Responsible Autonomy – Page 28 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

September 15, 2022

Just in case you were wondering

I did a little bit of research this morning, using data from the Office for National Statistics.

By my calculation there are around 82,595 what I might call ‘ordinary’ private sector businesses (employing 1 – 19 people) who have commercial electricity contracts expiring by December this year.

Anecdotally (from radio phone-ins and Twitter), companies like these are being asked to sign new contracts for electricity at around 10 times their current rate.

That is simply unsustainable for most. Many will be forced to close, costing up to 314,790 people their jobs and removing up to £60,255,000,000 in turnover from the economy.

If I include businesses employing up to 49 people, we’re looking at losing up to 280,279 businesses, 524,974 jobs and £121,344,002,000.

I’m all for bosses disappearing. Not their businesses though. I’d like to see them flourish.

Which is why we need to cherish our ordinary businesses.

September 14, 2022

Ordinary

Over recent months we’ve seen some extraordinary behaviour from big institutions. Employers knowingly break the law. Airlines and holiday companies sell flights they know they can’t deliver. Energy retailers bill small business customers amounts they know are impossible to pay. Policemen murder women. Or shoot first and ask questions later. A holiday park is prepared to evict its guests to observe a bank holiday. Politicians no longer pretend to tell the truth or even talk sense. Journalists publish easily verifiable lies to create false outrage.

Thankfully, ordinary people are not like this. Ordinary people rush to help when someone collapses in the street, or asks for help on Twitter. Ordinary people go out of their way to keep a promise they’ve made. Ordinary business owners agonise over having to lose people. Ordinary business owners pay their suppliers on time and almost always over-deliver for their customers.

That’s because ordinary people operate in what you could call the ‘natural economy’. We know the world doesn’t run on money, but on the promises we make to each other. We know that even money is really just a promise.

Let’s celebrate and cherish the ordinary. That’s where a better future lies.

September 2, 2022

Planning

Here’s a question for next time you feel you need to plan for a big event or outcome:

“What’s the minimum you need to do to enable your people to make it happen?”

The answer might surprise you.

It will almost certainly be less than you thought.

And leave much more room for your people to shine.

August 24, 2022

The revenge of Muri – a reprise

When times look good, or you think nobody will notice, it’s tempting to overload systems, processes and people.

A little cut here, a small increase in workload there. A freeze on recruitment, a delay of re-equipping or upgrading. It has no visible effect on the bottom line. You get away with it.

So it becomes tempting to do it again. To ‘keep it lean’, ‘cut no slack’, ask people to ‘lean in’, commit 100% 110%, 120%, 150%.

And again.

Then, when you’ve cut everything to the bone and built your entire system on just in time, lowest cost, no slack, it doesn’t take much to bring the whole thing crashing down.

It’s not rocket science. We are part of a system. Overloading any part of it is not sensible behaviour. Overloading all of it at once is madness.

Freeloaders will try, of course, because it means they can extract a higher immediate return. Blind to the fact that they will not be able to enjoy it.

It’s up to the rest of us to prevent them. For their sakes as well as ours.

August 22, 2022

Confusions

Stick insects confuse their predators on purpose. They pretend to be a twig. A predator already has a mental model of what a twig is and how it works, which doesn’t include being edible. So it leaves the insect ‘twig’ alone.

We humans confuse people all the time. Sometimes on purpose, most often by accident. We assume that our mental model of the thing we’re building will be obvious to everyone who buys it, uses it or operates it. Yet that is rarely the case.

Take a small business. For a shareholder or investor it’s a machine for generating returns. For founders it’s a way to make a dent in the universe or their route to a coveted lifestyle. For their accountant it’s a set of connected accounts. For an operations manager it’s a set of loosely related functions, one of which they probably consider to be the most important. For some employees it’s a means to enjoy life outside work. For others it’s a lifeline, and for others still a vocation. For a customer it’s a solution to a problem.

Conflicting mental models pull people in different directions and make the thing you’re building confusing, less effective and ultimately unusable.

The answer?

Use a model that is simple, easy to communicate and effective in delivering what everyone wants.
Design the thing you’re building around that model, so that the way it works clearly reflects the concept behind it.
Share your model in your marketing materials, shareholder reports, filed accounts, operations manual, help guides and status reports, so that it becomes a joy to interact with, whatever your role.

If you’re a small business owner, you might like to use mine:

It works well, if you want to create a business that can last or that can grow.

Or both, if that’s what you want.

August 18, 2022

By accident or design?

One day you will have to leave your business. Will that be by design or by accident?

If you feel strongly about what happens to it once you’re gone, leaving by design is by far the better option. And the best time to start is now.

After all, you never know what’s around the corner.

August 17, 2022

Are you building to sell or to last?

Are you building your business to sell or to last?

The answer makes a huge difference to what you do before you leave – even if in the end you sell it.

And if the answer’s ‘Neither‘?

Then your business dies with you.

There’s no right answer.

It just helps to be clear.

August 12, 2022

The war for talent

There’s a talent war going on.

Companies are spending a fortune searching for that perfect new recruit – you know, the one with 10 years experience of a 3-year old industry; who can bring fresh eyes to your business plus an intimate knowledge of how you do things; who will ‘go the extra mile’ for a bit less pay than the last person in that role, and none of the perks.

What if instead of looking for unicorns, you gave everyone in your business the responsibility and autonomy they crave, a Customer Experience Score to follow and a share of the profits they make?

You’d probably find there’s more than enough talent in your business already.

It’s just that you’re wasting it.

August 9, 2022

Where the system ends

When the idea for Crossrail was first floated years ago, I thought nothing of it. Abbey Wood station is 3 miles away. Too far to walk, and not a pleasant walk either. So I forgot about it.

Until TFL created a new bus route that took in the new station.

The thing that makes the new Elizabeth Line work for people like me isn’t the big, expensive part – the Crossrail system, it’s the bus that connects us to it. And that, plus all the other new bus routes created to serve the Elizabeth Line is what makes the expensive part worth all the investment.

Knowing where your business system ends matters.

Tempted to cut a ‘peripheral’ service for your customers?

Be careful. It may actually be the enabler for your core business.

August 5, 2022

Side-effects

There’s another bit of feedback we should be using to improve our businesses – our side-effects.

Side effects are not necessarily intentional, but they are real.

They’re not necessarily negative either.

If as business owners, we truly want to ‘make the world a better place’, our improvement process must include getting feedback on our side-effects, then acting to minimise the damaging ones and maximise the enriching.

Otherwise we’re just not really viable.

Because one day, the negatives come back to bite us.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Responsible Autonomy