Improve Process – Page 19 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

January 30, 2020

Playing with change

Aversion to new kinds of food is an instinct that kicks in for humans at around 2 years old. It’s a safety mechanism, evolved to protect the species. Just when they start toddling about, beyond the immediate reach of adults, children become extremely wary of whatever goes into their mouth.

As all parents know, this causes huge problems, when you’re just trying to get them all fed properly. This wariness can fossilise into a refusal to try anything new, leading to a choice between becoming what my mum used to call ‘A Marks and Spencer cafeteria’, or turning mealtimes into battles.

A non-stressful way to handle this wariness, is to give it its due attention, and give children time to overcome it themselves. Instead of putting new foods in front of them and expecting them to try them immediately, you introduce new foods as part of play.

Playing with carrots, broccoli, blueberries, with no expectation of having to eat them seems to release a child’s natural curiosity, and from painting with beetroot, it’s a small step to tasting it. Before you know it, your children are happy to try new things, mealtimes are enjoyable again, and you’re cooking the same meal for everyone.

Once you understand why children get fussy about what they eat and take it seriously, the right approach becomes obvious.

As I was watching this on TV, I wondered whether a similar approach might work with adults and work. Perhaps, if we can find ways of letting people play with changes, with no obligation to make them, we might unleash their natural curiosity and creativity and so not only end up with happier people, but better changes too.

January 17, 2020

Step-wise

Sport has long recognised ‘Muri’ – wasted effort through overburdening people, equipment or systems. An unrelenting schedule of high-intensity training is counter-productive. Eustress, the beneficial stress of additional effort that leads to improved performance, is more than offset by injury and exhaustion, or distress. Athletes burn out, physically and mentally.

The answer they’ve found is simple: build in short periods of recovery between longer periods of intensity. That doesn’t mean the athletes do nothing, simply that they are training at a lower level that prevents distress. These short recovery periods allow bodies and minds to recover, but are not long enough to allow a slide back to the previous performance level.

The result is a series of systematic, and predictable step-wise improvements in performance, that can be planned to coincide with major targets, such as a local, national or international competition, or the Olympics.

It seems to me that businesses could learn a lot from this approach.

Huge thanks to Matthew Cunliffe for this insight.

January 14, 2020

Making better promises

Assuming that your Promise of Value is already in the intersection of things profitable and things useful, how do you make it better?

Here are a few ideas:

Make sure you’re absolutely clear about who you are for, and who you are not for. In psychographic terms first (how they behave, what they believe, what problems they see), then demographic. The more specific you can make this, the better. Why? Because it helps you to really see, touch and actually talk to the kind of people you wish to serve. And it helps those people to see that you are for them.
Spell out what you really do for these people. Who do you help them to become? How do you help them transform?
Surface more about how you behave as a business – your values, style, culture, ‘the way things get done around here’. Probably the most overlooked part of your Promise, how you do what you do is as important as what.

A simple way to test the result is to try and express it in this form:

“We do X. Y people do/achieve/become Z because we do.”

Huge thanks to the brilliant Bernadette Jiwa for this format.

January 13, 2020

Making it better

If a business is about making and keeping promises, what does better mean?

Making more promises? Or keeping more?

Making our promises better? Or keeping them better?

A good place to start might be to make better promises. After all, the set of all useful things and the set of all profitable things do not fully correspond.

Better starts with finding our place in the intersection.

January 9, 2020

To err is human

We all make mistakes. We misjudge, we make assumptions based on prejudice and false knowledge. We mis-time, we say the wrong thing, the wrong way. We forget the right things, remember the wrong things.

We are after all human animals, driven by hormones, emotion and primitive responses.

We are complex evolving systems, living inside complex evolving systems. There are bound to be mismatches. And mismatches are one way we learn to evolve further.

So mistakes are bound to happen. You can prevent many of them through process and a ‘golden rule’ that allows anyone to deal with unforeseen scenarios in line with your Promise, but you won’t prevent all of them.

Whether you like it or not, the way you deal with mistakes is part of your Promise. But there is a way to make errors work for you and actually strengthen your Promise.

Be human.

November 22, 2019

Exit interviews

In one of my jobs I ended up being quite badly bullied by my immediate boss.

It took me quite a while to realise what was going on – I liked them, and could see they had personal problems. I tried to help. And I assumed that I was the one getting things wrong.

But once the real situation became obvious I also realised that I wasn’t the first person on the team to suffer. In fact several team members had already left for this reason.

Eventually, I decided to look for another job, and found one. A step up, for much better money, that did wonders for my self-esteem.

The day I left I had an interview with someone in HR. They were sorry to see me go. I’d been there a long time. I’d done a good job. I was appreciated by the people I served and well thought of by others in my department. We had a nice conversation.

Finally, it was time to go.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m leaving?”

I know that things changed in that team after I left. The team was re-structured, my old boss got help. But only because I volunteered information about what was going on.

An exit interview is your last opportunity to learn from an unhappy client, supplier or team member. Don’t waste it.

November 21, 2019

Reviews

Ideas for doing things better can come from anywhere. A question asked by a prospect or client, a suggestion from one of your team, a report from an external adviser or regulator.

A few of these will be so obviously the right thing to do, you can adopt them immediately. Most will benefit from some review time.

Why? Because its easy to get bogged down in small changes that add complexity and dilute your Promise, without actually adding real value.

“We’ll get this prospect if we add X to our offer.” Really? Is X consistent with our Promise? Is this a prospect we really want?

“This client is asking for Y. The customer is always right.” Really? Is Y consistent with our Promise? Will it add enough value to more of our clients? Does it allow us to protect or increase our prices?

“We should try this Z way of doing things, everyone else is.” Really? Is Z consistent with our Promise? How does it affect the process downstream? Does it improve how we deliver our Promise?

An easily updated and shared wish list with regular, frequent reviews is a sensible way to handle suggestions for improvement.

If everyone is crystal-clear on your Promise, you’ll quickly agree on those you should implement straight away, those you should reject, and those that need more reflection. And everyone will learn to make better suggestions.

November 20, 2019

FAClues

What question does your business get asked over and over again?

What could you do to save people having to ask it?

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Improve Process