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Are You a
Designer?
By Tim Fulton
My TEC Speaker this month, Max Carey,
spoke of the importance of having the right “design” for your business. I was
reminded of the following story:
A premier sculling coach took his team
to a race. After weeks of practice and preparation, they lost. They returned
home and the coach decided they needed to practice harder. So they
did.
The next race came, and they lost again. This time the coach decided
they needed their morale lifted; so he threw a party and let them have the
day off. At the next race, they lost.
This cycle continued until the
coach became so frustrated he decided he had lost his touch. Maybe it was time
for him to retire. In desperation, he had the boat removed from the water so he
could examine it.
Once the boat was removed from the water, the problem
became clear. The boat had been poorly constructed and was producing a strong
drag on its forward movement. The team had been trying to win a race in a SQUARE
boat.
Small business owners and operators, like the coach, easily forget
that their job includes hull design and redesign. In looking for solutions
to problems, it is usually easier to blame employee’s work, attitudes,
morale or even leadership than it is to ask fundamental questions about the
design of the vehicles of our work. We forget to examine the DESIGN of the
ship.
Sales and Marketing guru Max Carey suggests that: “Your business
is functioning exactly as it is designed to function”. Like the coach,
Carey says that we must first examine the current design of our business.
While we might be tempted to start addressing employee and leadership behaviors,
he states: “First, change the design of your company, then change your
behavior.”
The best athletes in the world won’t win the race in a square
boat. Nor will the best employees perform at their peak operating level with
outdated, ineffective procedures, policies, and systems.
You don’t
have to be able to build the ship, but you must be able to examine and
re-examine its effectiveness as if you had designed it yourself, It
is important not to not only have the ability to recognize a faulty design,
but the willingness to do something about it. Recognition of the problem is
the first step, but without rebuilding the hull, the coach is still left with
a square boat.
I hope that your business enjoys smooth sailing this
month…
Tim Fulton
is a nationally recognized small business consultant and management trainer.
He is also a very popular public speaker and the publisher of the ezine Small
Business Matters. Tim can be reached at
timfulton@hotmail.com .
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