Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Discipline makes Daring possible

Keeping it personal
October 25, 2022

Keeping it personal

When you’re a one-man band it has to be personal.  Conventional wisdom has it that you can’t keep it that way if you plan to seriously scale.  It’s almost a definition of ‘corporate’ that ‘I’ becomes ‘they’.

I believe that this loss of the personal is part of what puts many micro-business owners off growth, not the ‘lack of ambition’ ascribed to them, by government reports.

Conventional wisdom is not wrong – as the business founders insert layers of hierarchy and function between themselves and their customers, the relationship between business and customer can often feel impersonal, transactional.   A brand, no matter how great, isn’t a person.

What’s wrong is the assumption that introducing functions and hierarchies is the only way to scale.

What if, at that point where 10-ish people work with you, you decided to make them all ‘the boss’- each one of them capable and authorised to deliver on your promises the way you do?

What if, instead of splitting the customer experience into separate functions, you kept it intact from end to end and made each and every person in the business responsible for delivering it to their clients?

What if, instead of introducing layers of management to distract your team from your customers, you gave them a Customer Experience Score to follow and let them manage themselves?  With responsbility for the consequences of course.

You’d scale your business and keep it personal.  It’s just that the person your clients deal wouldn’t have to be you.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

 

Intrigued?  Ask me how.

Why it’s good to have people on trains
October 21, 2022

Why it’s good to have people on trains

My Great Western Railway train to Penzance was delayed by half an hour.  Someone had been taken ill on a train in front of us.   The tannoy kept us informed, and let us know that we would be able to claim compensation via the train operator’s website.

So far, so standard.

But here’s the difference a real-life, flesh and blood human made:

Knowing that some of the passengers would have missed their connection to Newquay, the train manager asked them to identify themselves as he walked through the train, so he could arrange alternative transport.  Having worked out what their actual needs were, a bus was arranged to pick most of them up from St Austell, while for one person, a taxi was booked to get them to Newquay airport in time to make their plane.  All at no extra cost.

Because the train manager saw their job as getting people to their desired destination as near on time as possible, not merely to carry them from A to B.

How very different from ‘rebel’ brand Virgin, who will happily chuck passengers off a train well short of their destination, to avoid the costs of further delays down the line, leaving them to scramble onwards as best they can.

I’ve supported the rail strikes since the beginning.   I support them even more enthusistically now.   Even though my Penzance trip was a day later than booked because of them.

These people aren’t just fighting for their jobs, they’re fighting for the kind of service I for one want to receive.  A human one.

Scaling
October 20, 2022

Scaling

If you’re a micro business looking to serve more people well, consider this before you add the next person to your team:

Are you trying to make your music louder or more complex?

Getting louder is simple.  Just let each new person follow the score you play from, alongside you.   On a different instrument maybe, to give richness to the sound.  Or give them a copy of your score so they can play elsewhere or in a different timezone.   It’ll still be your music, still a personal experience for customers, only nearer to them.

Once you’ve mastered louder, making your music more complex gets easier too.  Write a new score for the new thing you want to offer, teach new or existing people to play it, and put them wherever you want, to harmonise or contrast with your existing musicians.  Better still, make sure every player is able to play every variation, in case they need to.   So you can make your complex music louder.

It’s hard to do both at once without confusing your musicians and your audience.

So if in doubt, I’d start with louder.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

The sound of the sea
October 19, 2022

The sound of the sea

I’m back.  After 5 days of walking, 4 days of talking, and 2 days of chilling and walking.  In places where the lanes are narrow, the sea is everywhere and it’s often impossible to get a signal.   A short holiday in a remote location, followed by a conference in an even more remote location.

What have I learned?

That gathering ‘the news’ intermittently via intermittent access to twitter is good enough.

That gathering people together to share how they’re changing a system far bigger than themselves is amazing.  When everyone realises they are actually doing it, the changes just get bigger.  And more people join in.

That the sound of the sea is a good thing to fall asleep to.

It’s great to be back.

Getting out from under
October 7, 2022

Getting out from under

No matter how light the burden, or what a joy it is to carry, it’s good to get out from under it once in a while.

I’m disappearing off for a holiday.  Back on the 19th.

Take care.

Some days…
October 6, 2022

Some days…

…only kittens will do.

 

Take care of yourself.

 

Definitions of management
October 5, 2022

Definitions of management

What is management?

Here are a few answers, found on my Ecosia search this morning:

  • “the coordination and administration of tasks to achieve a goal through the application of available resources” (Indeed)
  • “the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a non-profit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.” (Wikipedia)
  • “the art of creating an environment in which people can perform and individuals and can co-operate towards attainment of group goals” (Harold Koontz)

 

None of these definitions presuppose that ‘management’ can only be carried out by a few people, or even just one person.  So why do we assume that hierarchy or even dictatorship is the natural shape of management?

Perhaps because this definition of management comes top of the search results:

  • “the process of dealing with or controlling things or people.” (Oxford Languages)

 

I don’t know about you, but I prefer Harold Koontz’s version.

I am not a thing.  I am a human being.   I control myself, thank you very much.

A watched pot
October 4, 2022

A watched pot

Decades ago, my older brothers were given the job of breaking up concrete in the back garden so my dad could lay a new patio.

They did a morning’s work, had lunch and started again in the afternoon.   After an hour or so, my mum thought “They’ve been at it a while, I better see if they need a cup of tea.”

Then walked into the breakfast room to find nothing but a cassette player running.

They’d carefully recorded themselves in the morning so they could bunk off in the afternoon.

 

Corporate Rebels shared a Bloomberg article today:

“More than two years after remote work and hybrid jobs became widespread, there’s still a stark divide over how it’s going: About 85% of managers worry they can’t tell if employees are getting enough done, while 87% of workers say their productivity is just fine.”

With this admonition from Microsoft: “Don’t Spy on Employees to Ensure They’re Working,“

This is the 21st century for goodness sake.

Have we not learned to measure results rather than “activity”?

I can’t help thinking it’s management that needs an overhaul.

 

 

Hint: If you’re a micro-business employer I can help you with that.

Dogma
October 3, 2022

Dogma

Dogma: a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted.

As a boss, in a moment of frustration,  you may feel that this is what you want.   And if you lock all decision-making into your systems and processes, you’ll get it.

Dogma scales, but it doesn’t evolve, and it frequently gets subverted.   If ‘computer says no‘ to often for my liking, I might just stop asking the computer.

If you want your business to outlast you and retain your vision, it’s better to create space for dissent, debate and experiment.   After all, dissent, debate and experiments are where discovery originates.

Use your systems and processes to create a floor that defines the minimum experience.    Guide your people with a small number of big principles.  Then let them spread the word in their own way.

You never know, you might just found a new religion.

Following orders
September 29, 2022

Following orders

Of course there are benefits to simply following orders.  It allows people to avoid responsibility.

Which means that if you want your people to take responsibility, giving them orders won’t work.

Giving them a blank page won’t work either.

You’ll have to find another way.