Creating Systems for Success

Most of us run our lives on a handful of systems. Between our cell phones, our planners and our e-mail inboxes, we have organized ourselves and our time. And if you ever doubt the importance of these systems, recall your panic the last time you lost your planner.

Yet as important as these systems are, most of us don't take advantage of what systems can do to improve our businesses. Systems are simply ways of automating or structuring processes so that they can occur systematically without so much thought or attention and by more than just one person, so that the business can continue to run if the owner takes a vacation.

Figuring Out What to Systematize
For most of us, there are dozens of similar repetitive tasks, large and small, in our businesses or jobs that could be systematized. To identify where you can apply systems, step back from your enterprise and try to look at it objectively. Ask yourself questions such as below:

• Where are your frustrations? This is an important test for two reasons. First, you are more likely to be frustrated if you are redoing tasks that bring no particular satisfaction. Second, you are going to be frustrated if you have to relearn a task or "recreate the wheel" every time a specific need comes up.
  
• What is holding back your business? What are the choke points? Do you need to generate more prospects? Do you have prospects but a low rate of conversion? Do you convert customers but lose them through poor follow-through? Strategically focusing on your business this way is more likely to spot high-value opportunities for systemization.
  
• What causes you stress? Is it preparing for the quarterly performance reviews? Finalizing your printed catalog? Preparing for your annual make-or-break tradeshow? Even if you know the steps by heart, systematizing at least part of these stress-inducing activities could yield big benefits to your business and your well-being.

Start by Writing It Down
The first step in systematizing a process is to write it down. What exactly is the process you go through to handle a sales lead? Place a want ad for your shipping clerk? Train a new receptionist? If you are struggling to get all the steps down, try the "backwards" approach. Start with the end result and then determine what you did right before that, and so on, for each step.

Another valuable exercise is to document what everyone in your organization does. Forget job descriptions: You want to know what they actually do. This may highlight high-value opportunities to build systems that can be leveraged throughout the organization.

Often, the documentation you create in this process is all the system you require. The next time the task comes up, you can pull out the file and save the relearning. It also becomes the core of the training manual for new employees, which is often one of the most valuable systems you can build.

Do the Cost-Benefit Math
Here are some guidelines for figuring out which of the myriad choices are worth the effort of creating a system:

• What are the odds you will be doing this again? How often?
  
• How hard is it to automate? Creating paper checklists is easy; programming Outlook to sync your phone contacts and automatically generate follow up emails isn't so easy. However, don't give up if the software approach is too expensive or complicated. Productivity guru David Allen sells several slick software products, but his core recommendation for organizing tasks is to create a set of clearly labeled file folders. Again, a well-documented, step-by-step manual is the core of many highly successful systems.
  
• How painful is the task? And how painful is failing to execute it well? High-value tasks, such as annual trade-shows and the like, are good candidates for setting up systems in order to reduce risks and the associated stress.
  
• Can you hire it out? In some cases, the best system is to hand the documentation for the process to a junior employee. In particular, those stress-inducing tasks noted above can be partially off-loaded. But you will need to do the work up front of carefully recording the steps involved, and how to achieve and measure the necessary outcomes.

Get Out of the Box
As you go through this analysis, don't be afraid to start with the question: Why do we do this process in the first place?

For every process you find that could be automated with a new system, you may find another that can be eliminated altogether. Systematically reviewing your business this way may be the most valuable system of all.

Posted by Machen on Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Hat Trick: How to Wear the Right "Hat" for the Task

The term "wearing a lot of hats" is virtually synonymous with being small-business person or entrepreneur. The expression comes from a time when a craftsman's hat signified unmistakably what he did for a living welder, miner, baker, butcher, banker and so on. But the luxury of wearing a single hat for a career is long gone. For most of us these days, wearing a lot of hats is what we do for a living. And at any given activity, there may be multiple of those "hats" that have to be firmly on our heads.

For the most part, this is a good thing. One of the advantages of wearing a lot of hats is that you can show up at a meeting or tackle a problem from various perspectives. If you are in a sales meeting, your production manager "hat" can keep you from giving away the store in order to get a customer. In a procurement decision, your sales "hat" can keep you from paying too much for materials. And through it all, wearing your CFO hat can keep your business solvent. Some even argue that wearing a lot of hats enhances the creative process. At best, you are cross-pollinating each of your tasks with a little wisdom and experience from other fields, which makes you better at all your "hats."

