When you started your business, for many Business Owners this was just one person. You built the business around yourself and your behavior. The processes and systems were built around what you did, and implicitly what you believed worked for you. In most instances, the processes and systems only then had to work for one person, and probably a fairly small group of customers.
As the business evolved and grew, adding in a few more staff, the processes and systems changed very little. As the Business Owner, you handed over or trained your staff in the existing processes and systems because they worked …for you.
As the business scales up, there is rarely time and attention paid to changing the processes and systems. The Business Owner becomes more and more focussed on running operations, and the staff must simply follow the good old systems and processes. They worked in the past, and they will still work now.
Unless compliance to the use of processes and procedures is monitored and managed, what happens, in reality, is that employees begin to adapt and change the processes and systems to suit themselves. They find shortcuts and workarounds. Some steps get left out and some new steps get added in. Just like water always finds the easiest route, human behaviour will do the same.
Some of these changes may be valid and may in fact be good, however, nobody now knows what is the correct and agreed on process or system.
The biggest challenge in all of this is that the original design and subsequent evolution of processes and systems all stem from human behaviour. So why is this a problem?
The Identity Iceberg helps us to understand that the results that we achieve are a function of our actions, behaviours, and decisions. This is about the things that we actually say and do. What is most important, is that what directly determines our actions, is our underlying skills, beliefs, values, attitudes, and ultimately our identity.
The classic example of this at work lies in sales. Possibly due to negative experiences in the past, many ‘believe’ that cold calling does not work, and that in fact, it is a bad sales practice. Based on this, we do not use this sales tool, and we also discourage our staff or sales team from using it.
If we go back to the original interaction in cold calling, we will probably find that there were many factors leading to the failure or bad experience. These might be factors such as no training, no script, no understanding of how and when to use cold calling, no coaching on how to execute correctly, lack of personal confidence, lack of commitment, and personal bad experiences when on the receiving end of the cold call.
All of these factors add up to a set of beliefs, values, and attitudes that directly influence how we act when it comes to cold calling as part of sales. If we now extrapolate this same principle to the design of your business, your processes, and systems, and how you interact with clients and employees, so much of this is based on your personal beliefs, values, and attitudes.
With this in mind, it no longer takes a huge stretch of the imagination to understand why some things work for other Business Owners, but do not appear to work for you. Your belief system is different. The mere fact that you do not believe in something, or do not value it, will manifest in how you execute, and the results that you see.
Your ‘comfort zone’ is largely defined by your beliefs, values, and attitudes.
Another manifestation of this is in the delegation. As Business owners we will have certain beliefs and experiences with delegation, and as a result, we might lack confidence in this area. Due to a lack of skill in the delegation, we start to believe that it does not work, and we give up on trying – ‘it’s just easier to do it yourself’. The outcome is that we either micromanage our staff, or we do not delegate at all. We believe that our team cannot be trusted, and we believe they will make mistakes. Our behaviours around this then become our management style, and we find ourselves trapped in the detail of day-to-day operations.
If we now understand how our beliefs and attitudes as Business Owner have shaped how we think and what we do, it is not difficult to see how this has shaped our processes and systems in the business, and ultimately what our team thinks and does. This then gives us good reason to go back and review and challenge our own processes and systems. Address the underlying beliefs and there is an immediate opportunity to unlock potential.
‘Easier said than done’. Who in your business, or circle of friends, or family, is going to test and challenge your beliefs, values, and attitudes to your business? In most instances, they would not tell you the truth for fear of hurting your feelings. Even if they did test and challenge you, would they then be equipped and able to help you to adapt to new beliefs and values, and would they be able to teach and embed new behaviours.
Many Business Owners out there will identify with the image of the hamster running on its’ wheel. The feeling of being trapped, and just have to figure out how to run faster to get on top of things, or just to catch up. Some past successes have to lead you to believe that what you are doing is the right thing, and perhaps some bad experiences at trying to do something different have simply reinforced this belief. Think about how often you have said “Oh, I tried that, it doesn’t work”, or you have even been so far as to say, “I don’t believe in that”. Getting yourself off that wheel is not going to be easy. Perhaps you need some help, or you just need to be pushed. You are probably going to have to confront some beliefs and change some behaviours.
The values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours that got you to your current level in business, are not necessarily the same as what are required to get you to the next level. It is this pattern of simply continuously repeating the old behaviour patterns that creates the sense of being trapped on the hamster wheel. The required breakthrough often comes from new skills and behaviours. This presupposes that you believe this, and that you attach value to new skills and behaviours. Your attitude to learning and growing your business knowledge and skills is therefore very important.
If you accept that your identity is made up of your beliefs, values, and attitudes, then one can better understand the significance of self-confidence when it comes to steering your business and driving your team. The trap with ‘confidence’, is that you can be confident even when you are doing the wrong thing, or you are doing something that is not actually adding value in the business. Confidence needs to be aligned with sound and proven business practices. What impact would it have on your business results if you had more confidence, a sense of being more self-assured, having clarity of thought, and improved focus.