Discipline makes Daring possible – Page 38 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

November 24, 2022

Autonomy

It’s easy to assume that having autonomy simply means being able to do what we want.

It’s probably more accurate to say that we get to make our own decisions about what we do.

With that autonomy comes responsibility:

To properly inform ourselves before we make a decision.
To live with with the consequences of our decision (until we make another that will change them).
To make sure that our decisions don’t impinge harmfully on anyone else’s autonomy.

Responsible autonomy is hard work in life and business. Made easier and more joyful by collaborating with each other.

Well worth the effort though. Just ask the women of Rojava.

November 23, 2022

The Mayfair Set

I’ve been watching an old documentary series ‘The Mayfair Set’ on BBC iplayer.

It’s uncanny seeing things that happened during your childhood, and realising what was really going on.

They called it ‘creative destruction’ but it was simply asset stripping.

Of course it’s all happened many times before, and it’s happening again. Only now we call it private equity.

One thing’s for sure, capitalism it ain’t.

Just ask Adam Smith.

November 22, 2022

How to do big business with a tiny company

I loved this post from Jason Fried on company size. In a nutshell, his company (37Signals) serves about the same number of clients as others in this space, at about a tenth of the workforce.

How can he do that?

Here are some ideas.

First, build a product and service that makes your users so awesome they tell all their friends and colleagues about it. Then make it easy for them to tell their friends and colleagues. Do this and you can ditch the marketing department.

Second, let your people manage themselves. After all, they are able, enthusiastic humans who revel in taking responsibility. Self-managed doesn’t mean unsupported though. Like an orchestra, give your players a Score so they know what they are trying to achieve, a Conductor to give immediate feedback on their performance and Rehearsal Time to improve and innovate. Do this and you can ditch the managers.

Next, get rid of ‘admin’. Admin is simply about getting the right resources into the right place at the right time. Build it in to what you do for clients, automate the boring bits that become drudgery for humans and you’ve made it a side effect of doing the job. Do this and you can ditch the admin department.

Fourth, enable every player in your team to deliver the whole end-to-end service. In essence make them a one-person instance of your business. Do this, and every new person you add is a profit centre.

Finally, share the benefit of this new superproductive business with everyone in it. Reward must follow responsibility. Ownership must be real. Do this and you’ve created a sustainable legacy to be proud of.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

November 21, 2022

Co-Operation

Last week I attended a workshop on co-operatives. I learned two things that surprised me.

The first was that being a co-operative is separate from the legal structure of the business. You can be a limited company, a partnership, a community interest company etc, and also be a co-operative.

The second was the range of forms that co-operative membership can take. Membership can be restricted to workers or expanded to include customers, volunteers, the community (locally, or according to interest). It’s even possible to set up a co-operative consortium of companies.

The critical components are:

Voluntary and open membership
Democratic member control (one member one vote)
Member economic participation
Autonomy and independence.

Not at all suprising then that co-operatives often outperform and outlast traditional businesses.

But the most encouraging thing for me, was the realisation that transitioning a business to a co-operative model could be relatively straightforward – opening up some new and interesting options for exit, while at the same time ensuring a business continues as the founder’s legacy.

November 18, 2022

Feedback

This week, I’ve been collecting feedback on a 7-week group Promise of Value workshop. It’s been just as I would want it to be – thoughtful, constructive and positive, summed up by one comment:

“It’s probably going to turn out to be very useful.”

I’ll take that.

Your Promise of Value isn’t a magic wand. It’s a living, breathing, foundation for long-term, sustainable growth. It takes effort to make it work.

And thanks to those who took part, the next run of this workshop will be even better.

Starts 18th May if you’re interested.

November 17, 2022

Autumn Statement

Economics is not a science. How could it be? It works with and on and around human beings.

It’s an art. That used to be called political economy. Until economists with certain politics decided to change that, to make it sound more scientific.

Nevertheless, economics, unlike physics (whose laws will be true even when we are no longer around to observe them), remains a purely human construct. Something we make up to explain how the world works.

That means it can be wrong. There can be alternatives which explain things better, or produce different results. It all depends on the politics and the assumptions that politics makes about human beings.

So, if you’re interested in alternative economic constructs, here are some books I recommend:

The Deficit Myth
Doughnut Economics
23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism
The Joy of Tax
The Production of Money
Poor Economics
The Value of Everything
Everything for Everyone
Capital in the 21st Century and it’s companion Capital and Ideology.
Principles of political economy and taxation
The Wealth of Nations
Capital

They’re all wrong of course.

But depending on what you’re trying to achieve they may be more helpful.

And at least you can make up your own mind.

November 16, 2022

After the complaint

After the complaint has been handled; once you’ve addressed the customer’s problem and left them more than happy with the result – so happy that they’ll tell their friends about what went wrong and how you put it right for them so well. After all that, there is one more job to do.

Make sure you update the way you Keep your Promise so that you don’t get the same complaint again.

Amend your Customer Experience Score.

November 15, 2022

Why running a business is hard, and how to make it easier

The people you want to serve – the clients you’d like to have – don’t know what you know. They don’t believe what you believe. They look at the world through different eyes, a different experience and with a different mindset.

That’s what makes marketing hard. Especially if you are offering something different from the norm.

It’s the same for the people you work with. They don’t know what you know. They don’t believe what you believe. They bring their own experience and mindset to the way they see the world.

That’s what makes running a business – serving clients through other people – hard.

The difference is that the people you work have to do what you tell them, don’t they? After all, you’re paying them. They need a job.

Except that all too often what actually happens is that you spend more time on watching over them than on the business. Micro-managing. Because your unique definition of ‘customer experience‘ is entirely in your head. Which is frustrating for everyone, and constraining for the business.

So you delegate the micro-management to someone else. Who doesn’t know what you know, doesn’t necessarily believe what you believe. Who sees the world through different eyes, with a different mindset. Who tells your people what to do, based on what’s in their head. Sure it takes a load off your back, but will your unique customer experience survive the change?

I believe there is a better way. Which is to document the customer experience in your head and make it available for everyone in the business to follow.

Not ‘what to do‘, but ‘what has to happen‘.

Not ‘how to do it‘, but ‘how it needs to feel for the client‘.

Not just ‘this is how we do things round here’ but also ‘this is what we believe‘.

So that you are not just handing over the ‘donkey work’, but also the emotional labour of delivering the business’s unique customer experience – the part that really matters to the client, the part they pay extra for, the part they refer their friends to.

Then work out and document how that customer experience is maintained, how you make sure that everyone who works with you knows what you know and believes most of what you believe, so that you know you can trust them to use their own history and mindset to make that customer experience even better, in line with the beliefs you all share.

It’s quite a job to get all this in place*. But once you have it running and growing your business gets easier and easier. Because everyone working the business is standing in for you. Everyone’s a boss.

And not a manager in sight.

*That’s what I do. Talk to me.

November 14, 2022

Last orders

The brilliant Museum of London is closing on the 4th December this year.

It will be moving to West Smithfield, in ‘hopefully, 2026‘.

Not only is this the last chance to see what it holds, but also the last chance to enjoy this lovely building before it gets replaced by more of the stuff that surrounds it.

Get there while you can.

PS Some cracking book bargains to be had in the gift shop.

November 11, 2022

Cut off

My internet was down all day yesterday. I felt so cut off! Disabled even.

As if the only alternative to doing stuff online was to do nothing.

Which is ridiculous.

I’m just out of practice in the real world.

I need to get out more.

Maybe we all do.

Who fancies a coffee?