Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Discipline makes Daring possible

Dismantling the E-myth
April 2, 2019

Dismantling the E-myth

In his E-myth books, Michael Gerber identifies three key roles in a business: the entrepreneur, who drives the vision for the business; the technician, who does the work, and the manager who acts as a bridge between them, planning and organising the work of technicians to achieve the entrepreneur’s vision.

If the vision is shared by everyone, do you then need managers?

I don’t think so, but you do still need management – a way for the technicians to know what they have to do, and how well they are achieving the vision, so they can work out for themselves how best to move forwards.

This is great news for small business owners, because I’ve only ever met one person who wanted to be a manager.

If the vision is explicit and shared, and technicians manage themselves, do you then need an entrepreneur?

No, but you do need entrepreneurship – a way for technicians to see new ways to deliver the vision profitably.

So, if you can push both management and entrepreneurship down to the people who actually do the work, what happens to the entrepreneurs who founded it?

Their baby will have grown up, to be independent, autonomous with their original vision still in its DNA.

They get to choose what they do next.

Virtual Reality
April 1, 2019

Virtual Reality

The right metaphor can get to the heart of your promise faster than a speeding bullet, creating an instant bond between you and the people you want to serve.

Metaphors work because they are simple, direct and emotional.

A good metaphor paints a picture worth a thousand words: “Longcroft Luxury Cat Hotel”.

The best metaphors conjure up an ongoing relationship: “Let us be Houston to your space mission”, “Welcome to our loving family”.

A metaphor that truly captures your promise acts as a compass for everyone involved in the business – your team, your collaborators, your suppliers and your clients. Whatever the situation, people will always know the right way to go.

But you can take it even further, by using your metaphor to actively design the way your business works, creating your own virtual world, where people take on different roles to play out what that metaphor means for your clients. If you get the metaphor right, it won’t even feel like work.

And that means you can make your business autonomous.

If everyone knows their part, has access to all the right props, and has a compass for when things go astray, they don’t need you to watch over them do they?

Go Blunt
March 29, 2019

Go Blunt

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I had clothes to wash. I was in Brussels, and the place I was staying had no washing machine, so I headed off for the nearest launderette.

What’s stuck in my mind all these years later is the instructions on the washing machine. On one side of the door they were in French, on the other, Flemish.

The French instructions took up 4 times the space, and talked about “making coins to be introduced into” the machine.

The Flemish on the other hand was blunt – “stick your penny in the slot”.

The point of this story? If you are struggling to explain what your promise is, try blunt.

Leverage
March 28, 2019

Leverage

“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the Earth”.

We tend to focus on the lever, but the ‘place to stand’ is just as important.

Without sure footing, the lever can’t get purchase.

When you know the essentials are being done consistently, you can experiment at the edges to make things better.

Discipline makes daring possible.

Constraints
March 27, 2019

Constraints

No composer would present his orchestra with a blank scoresheet and expect them to play – not even John Cage.*

Creativity requires constraints. The blank sheet of paper numbs imagination.

  • “Thinking outside the box”
  • “Pushing the envelope”
  • “Pushing boundaries”
  • “Bending/stretching/breaking/re-writing the rules”

If you want the creativity, you have to create constraints people can work from.

Discipline makes daring possible.

*Cage’s box was for the audience, not the orchestra.

Exclusivity
March 26, 2019

Exclusivity

Not everyone wants what you could do for them.

Not everyone who wants what you could do for them, wants the way you do it.

Not everyone who is willing to work for or with you wants to do things ‘the way we do them round here’.

Not everyone who could buy into your franchise wants to follow your system.

But for the ones who do, you are the answer to their prayers, and they’ll tell their friends.

They are why you do what you do, the way you do it.

Find them. Help them find you.

Overhead
March 25, 2019

Overhead

When you add a manager to a business, you add overhead. So the first effect of hiring someone to replace yourself as manager or supervisor – so you can work on your business instead of in it – is to take a real hit in profitability.

What if, instead of appointing someone new to manage your people, you appointed them to manage themselves? You could use the saving in overhead to invest in them instead, building a supporting framework, coaching, mentoring, training, and of course a fair share of the rewards.

When you want to expand to serve more customers or clients, you can simply add more people.

Those who’ve taken this approach have found the return on this kind of investment to be well worth it.

Utopia revisited
March 22, 2019

Utopia revisited

“A map of the world that does not include Utopia in it is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a fairer country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.”

I don’t think we appreciate Oscar’s genius nearly as much is it deserves.

This is my 100th blog. Thank you.

Rules
March 21, 2019

Rules

It’s often said that Culture eats Strategy for breakfast. That’s true. But what’s the strategy for maintaining Culture?

Here’s mine:

  1. An explicit Promise of Value: principles, behaviours, values, purpose, “the way we do the thing we’re here to do”.
  2. Customer-focused Roles: the parts played in delivering the Promise, “how what we’re doing now relates to our customer”
  3. A floor: the lower bound of what’s acceptable, “the least we should do”.
  4. Process: what has to happen in order to deliver the outcomes that share and keep our Promise, “our score”.

The autonomous enterprise doesn’t need a ruler, but it does need rules.

Manège
March 20, 2019

Manège

According to my Chambers dictionary, this is the probable origin of the word ‘Manage’, deriving from the 16th century Italian ‘Maneggio’.

It’s a lovely word, unless perhaps you’re the horse.

The other interesting thing I learned this morning is that the space where you get a horse to walk/trot/run in circles around you is called a ‘carrousel’.