Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Responsible Autonomy

Connecting
April 15, 2020

Connecting

Last night I discovered Johann Hari and his work on depression, anxiety and addiction.

His findings are fascinating, and chime very much with my beliefs on what motivates people, and how you help them to be happier and more productive.

Humans have fundamental physical needs – food, clothing, shelter, sex.

We also have fundamental psychological needs – autonomy, mastery, agency, purpose and above all connection with other people.  We need to be seen and valued.

I’d be interested to know what the current situation is doing for those needs right now.   I suspect that some of the psychological needs are being better met for some people, while for others some of the physical needs are under threat.

If Covid-19 is an opportunity for a reset.   It’s going to be worth thinking about what comes back after the reset button is released again.

How can we ensure that more people have more of their fundamental needs met intentionally and consistently, without killing ourselves or the planet in the process?

It’s a big question.  But we can start small, with where we belong – with our own families, friends and businesses.

Here are the TED talks:

https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_this_could_be_why_you_re_depressed_or_anxious

 

https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong

 

Managing blind
April 3, 2020

Managing blind

If you know about Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), you’ll know that people have preferred channels of communication and expression.   Some people lean towards images, others towards words, others towards feelings.

Not surprisingly, these preferences apply to how people take in the information that convinces them of something, for example, whether or not someone is doing a good job.

Try it.  Ask yourself  “How do I know someone’s doing a good job?“

Is it by seeing them do it?  Is it by reading a report they’ve produced?  Is it by hearing someone tell you?   Is it by doing it with them?

The preferred channel isn’t the whole story though, we also have a preference that relates to time and frequency – how many times we need to experience the signals of a job well done, in order to be convinced that the person doing it can be safely left to themselves.

Some people are immediately convinced, they only need to see/read/hear/do once, and they are happy to let the person carry on.

Others need a few instances before they are convinced.

Yet others need to keep receiving the evidence because they are never quite 100% convinced, no matter how many times they see/hear/read/do.

Clearly this has implications for what might be appropriate roles for the individuals in your team, depending on the kind of business you do.   And there are dangers in it, as I’ve talked about before.

It is of particular relevance if you are a manager or business owner, when one or more of the usual channels are not available.

The first part of the answer for most businesses, is to switch to measuring outcomes, not work.

The second is to run spot-checks at a reasonable frequency, which can take different forms.

For example you could arrange to ‘accompany’ someone as they perform their job.   You give notice, so they are prepared, because you are not so much checking what they are doing as monitoring the reactions of the people they interact with as they do it.

Or you can ‘mystery shop’ – the non-creepy equivalent of observing covertly, from a distance.   Better yet, get a professional to do it for you on a regular basis.

And you can give everyone a stake in success, by truly sharing ownership.

The point of this post, and some of the others I’ve written this week, is to show that there may be reasons beyond the immediate crisis that are making you and your team feel uncomfortable and demotivated.

Of course the priority now is get set up just enough to survive.

But there is no need for things to be worse than they are, and soon you will have some time to invest beyond survival.

By taking the time to understand individual working styles, so you can work with the grain of every member of your team (including yourself), you’ll come out of the other side stronger.   And you’ll have showed your team you care.

Here’s the book reference again: “Words that Change Minds”, by Shelle Rose Charvet.    Check out the website too.

Switching focus
March 31, 2020

Switching focus

It’s been amazing to see how quickly many businesses have been able to switch to some sort of online delivery model over the last week or so.

Continuing my musings on ‘Working Styles’, here’s something to bear in mind though, especially for your sales team.

To be good at sales, or customer service, or support, people need to be get some of their motivation from other people – they need to be externally focused.

So far, so good.   But the context of sales can vary, and individuals can have very different working style preferences and still be excellent sales people – as long as the context they are in remains congenial.

For example, a good salesperson can have a reactive preference – that is, they act on things that happen, rather than initiating events.   That’s perfect for physical retail, where customers don’t want to be pestered, yet want attentiveness when they ask for it.      People with a proactive preference, on the other hand are more suited to a field sales role, where they have to go out and find clients, or for pulling in customers through promotions outside the premises.

Bear these preferences in mind as you switch to online.   Working against the grain of their preference will be more difficult for both proactive and reactive people.  You could, for example have the reactive people man your chatlines and customer service lines, while the proactive people do online networking and phone calls.

To find out what preferences the people in your business have, I recommend “Words that Change Minds” by Shelle Rose Charvet.   I’ve used this approach many times, to help with franchisee recruitment, and to help individuals identify what they should be looking for in a job or career.   It can be done in 20 minutes, via a telephone interview.

Now would be a great time to find out what makes your people tick.

Give yourself a break
March 27, 2020

Give yourself a break

After a stressful and uncertain week, with many things still to be resolved before we can all adjust to the new normal, it will do us good to take a break.

Even if all we can manage is 5 minutes.  Even if that 5 minutes is at some strange time of night.

