Promise of Value – Page 24 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

February 17, 2019

Leeway – but not complete freedom

Quilts have often been made collaboratively, especially in America, where the idea of making a quilt in components (called blocks) really took off. This method meant a quilt top could be assembled very quickly, since the production of blocks was effectively parallelised. If you wanted a bigger quilt, you simply enlisted more friends.

Once the component blocks were completed, they were sewn together to make the top, which was then tacked together with the filling and backing layers. Then everyone got together again to quilt the 3 layers into a single unified whole – the finished quilt.

As well as speeding up the making, this block method allows considerable leeway to the individual contributors. In this Friendship quilt, each contributor has chosen their own block design, but they’ve clearly been given a colour scheme to work with, and at least some fabrics have been shared – its leeway, but not complete freedom.

The result is a bedcover that looks coherent, but is still lively and full of interest. An excellent example of balancing tight rules with interpretive latitude.

Those quiltmakers knew a lot about creative collaboration.

February 15, 2019

Metaphor

“To learn easily is naturally pleasant to all people, and words signify something, so whatever words create knowledge in us are the pleasantest. Metaphor most brings about learning.” ~Aristotle

When Blue Rocket Accounting and I started working together, they had a different, very traditional name, based on the surnames of the founding partners. Julie, the new owner, was fascinated by the NASA space programmes, and had already adopted some graphics reflecting that into the branding for the business.

As a result, when we put together the Promise of Value for the business, a powerful metaphor emerged: “we are Houston to your space mission.”

We ran with this metaphor, packaging services up to suit different types of space mission – “Blast Off”, “Maintain Orbit”, “Expand Orbit”, “Reach for the Stars”.

Then we took it further, defining Roles inside the business that are based on key Roles in Mission Control.

So for example, Blue Rocket has a ‘Capsule Communicator’, the primary communication channel for each client mission. Where most accountants would have a ‘Client Account Manager’, Blue Rocket has a ‘Flight Dynamics Officer’ whose job it is to give the client the information they need, when they need it, to keep them on the trajectory they’ve chosen.

This is carried through into the names of key processes: “Deliver Blast-Off”, “Deliver Maintain Orbit”, and so on.

This has proven to be extremely powerful in driving growth.

Firstly, prospective clients find it very easy to grasp exactly what Blue Rocket can do for them, and which package they need, so it makes it easy for them to buy. It’s not for everyone of course, some potential clients find the whole thing too frivolous, but they aren’t the companies Blue Rocket wants to work with, so that’s OK for everyone.

Secondly, its hard to forget why you do what you do when your job title is ‘Flight Dynamics Officer’ or ‘Capsule Communicator’ or ‘Voice of Mission Control’. You’re literally playing out the company’s promise to customers.

So, what would your metaphor be?

February 14, 2019

Silos

Functional silos are a well-recognised problem in organisational design.

The danger is that separate functions become like fortresses, mini fiefdoms with their own internal rules, reluctant to share information with other silos, poor at ‘passing the baton’ to the next silo when needed, optimising their internal operation at the expense of the whole.

Common solutions involve finding ways to pierce the boundaries between silos – cross-functional teams, rotating people around functions, modelling processes with swim lanes to represent the function responsible.

I think the problem is more fundamental.

Functions are a manifestation of a profoundly internal view of a business. They are about the organisation and the hierarchy, not about the client or customer. They encourage people to forget the Promise the organisation makes and who it makes that Promise to.

So I believe the solution needs to be more radical too.

Instead of trying to build bridges between silos, or tunnel through them, or create elaborate schemes for inter-silo communication, we should simply re-focus the business on clients, and build our organisational framework around making and keeping our Promises to them.

The beauty of this approach is that it makes everything much clearer and simpler for everyone, and its easier to scale.

February 11, 2019

Resource Scarcity

When a resource is expensive, it seems sensible to use it as efficiently as possible. So we batch jobs up for it, making them wait, so the expensive, and therefore scarce resource can be used to the max.

The problem with this approach is that it distorts the process, optimising a single step at the expense of the rest of it.

This distortion often persists long after the resource in question is no longer scarce. So you get GP and hospital waiting rooms; jobcentres and jury rooms, full of people in forced idleness, just so that the ‘scarce resource’ is maximally productive.

What if we designed our processes around the most critically affected role instead?

Things would look very different, and would be much more efficent overall – although the ‘scarce resource’ might feel a little less important.

February 6, 2019

Elaboration

Sam at Lewisham Local asked me to elaborate on what I mean by this:

‘scaling successfully is about creating an ecosystem where others can lead’

Here goes…

When you first start a small business you are in control. You make all the promises. You keep them. You are the leader of your own business.

When you can no longer keep up with demand yourself, you add more people. At first, this works, because you are offloading jobs that are easily defined (which could also be outsourced) such as bookkeeping, accounting, diary management, or you are handing over whole areas of responsibility such as sales for example, to another person and simply letting them get on with it.

Beyond a certain size though – perhaps around 5 -7 people – this approach starts to break down. You’ve run out of ‘easy to define’ jobs to offload, and the people you’ve handed responsibility to turn out to have completely different ideas about the promises you are making and how to keep them. They need watching, and controlling.

You are still the only leader, and you spend your time monitoring what other people are doing instead of working on your business. So you get stuck at this scale. You may even decide to scale back at this point, because going further just seems too hard.

What you really want is people who don’t need to be told, who can take responsibility for delivering on behalf of the business, each one of them a leader for the business.

But in order to do this, your people need an ecosystem that supports them.

