Discipline makes Daring possible. – Page 116 – Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

July 18, 2019

What makes a good Process? A Map and a Compass

A good process is a map, guiding the person running the process to the desired destination, allowing some flexibility of route to get there.

A good process also has a compass built in.

It regularly reminds the person running it of the Promise of Value they are delivering on, so that when they find themselves lost and in the dark, they know the kind of action that will get them back on track and heading in the right direction.

July 17, 2019

What makes a good Process? Responsibility and Resources

A good process is managed by a single role from start to finish. Other roles may be involved, but only one is responsible for ensuring the desired outcome is reached.

A good process also ensures that everything needed to run the process is available at the right time.

With clear responsibilities and no need to scrabble around for resources, everyone can get on with the job – of delivering on promises.

July 16, 2019

What makes a good Process? Clarity of purpose.

A good process has a crystal clear purpose. It is dedicated to achieving a single, customer-meaningful, business-meaningful outcome.

This outcome can be big and abstract at the top level (Keep Promise), increasing in granularity (Walk Dogs) until you reach the lowest practical and concrete level (File VAT Return).

This means that the person running the process knows exactly what they are trying to achieve, and they (and you) know exactly when they’ve achieved it.

July 15, 2019

What makes a good Process? Simplicity.

A good process is as simple as it can be, but no simpler.

And like Chanel’s classic ‘little black dress’, it’s harder to achieve than it looks.

July 12, 2019

The Joy of Tax

When things flow, it is sometimes possible to be wrong about their direction. Like when you’re sitting on a train at a station, and you think it’s started moving when it’s not, because the train next to you has started moving the opposite way.

When you’re operating within a system of systems, as we all are, all of the time, it is sometimes possible to misinterpret a symptom as a cause or a cause as a symptom.

It helps to take a step away every now and then and look for the bigger picture, to try and see how things might work differently, rather than trusting your assumptions.

Writers of all kinds can help us do this. Their assumptions may be wrong too of course, but at least they help us become aware that we’re making them. Sometimes, they even help us change them.

I thoroughly recommend reading The Joy of Tax, by Richard Murphy. Even if you don’t agree about the joy.

July 11, 2019

It might not work

You’ve done your research, you’ve talked to people, you’ve tried to get inside the heads and hearts of the people you want to serve. You’ve come up with something you think they’ll want.

But no matter how much of that you do, you can never be sure that the product or service you’ve invented is going to take with its intended market, and no amount of fettling and polishing is going to tell you whether it will or not. The only way to find out is to go for it and put it out there, accepting that it might not work.

This can feel like you’re courting failure, but actually, you’re inviting information. Whatever happens to your product after launch, you can learn from it and work on something better.

The Pioneers launched yesterday. I wouldn’t say it was conclusive, but it’s looking promising, and I’m definitely learning.

July 10, 2019

Of course I had to try it

I mentioned Tony’s Chocolonely 100% slave-free chocolate in an earlier post this week. So, of course I had to try it.

It’s good. Very near in taste to my favourite brand.

Which means I can happily carry on eating chocolate.

Phew!

Because the alternative was giving it up.

July 9, 2019

Trust

There’s a visible gap between the hands of the free-falling trapeze artist and those of her companion coming up to catch her. A gap that makes my stomach lurch just looking at it.

That gap is filled with trust. Trust that a promise made is a promise kept.

What happens, when trust gets eroded? When we discover that institutions and corporates aren’t keeping the promises they made? That the ham we’ve just bought that doesn’t actually contain ham? The car we’ve just bought puts out more emissions than we were sold? The pension we were relying on has been appropriated by the firm we’ve worked for for 40 years? The news we read on social media and in the papers is fake?

When trust disappears, we stop taking risks. We narrow our perspective. We lower our expectations. We start accepting worse instead of expecting better. Cynicism starts to poison everything.

The only antidote is to make our own promises, the biggest we can, in spite of that stomach-lurching gap, and keep them every time.

July 8, 2019

People will always want [insert naughty but nice product here]

Building a business around giving people what they want, even when you know it isn’t good for them, seems like another safe option. After all, most of us, like Oscar Wilde, can resist anything except tempation.

But what happens, when someone decides to use the ‘want’ as merely a route in, a way to deliver something much more than the immediate gratification of a fleeting desire?

Tony’s Chocolonely doesn’t simply make 100% slave-free chocolate. Once you’ve know about it, you can’t avoid the question: “Is there slavery in the bar I’m eating now?”.

July 5, 2019

Play

“To exercise one’s capacities to their fullest extent is to take pleasure in one’s own existence, and with sociable creatures, such pleasures are proportionally magnified when performed in company.”

That’s when ‘work’ becomes ‘play’.

From “What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?” by David Graeber – well worth a read over the weekend.

Have a good one.