Switch off from the news.   Log out of email and social media.  They aren’t helping.

Find a place to sit where you can be as near to fresh air as possible.  Even if that’s just an open window.

Sit.

Breathe.

That feeling in your stomach? The butterflies?  The anxiety?  You’ve had it before.  And you got through before.  You got the job.  You learned to drive, swim, ride a bike.  You did the parachute jump.

That feeling isn’t only fear.  It’s excitement.

Things will never be the same again.   They will be better if we dare to make them so.

How to quickly capture a business process/procedure/work instruction
March 25, 2020

How to quickly capture a business process/procedure/work instruction

With teams suddenly dispersed, all that tacit knowledge of ‘what it is we’re trying to do, and how to do it’, is much harder to access.  You can’t simply shout across the office “How do I do X again?”

It will be very tempting to start automating everything.   But you need to think about what you’re automating first, else you can get trapped in the software manufacturer’s model of how your business should work.

So here ‘s a quick guide to capturing ‘What we do round here’ that will work over Zoom, Skype etc.

Key Principles:

  • Assume competence.
  • The quicker you test it, the quicker you can improve it.
  • If it feels like you’re trying to fit too much in, you probably are.
  • It’s a prompt, not a novel.
  • Practice makes perfect.
  • It’s about the process not the people.

How to go about it:

  • Start with the most critical process.
  • Get someone else to help you.
  • Sketch the whole thing as a series of bubbles – 7  plus or minus one should cover it.
  • Start with the 80% case.
  • Start at the very beginning.
  • Carry on right to the end.
  • Think ‘Get Outcome’.

Follow the rapid improvement cycle:

  • You tell a colleague how it works, they write it down
  • They do it, following what you told them.
  • You observe, and where it goes wrong, between you, you modify the instructions to get the outcomes you want.
  • You clarify how it really works (not how you think it works).
  • They suggest ways to make it easy for them to do.
  • They write up the improved version.
  • Save the latest version where everyone can get at it.

Repeat until you have a work instruction/procedure/process that can be run reliably by anyone who needs to.

Automate the bits humans shouldn’t be doing.   Then let the humans get on with the rest.

Quiet reading
March 19, 2020

Quiet reading

Following on from yesterday’s post, here are some suggestions for reading when things are quieter.   Hopefully the weather will also be fine enough by then to do this out in the fresh air:

  1. What to Do when It’s Your Turn (and It’s Always Your Turn).   Seth Godin.  Available from Porchlight books.
  2. The Three Ways of Getting Things Done.  Hierarchy, Heterarchy and Responsible Autonomy in organizations.   Gerald Fairtlough.  Available from the Triarchy Press.
  3. Change the Game: Share the Work. Building a business that works better for everyone (especially you).  Kirsten Gibbs.  Available from The Endless Bookcase.  Or come to my virtual book launch on the 7th April, and get your own signed copy!
  4. The Checklist Manifesto. How to get things right.   Atul Gawande.   Available from Profile Books.
  5. Holacracy.  The revolutionary management system that abolishes hierarchy.  Brian J. Robertson.  Available from Penguin.
  6. A Beautiful Constraint.  How to transform your limitations into advantages, and why its everyone’s business.  Adam Morgan & Mark Barden.  Available from Wiley.

Especially though I like today’s post from Corporate Rebels.  The Ultimate Remote Work Policy?

Everything above is about supporting and enabling that, on both sides.

Looking ahead
March 18, 2020

Looking ahead

The first priority in times like these is to keep afloat, and help keep others afloat as far as we can.

But there will come a time, not too far away, when what’s needed is to look ahead, and think how to build more resilience into our businesses, so that when the next shock comes, we’re more able to withstand it, or even thrive on it.

Tinkering around the edges won’t cut it.  Business recovery plans, and business continuity plans won’t be enough.

Once we’ve been forced to see what can work, we’ll choose to move to new ways of doing things, that might just be better for everyone.

Look out for the paradigm shift.

Succession planning
March 16, 2020

Succession planning

We usually take a regal, personal view of succession in a business.   An heir is selected, carefully trained, and groomed to take the helm when we leave.

This approach is fraught with difficulties.   We put off the selection, training and all that, because we’d rather not face our own mortality, and because to do all that takes time out from running the business.   The heir we choose may not wish to be chosen – even if they are family.   They may not wish to shoulder the risk of destroying their inheritance.    There may not be anyone already in the business that we want to be our heir.

There is a more rational, systemic approach.

Build a business around a clearly defined customer experience process, that gives people the confidence to know what they are doing without constraining their personality and individuality.    Give people clear roles to play and all the resources at their fingertips to play them well.   Train them to perform more than one role,  so they can have variety of work, you have redundancy in the system and the customer learns that they can happily deal with anyone in the business.

Built this way, a business more or less runs itself, giving you more options for succession, including sale at its full value.   You could even leave it to your employees.

Now there’s a legacy to be proud of.