For me this ecosystem looks like this:

It gives absolute clarity on who the business serves and what the business promises to do for them.
It nails down the values and behaviours that drive ‘the way we do things’ round here, setting expectations for behaviour for everyone in and around the business.
It is structured around processes, not functions, and certainly not management hierarchy. Processes start and end at the boundary of the organisation – they go from end-to-end, following the lifecycle of a prospect through to client and beyond. In this way the ecosystem stays focused on the people it serves. Everything that goes on inside the ecosystem is a side-effect of attracting and serving clients.
Processes provide clear direction on what needs to be done when, both to make the right promises to the right people, and to deliver on those promises – without specifying in excruciating detail how to do those things (although they may reference a library of techniques or ‘how-to’s that beginners may find useful).
Processes set out the usual run of events, without enumerating every possible scenario. This means that technical expertise still resides in the individual, who can exercise their professional judgement to handle exceptions, based on their own knowledge and experience, plus the values and behaviours expected of them.
It is based on roles, not individuals. Roles have clear responsibilities to clients. Roles run processes and each process is the exclusive responsiblility of one role. In effect every role-player leads their own processes. Roles may participate in processes they are not responsible for.
It ensures that everything is visible to everyone, and that all the resources needed to perform a role are available as and when they are needed.
Finally, it includes feedback mechanisms, so that it can improve and evolve. This includes rewards, which to be effective, should fairly reflect individual contributions.

In this ecosystem individuals can play more than one role, and the same role can be performed by many individuals. This is how you scale – you simply add more individuals in the roles you need.

Ideally, an individual runs an entire end-to-end process – effectively becoming a mini-business on their own, a bit like a franchise, but internal. This is how you can scale and transform to an employee-owned, employee-run business.

To begin with, you as the original leader will want to monitor and action all feedback, but roles should see everything too. Their responsibilities include improving the ecosystem based on this feedback.

Over time, as you become more confident that your people are running the business as it should be, you can let them get on with it – they will lead the business instead of you.

It takes a while to build an ecosystem like this, but once you have it, scaling becomes much easier.

That was a long elaboration – thank you for reading it.

Thank you Sam for asking it.

February 5, 2019

Too close to see

When you run your own business, the way things get done is driven by what you expect of yourself. Or rather, what you think a customer should be able to expect if they do business with you.

The trouble is, we take our own expectations for granted, to the point where we hardly notice them or think they are worth mentioning to anyone outside the organisation. At the same time, we are all too conscious of our blemishes, our failures to live up to our own expectations.

Take a step back.. Take a good look at your business. Get someone else to do the looking if need be.

See how remarkable you are.

Then talk about it. There are people looking for it.

February 4, 2019

Erosion and deposition

This is how trust gets eroded. Promises made, then broken.

Drip by drip.

Until we learn to ignore the promises and put up with whatever we get.

But it’s also how trust is created. Promises made, and kept.

Every time, drip by drip.

Until we learn to expect the best, and trust that we will get it.

Start small if you have to, but mean it.

February 1, 2019

Off the peg or bespoke?

We tend to think of bespoke and off the peg as very much an either/or option. Not just in clothes.

It’s easy to find standard legal agreements on the internet that you can download for a few pounds, and even easier to find a lawyer who will answer your question about cost with a sharp intake of breath and “well, it depends – every case is different you see”.

We professionals can get hung up on the ‘case by case basis’ that defines us as professional and look on any level of standardisation with disdain.

I believe there are needs for the ‘tailored off the peg’ that are currently unmet, that if embraced would benefit both buyer and seller.

For example, I could buy a standard franchise agreement based on given parameters, then review it with a quaified lawyer to ensure it is up to date and covers all my specific needs. I could even buy an annual review service to make sure it stays up to date.

This isn’t just more affordable for me, its also easier for the professional to deliver, without becoming mechanical or boring for the lawyer.

Between ‘high-touch’ bespoke and ‘no-touch’ off-the-peg, there is up to date experience, built on a tried and tested standard – ‘the best touch’, if we’re open to looking for it.

January 31, 2019

The lovely bones

By and large, we all have the same muscles in our bodies, and our bones show both where they were attached and how strong those muscles were.

Using this information, together with a knowledge of human anatomy, people like Oscar Nilsson can reconstruct the face of a girl who died 5,000 years ago, with a remarkable degree of accuracy.

Your processes are the bones of your business.

if you build them around your business heart and soul – the promise you make to the people you serve – your people can flesh out those bones in their own way, yet still produce a recognisable likeness for your clients.

If your bones are good, your business will always look and feel good.

January 28, 2019

The 80/20 rule

Years ago, a coffee shop – an offshoot of a well-known brand – opened in the middle of my local shopping centre. It had a nice old-fashioned feel, reminiscent of a cafe from the ‘30s, with wait staff and a long bar where coffee etc. was prepared. Of course I tried it out.

It used a very clever, but simple process. You waited at the entrance. When there was a table ready, you were ushered over to it and given a copy of the menu. Someone came and took your order, taking the menu away once they had delivered it.

It worked beautifully. Nobody was seated at a dirty table and the staff could easily tell who was waiting to give or receive their order.

Except, if you wanted another coffee, or a friend joined you halfway through, there was no way to re-order, except by trying to catch someone’s eye. But they weren’t looking for you, they were looking for menus.

So either it wasn’t meant for spending much time in, or they hadn’t thought it through.

It’s a great idea to design a process for the 80% of cases. But you do need to make sure you can handle the exceptions in a way that still fulfills your promise.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Promise of Value