and the learning is rich. Avoid gilding edges while the roof leaks.
Trace the customer journey and find the step where work piles up. That is your bottleneck. Pour capital there first, more staff, better equipment, smarter software. When the bottleneck moves, follow it.
A tidy balance sheet gives you options. Convert dead inventory into cash, renegotiate terms that age you before your time, and be honest about assets that should be sold.
Technology upgrades should read like a practical novel, not a sci-fi script. Aim for tools that reduce friction, surface insight, and make good habits the easy choice.
Find the workflows that make people groan, then target them. If a legacy system is clunky but stable, wrap it with a clean interface rather than ripping it out this quarter. Momentum beats purity.
You do not need a cathedral to keep score. Start with a clean data dictionary, a few dashboards, and alerts that help managers act before the fire spreads. When data becomes a habit, bigger systems are easier to absorb. Give managers simple training so they can use the numbers without calling an analyst.
Once the business is standing taller, install simple guardrails so future fixes are less dramatic.
Establish a simple but effective governance rhythm to regularly review priorities, risks, and investments. Keep meetings short, materials straightforward (even boring), and make sure decisions are clear and lasting. Wrap up each session with a plain list of what to stop, start, and continue.
Pick a handful of numbers that map to value, growth rate with a sensible cash burn, on time delivery with defect rate, employee retention with customer satisfaction. Publish them, track them, and refuse to let them multiply like rabbits. When people share a scoreboard, they act like a team.
Culture is not a poster. It is the collection of stories people tell about what gets rewarded and what gets ignored. If you want resilience, reward learning, candor, and ownership. If you want speed, reward preparation and crisp handoffs.
The safest fix is usually the most boring one, the kind that nudges core metrics up while customers barely notice. Protect the essentials, set a pace that people can keep, and diagnose with curiosity rather than blame. Stage changes so facts do the talking. Put money where flow is constrained, not where décor is tempting.
Upgrade technology in service of clarity and habit, then backstop the gains with governance that is light, firm, and predictable. Keep a small, honest scoreboard and a culture that rewards preparation, learning, and crisp handoffs. Do this with patience and a pinch of humor, and you will land the plane with coffee still in the cup. The cabin will cheer only after the wheels touch down, which is exactly how it should be.
Ryan Schwab serves as Chief Revenue Officer at HOLD.co, where he leads all revenue generation, business development, and growth strategy efforts. With a proven track record in scaling technology, media, and services businesses, Ryan focuses on driving top-line performance across HOLD.co’s portfolio through disciplined sales systems, strategic partnerships, and AI-driven marketing automation. Prior to joining HOLD.co, Ryan held senior leadership roles in high-growth companies, where he built and led revenue teams, developed go-to-market strategies, and spearheaded digital transformation initiatives. His approach blends data-driven decision-making with deep market insight to fuel sustainable, scalable growth.
