The Disappearing Boss – Page 39 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

August 19, 2020

Mash-ups

Humans love mash-ups. Collisions of disparate ideas to form a new, even more interesting idea. Given the chance, we mash-up all the time – most obviously to make each other laugh.

Surprisingly often, a mash-up leads to a breakthrough, and even more often, these breakthrough mash-ups come from an outsider asking a ‘stupid question’ – “Why can’t I see the picture now Daddy?”, “Why can’t I cast iron the way I used to cast brass?“.

If you’re running a business, you want mash-ups to occur, but not at the expense of delivering on your promises. So how can you achieve a balance?

Keep your Promise of Value tight.
Keep your Customer Experience Score loose.
Recruit from as diverse a pool of experience, mindset, interests and backgrounds as you can.
Admit only those who buy into the Promise.
Leave room for randomness.
Create a process for capturing, testing, building and rewarding mash-ups that help you fulfil your Promise better.
If someone comes up with a great mash-up that doesn’t fit your Promise, help them to turn it into a new business.

Sparked by ‘Rebel Ideas’ by Matthew Syed, recommended and kindly given to me by Nigel Whittaker.

August 18, 2020

Recipes do not a restaurant make.

I enjoy cooking, and do it every day.

When I make lunch, sometimes I follow a procedure (a recipe), but mostly I use techniques and rules of thumb I’ve learned over the years to create a simple, one-course meal out of whatever I happen to have at the time.

This kind of cooking is fine for my lunch. My ‘Promise of Value’ to my husband is a tasty, filling and nutritious lunch. He doesn’t really care how I get there.

For Sunday dinner though, I need more than a procedure and a set of techniques. I’ll use several procedures (roast chicken, yorkshire pudding, accompanying vegetables, pudding), and loads of techniques (roasting, making a batter, boiling, steaming, baking).

But the thing that really makes Sunday dinner work is that I co-ordinate all the main course procedures so they finish at the same time, while pudding arrives at just the right interval later. That’s what I call a process.

Now imagine I want to open a restaurant.

Even with a limited menu, I’ll have different tables working at different timescales, with different options. Not only do I have to get meals cooked on time, I’ll need to make sure there are enough clean tables, dishes and cutlery. I’ll need to greet guests, take orders, offer drinks, and serve dinners. Several of them, all at once.

In other words one overall process (Lunch) is actually the co-ordination of multiple instances of several processes, which are in turn the co-ordination of several procedures – all designed to deliver the same Promise of Value (“Sunday Dinners like your Mother used to make”).

If I don’t work out what those processes should be, so I can deliver my Promise effectively for less than I charge, I won’t have a restaurant for long. If I design them to over-deliver for less than I charge, I’ve got the start of a restaurant chain.

‘Process’ is a word that’s bandied about quite a bit. Like all jargon it can be misused or misunderstood, but it’s definitely bigger than a recipe.

August 14, 2020

The artist’s hand

“They say that truth is naked. I cannot admit this for any but abstract truths; in the arts, all truths are produced by methods which show the hand of the artist.” Delacroix, ‘Journal’.

Your business is your art, your Promise of Value is your truth. Let your people be your fellow artists, and show their hands in the work.

HT to Project Gutenberg for tweeting this. They happen to be a brilliant open source for free e-books.

August 12, 2020

As-is, Should-be

Mozart didn’t write down his music ‘as-is’ before writing it again as ‘should-be’.

Of course not.

Like all composers, Mozart started with what he wanted the audience to hear, the ‘should-be’, translating as closely as he could what he had in his head into musical notes on paper.

I doubt if his first result was the only one.

Once you’ve got your Customer Experience Score written down, it doesn’t matter that it started as ‘should be’. The job now is to make it your ‘as-is’, then to continually evolve it in line with the best ‘should-be’ you and your people can imagine.

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.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: The Disappearing Boss