The Autonomous Enterprise – Page 8 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

August 11, 2020

Idiot-proof

“I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.” Warren Buffet.

There are 2 ways to make a business idiot-proof.

One is to build a business that generates and shares real value, making and keeping promises to customers and continually improving how it does that. All protected from a potential ‘idiot’ at the top, because there is no top. The people who do the business run the business, the way an orchestra plays a symphony, without needing a composer to be present.

The other way is to build and protect a racket, a monopoly (Buffett calls this ‘putting a moat around the business‘), that can’t help but make extraordinary profits, no matter who’s in charge.

The first way takes investment, but for most of us, it’s the affordable option (as well as being the right one).

August 4, 2020

Form follows Function

“Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.” Steve Jobs.

That’s true of all human artefacts, including a business.

Form follows function.

Our default business form follows its historical economic function – the concentration of capital and consequently power, to the apex of a pyramid.

If we want business to do something else, we need to give it a different shape.

One option:

July 30, 2020

Wiring

One of my favourite feeds, Corporate Rebels, shared a really interesting post today “Removing Bureaucracy and Hard-Wiring Trust”

It’s a really great read, about instilling responsible autonomy into your team, clarifying the ‘compass’ that will guide individuals, and setting a few big rules for ‘How we do things round here’ ( based around “Act In the Best Interests of the Company”)

But.

Where’s the customer?

And where’s the continuity? What happens when these particular individuals move on? How do new people learn quickly?

It’s brilliant and essential to empower your people and your teams. But it’s more sustainable to include some infrastructure too.

Some actual wiring. Built around the people you serve.

July 20, 2020

Manifesto for a Disappearing Boss

I’ve decided to embrace my inner revolutionary and write a Manifesto.

I’d love to know what you think of it.

Whatever you think of it.

Does it work?
What do you like?
What don’t you like?
What do you want to do after reading it?
Does it help you do that?

Thank you for reading it.

July 14, 2020

Give it up.

You start your own business to take back control. To be at nobody’s beck and call. To do what you think is right by your clients.

Once you get good at that, you outsource key functions, take people on to help you deliver, and suddenly, you’ve lost it. The control has gone. You’re at the beck and call of clients, or team members, or suppliers, and it seems impossible to get people to do things the way you would.

A natural reaction is to tighten your hands on the reins, supervise more, intervene more, even to redo the work.

Micromanagement doesn’t work. You only end up working harder, being a nag, and training your people to give up trying.

Instead, give control away as soon as you can.

Not by abdicating, not even by handing it over to superstar colleagues, but by installing your DNA into the way the business works, so that it works the way you want it to when you’re not in the room.

Strangely, creating this kind of control is liberating:

For your people, because they know the outcomes they are aiming for, and what needs to happen to achieve them, plus they have the freedom to do that with flair and personality.
For you, because you can relax your vigilance, and concentrate on growing and evolving your business.
For your business, because its no longer dependent on the individuals who happen to be there at any one time.

We call this writing your Score. Because once you’ve written it, the music you and your orchestra are creating now can last forever, no matter who plays it, or how.

If you want to take back control, start by giving it all away.

July 10, 2020

“What would happen if we removed all Managers?”

Lisa Haggar started a lively discussion on this topic on LinkedIn today:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lisa-haggar-540a68117_whatnomanager-selfmanagement-timesarechanging-activity-6687251785352024065-esUl

Of course I had to join in.

Why not join in too? I’d love to know what you think.

July 8, 2020

Thinking about flywheels, again.

I’ve been thinking about flywheels again.

Here’s one I drew to illustrate what I can do for a business:

A business freedom flywheel

Does that make sense to you?

Do let me know.

July 6, 2020

Mintzberg revisited

A while ago, I wrote about Mintzberg’s continuum of management, which looks something like this:

I’ve been thinking, and I think it should look like this:

What do you think?

July 3, 2020

Wilful Blindness

I’ve just finished reading this book, the first of 3 I ordered after hearing Margaret Heffernan on the radio last week.

It’s a worrying and challenging read, exploring and explaining just how naturally easy it is for we humans not to see what’s in right in front of our eyes.

The reasons are varied, from feelings of affinity or love, wanting to fit in or please people in authority, too rigid systems, distance and disconnection, the bystander effect, a narrow focus on money or sheer cognitive overload and exhaustion. Sometimes, in the worst scenarios, such as Grenfell Tower or Texas City, several reasons combine and exacerbate each other.

The answer is to make ourselves see better. Systematically, intentionally, but never mechanically.

We do that by encouraging diversity of thinking and argument, by thanking whistleblowers, complainers and critics instead of sidelining them.

We do it by constantly reminding ourselves of what we are in business to do – to make and keep promises to human beings, our customers, and by eliminating the hierarchies, silos and long chains of command that get in the way of that.

We do it by creating transparent ways of working that keep our promise visible and support people to hold each other accountable as human beings for seeing what’s really there, and acting on it.

And of course the irony is that if we do these things well, we will create more value and do better financially. Because its not only bad things we make ourselves wilfully blind to, its also opportunities.

July 2, 2020

Amnesia

We’ve all suffered from it. Corporate amnesia. You call a company you’ve done business with for years, and give them your name, address, and inside leg measurement 3 of 4 times before you get to the point of the call.

A more insidious form of corporate amnesia forces a team member to recall the process before they perform a task, instead of having the system remember it for them.

This kind of amnesia results in variation over time and between team members. Sometimes the variations will be improvements, but most often they are an ever-worsening copy of a long-forgotten original, void of life or meaning. Any improvements are forgotten, because the organisation has no way to capture them or remember them.

This isn’t just amnesia, its also akrasia – doing one thing when you should be doing another.

Because if you’re too busy remembering what’s supposed to happen, you aren’t making it happen.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: The Autonomous Enterprise