But successfully wearing many hats, like effectively multi-tasking, isn't necessarily a skill you are born with. It is, however, a skill you can learn and refine. Since there is no way to escape it, you might as well enjoy it without becoming schizophrenic. Here are some tips:

1. Inventory your hat rack. In his classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey explains how to consciously define and nourish each of the roles you play in life. The same logic applies within your business life. Don't just think of yourself as "entrepreneur" or "business owner," but delineate all the separate roles and think through how you approach and perform in each.
   
2. Pick the right hat(s) for the task. This is especially important if you are engaging with someone who has the luxury of being focused on a specific task. First, you have to meet them where they are. If it's a production issue, you've got to show up in your COO or production manager hat. But then try to imagine who else on your virtual "team" you would bring to the meeting. The head of marketing? The CFO? Take a few moments and look at the forthcoming meeting from that perspective. What are you watching out for? When would you insert a comment? When would you kick yourself in the shin for saying the wrong thing? It's a simple mental exercise that can bring tremendous leverage to meeting preparations.
   
3. Know when to fold 'em. If you really detest a task, or you're just not very good at it, then hire it out. Wearing many hats may be good for your brain, but you naturally are going to be better at some or enjoy some more than others. Don't sacrifice your performance or the results of your business by clinging to tasks that you shouldn't be doing. Leverage what you do best that may be two hats or it may be 10 but then hire out the rest.

Posted by Machen on Thursday, June 19, 2008

Becoming a Trusted Leader

"We can build our leadership upon fear, obligation, or trust. However, only a foundation of trust results in the collaboration and goodwill necessary to achieve our peak performance."

These words, from organizational design expert Roger Allen, could hardly be more succinct in expressing the central role that trust plays in building and leading high-performance organizations.

With the integrity of our business leaders under such a microscope these days, it's valuable to take a moment for a refresher on trust in leadership. For integrity, though critical to trust, isn't the only element of a trust-based management style. According to Seattle-based management expert Stephen Robbins, trust is based on four other distinct elements in your relationship with the people you lead:

• Competence. At first this may seem strange after all, can't incompetent people be trusted? Of course, but not if you want to lead. Leaders are held to a different standard, and part of what your team trusts is that you know what you're doing. It comes with the territory.
  
• Consistency. This is one of the most pragmatic elements of trust. If your team knows what you stand for, then they will believe that you will react in a predictable way to certain situations. Over time your consistently expressed values become the shared values of the team. Some charismatic leaders may purposely act unpredictably to shake things up, and they may well be wildly successful. But they won't necessarily be trusted.
  
• Loyalty. To a certain extent, your team can only trust you to the degree you are committed to their success and well-being. Max De Pree, the legendary CEO of Herman Miller and champion of the "servant leader" concept, puts it this way: "The leader's first job is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the leader must become a servant and a debtor." This servant/debtor relationship to your team is one that strongly conveys your loyalty to them.
  
• Openness. Trust is ultimately the characteristic of a relationship, and it is through their relationship with you that trust is expressed on the part of your team. Openness is a cornerstone of ability to build these relationships. If your team can't get to know you, then they probably can't get to trust you, either. With openness comes the requirement for a certain vulnerability: In this arena, you will generally have to "go first" by reaching out and creating such relationships.

By investing in building and strengthening these qualities in your leadership, you will be steadily reinforcing your trust relationship with the people who work for you. Those relationships, in turn, become the foundation for building a high-performance organization, particularly in times of change and stress, when people tend to rely upon their personal relationships. If your team trusts you in good times, they are even more likely to stand with you when the times turn challenging.

Posted by Machen on Thursday, June 19, 2008

Don't Miss a Step: Take Time to Celebrate!

The path of a goal, whether a goal set for your personal life or in the course of business, generally has four steps: 1) assess the situation, 2) set goals for how you want it to be, 3) take steps to achieve the goals, and 4) achieve the goals (completion).

After Step 4, many people return to Step 1, with the question: "OK, what's next?" And then it's on to Step 2 and 3 and 4 again.

Hold on. Stop right there.

There is actually a very important fifth step that many of us leave out. Step 5 is where we celebrate our achievements! After working hard to reach our goals, taking time to celebrate gives us the opportunity to:

• Capture the learning. When we take stock of what we've learned along the way to our goals, we can consciously incorporate those learnings in the future.
  
• Acknowledge our internal resources. In achieving goals, we bring forth various internal resources to meet the challenges, such as courage and persistence. To have others acknowledge us and to give ourselves credit as well is deeply satisfying. Too often, we miss seeing these qualities in ourselves and others. Acknowledging our strengths has the power to call us forth to use them even more.
  
