My mother had a running joke with me: “You’re going to ask if I rebooted, right?”

That’s what happens when you’re tech support for the family, I suppose.

But the concept of “rebooting” is very useful in other situations, especially when you feel like things have gotten too chaotic and unpredictable. Which is happening a lot in business these days.

It’s primarily a mental exercise. You ask the question: “What would I do now if I were starting off clean, but with my experience, in the current environment?”

You can start off crazy, I suppose. Don’t worry about the customers or all you’ve invested in your current products. Of course if you DID do a complete clean sweep, you might be putting yourself back by years, losing your market position and employee loyalty.

That’s why this is mostly a mental exercise. It’s about what you LEARN by doing this kind of thinking.

A common example might be that you observe that “well, we’d never do our current product X. The market has moved on and it’s nearing the end of its life cycle.” Does that mean you’re going to pull the plug on this product? Perhaps not.

But you’ll look for ways to gracefully exit. It might be about providing a graceful migration path to something else which has more long-term potential. Maybe help the customers move, even if it means pulling in a partner who used to be a competitor. Help your employees to update their skills into a more current space.

What you’re doing is to take a fresh look at the current situation to give you a new perspective.

Effectively, rebooting your thinking.