Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

It doesn’t have to be like this.
October 16, 2019

It doesn’t have to be like this.

We are told all the time (in words and deeds) that ‘there is no alternative’ to the way our current global economic model works.  Communism was a disaster, anarchy would be chaos, revolution would be tragic.

And yet as families, villages, schools, clubs, friends – as ordinary people we happily operate all those alternative models, all the time, without even thinking about it.  We even do it inside the ultimate capitalist entity, a business.  In fact, capitalism depends on us operating like this.

As David Graeber points out: “we’re all already communists when working on a common projects, all already anarchists when we solve problems without recourse to lawyers or police, all revolutionaries when we make something genuinely new.”

We’ve worked like this for at least forty thousand years, getting on for two hundred thousand years.   Which begs the question.   Which model is the exception?

Missing You
October 15, 2019

Missing You

For over 30 years I did almost all my shopping at my local big-name supermarket.

Recently, I stopped.  The trigger was the self-checkouts – they finally brought it home to me that in spite of all the personal ‘offers’, I am not a person for them, I am merely a consumer.   A number on a loyalty card.

Do they miss me?   I doubt it.

Now I buy from street markets, WI markets, farm shops and sail cargo.  I shop around.  Not for the lowest price, but for the best price/experience combination.

I want to do business with people that will miss me when I’m gone.

Don’t we all?

Security vs Sovereignty
October 14, 2019

Security vs Sovereignty

A supermarket gives me courgette security.  I can buy courgettes all year round, any day of the week.   They’ll always be the same size, ripeness and quality.  This comes at a cost of course.  Supermarket courgettes are always priced at the out-of-season level, even when there is a glut in my allotment.

My allotment gives me courgette sovereignty.  I can grow as few or as many as I like.  I can grow whatever varieties I choose, provided I can give them the conditions they need.  This comes at a cost of course.  I have to spend time preparing the soil, weeding and watering  to give them the conditions they need.

Which option you choose depends on how much you value their side-effects.

The supermarket option is convenient, freeing up time to do other things.  On the other hand, those all-year-round courgettes are grown under plastic which ends up in the soil; in an arid part of Spain, which depletes the local water supply; and are picked by migrants, who live in virtual slavery.

The allotment option involves exercise, fresh air, and the satisfaction of doing it yourself.  On the other hand, I have to pay rent, keep it looking neat, and after all my hard work, I may not get any courgettes.

But when I do, I’ll really enjoy them.

Day of the Girl
October 11, 2019

Day of the Girl

Today is the International Day of the Girl Child.

That might be an understatement.

Go girls!

Laughter
October 10, 2019

Laughter

“Laughter is man’s most distinctive emotional expression.” ― Margaret Mead
The laughter of children is one of the most joyful sounds we know.   It often comes with discovery – seeing a pigeon for the first time, chasing bubbles, being rained on.  It arises from sheer enjoyment of being alive,  exercising our faculties, making a new discovery.
Occasionally you’ll hear this kind of laugh from an adult, hardly ever at work.
Which means to my mind, that there’s something wrong with work.
Have a great weekend.

Shopping
October 9, 2019

Shopping

Yesterday evening I picked up my second ever online grocery order from Greenwich Pier.  It was more expensive than buying the same stuff from Ocado, but not eye-wateringly so.

What I bought:

  • Coffee beans, chocolate, olives with lemon, olives with garlic, almonds and honey.
  • A contribution to the restoration of the Raybel – a historic Thames barge that will be used in future drop-offs along the Thames.
  • Support for small, organic growers and producers across Europe and in South America, so they can carry on treating their land, their crops and their people right.
  • A contribution to another income stream for the schooner Gallant and other ships like her, so that more people can enjoy sailing in her, and more people can buy goods shipped by her.
  • Support for New Dawn Traders and the Sail Cargo Alliance they are part of.
  • A contribution to another way of doing things.

We waited, in the open air for a good 10 minutes before my shopping arrived – far longer than I’ve ever waited at my favourite bugbear, the supermarket checkout – but I didn’t mind.  Funny that.

We never buy ‘just stuff’.  We buy what we think it means for us.  Sometimes what we think it means and what it actually does are the same thing.

And that makes us ‘consumers’ more powerful than we realise.

Juggling
October 8, 2019

Juggling

Jugglers make life difficult for themselves on purpose.  For our entertainment.   So we can marvel at their coordination and dexterity.

Business owners juggle because they haven’t realised yet that the balls can be self-powered and self-organising.

Or that enabling this is an even more impressive act.

Ups and Downs
October 7, 2019

Ups and Downs

Quiet weeks, when nothing much happens, drag by while we’re in them.  Afterwards, they almost disappear from our memories.  We tend to remember the last interesting event before that quiet week as if it was only yesterday.

This is understandable. We are constantly bombarded with information, and most of the time what this information is telling us is boring – its OK, everything is normal, no need to worry.  The unusual or extreme is what we need to take note of.  Up or down, good or bad, high or low.

So while of course we should constantly measure what matters to our business, it makes no sense to report it if everything is normal.  Let’s save our energy for dealing with the highs and lows.

Unscripted
October 4, 2019

Unscripted

Too often we think that treating customers the same way means putting them through the same mechanical process.   In doing so we mistake customers for widgets.   We also mistake our staff for widgets.

Much better to exploit the possibilities offered by human beings to create processes that are consistent without being mechanical.

The trick is to think about what must be covered as part of the process, then find a way to help the human being running that process to remember that, while giving them freedom as to how they cover it.

Take a phone call for example.  Rather than scripting a sales or customer service call, why not create a simple prompt sheet, that lets the person making the call remember what must be covered, while letting them cover it as part of a natural conversation with whoever is on the other end of the phone.   I’ve written an e-book showing you how.

Both sides of the conversation will feel more natural, and that makes both sides much happier to make and receive your calls.

Consistency
October 3, 2019

Consistency

Good Services principle number 9: A good service is consistent. I like this principle particularly, because consistent doesn’t mean uniform. Your services