• Build a sense of unity. Nothing can bond people more than striving toward a common goal and then sharing in the joy of the achievement. However, if you don't stop to appreciate the people who helped make it happen, connection and goodwill can break down. Your team will feel more inclined to go the extra mile if you give them the appreciation they deserve.
  
• Send a message to the Universe. Stopping to savor and celebrate your successes sends the message out into the Universe that you know how to appreciate this success and that you are ready for more!
  
• Have fun! Knowing that you get to celebrate in a fun way after your goal is achieved is a great motivator. You've done a fantastic job of course you want to be rewarded with some fun and enjoyment. You deserve it!

There are countless ways to celebrate and savor your successes. Whatever brings you a sense of joyous completion is the ticket. Be as creative as you can!

Posted by Machen on Thursday, June 19, 2008

Coping With Competing Devotions

These days, the ultimate question may not be "What is the meaning of life?", but simply, "Where do I find the time?"

Between our work and personal lives (family, friends, exercise, sports, hobbies, community commitments), most of us have seriously overbooked ourselves. We strive so hard to "have it all" - fantastic work and other service that we're passionate about, and passionate home lives that we work hard to nurture.

But with so many competing devotions, so many passions we must feed, we most often find ourselves just plain pooped. The stress can lead to health problems, poor sleep and fatigue, which means we get even less done (or take less pleasure in what we do accomplish). Ultimately, frustration mounts, our relationships suffer, and we wonder what went wrong.

To break out of the out-of-balance cycle and achieve better balance between our competing devotions, consider some of the following techniques, from the spiritual to the eminently practical.Know Your PrioritiesThe near universal advice on creating life balance is to start with some process of getting in touch with your priorities, which reflect your values. What are you about? What is really important to you? Without some sense of these priorities as an anchor, it is almost impossibly difficult to battle the buffeting of daily life that fractures your time.

Take Care of Yourself
This is not a paean to the "me generation," but a simple reality. Your ability to devote time and energy to the rest of your life ultimately depends upon your inner resources. A common trap is to feel selfish about taking time for yourself - to exercise, relax, enjoy a hobby, cook a special meal and, of course, to get enough sleep. So to avoid that feeling, we often place those activities lower in priority than taking care of the other obligations of our lives. But the low priority items often don't happen and we end up feeling somewhere on the spectrum between self-righteousness and martyrdom. Either way, we aren't taking care of ourselves.

Schedule Creatively
In her book Coming Up for Air: How to Build a Balanced Life in a Workaholic World, author Beth Sawi offers numerous pragmatic approaches for building balance into your life when your job is absorbing every waking minute, and then some. Again, she starts with understanding your priorities to help arm yourself with the fortitude to make difficult changes. But to shore up that fortitude, Sawi, an expert on workaholism (and working for workaholic bosses) from her own life experience, recommends several scheduling techniques as a way of controlling your time at work.

One of these, for example, she calls "pulsing," which is scheduling late nights at work on fixed days - say, Tuesdays and Thursdays - so that you protect the other nights. When a special assignment comes up, you already know you have extra time blocked out and can better resist the temptation to tackle it on an ad hoc basis. The "off" nights can also be pre-scheduled - for a weekly dinner out with your spouse, for example - to help build in the balance for the rest of what's important to your life.

Start With Your "To-Do" List
Productivity guru David Allen is one of the few writers in the field who takes a fundamentally different view of the "priorities first" approach. Instead of starting with priorities, he recommends in his book Getting Things Done that you start with your "in box" - by which he means everything on your current list of things to do. Everything. He says people typically have 200-300 tasks floating around in their lives - in their head, on little slips of paper squirreled away in various places, in their organizer (or backed up in their email inbox), on Post-It notes stuck to their computer screen, and so on. This backlog of tasks uses up too much of your brain - which is poorly equipped to organize this kind of list - and creates unnecessary stress.

But Allen doesn't suggest that you prioritize these to-dos at all: Fixing the dripping faucet goes on the list right next to planning for the kids' college education. The key to Allen's system is getting all the to-dos out of your head and into some trusted system so you don't have to worry about forgetting them. With your head clear, your instincts take over and you find that the right things are getting done.

Allen definitely recommends reviewing your life from various "altitudes" - from your vision for the coming year to your vision for your whole life - to get in touch with your priorities and your goals for balance in your life…but only after you have control of that in-box.

With your mind clear, you can step back and take stock of your life. Your creative juices will be flowing to help you find that delicious state of grace in which your devotions at work and at home actually enhance each other, not deplete each other.

Posted by Machen on Thursday, June 19, 2008