As an E-Myth Business Coach, I often talk to small business owners trying to solve key frustrations. My advice to them is to search for underlying causes of frustration, i.e., the business conditions that are causing the problems. This is a fundamental step that our clients sometimes ignore. Clients will often try to 'fix' a frustrating problem without understanding why the problem occurred. A result of this sort of 'fix' is often to blame others or blame themselves.
Given frustrations, and instead of blaming themselves thinking "it's all my fault" or blaming others thinking "it's all their fault" business owners must ask themselves, "What is causing these frustrations to occur? What standard procedure is missing (or isn't being followed) that is allowing these frustrations to exist?"
If business owners can think in terms of searching for the cause of the problem, rather than concentrating on fixing blame, they will be on their way to building a system to repetitively and predictably solve that problem. If one continues to be reactive and implement quick-and-dirty sorts of fixes, the frustrations may temporarily subside, but they will always return.
I've often asked my clients to stop and notice when they feel frustrated in their business. I advise them to consider exactly what is going on in the business at that point in time, and to write it down in a notebook. That way, they can more easily see what the frustrations are, and can examine them more closely. Example entries may read 'Bob in Sales was late again today, missed an important customer telephone call", or 'Shipping dept. didn't send package on time, customer didn't receive package as promised", or "electrician mistake resulted in 1.0 hour power outage." Noting these frustrations will help them to examine true causes & effects later on.
After noting problems for a few weeks, clients can reflect on their notes and deal with them strategically. Common themes of frustration should be more clearly visible, such as multiple occurrences in one department, trouble on a given team, more problems on Tuesdays, more issues at 1PM, delivery problems when its raining, sales trouble at the beginning of each month, issues with particular clients, etc. If common elements can be identified and analyzed, it will be easier to systematically pinpoint what has to change, and to document standard procedures to deal with the issues.
Awareness of real underlying causes and the application of systematic solutions will help clients to prioritize changes and systematic solutions, versus blaming people and coming up with short-term fixes. Without this shift in thinking, expect Key Frustrations to regularly return.
carlo s. says:
Talk about perfect "Inbox" message timing. They say when your frustrated you're on the edge of a major break though. I appreciate your article as we try to systemize the business after reading the E Myth Mastery. However it is the development of systems, and as a small business owner wearing may hats to develop these systems that sometimes causes the frustration. We want things to work so well, so fast that frustration sets in.
As one person said to me "one step at a time"......
Thank You
Carlo Sabucco, Owner, Sils Auto Diagnostic Centre, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Submitted Sep 14, 2007 4:33 AM
liz e. says:
thankyou for this article.
it helps to know that my frustrations are normal, as with all motivated people we have the drive and energy of 10 people and often expect things to fall into place imediately that we identify the solution to our frustration. good Systems do take time and careful planning.
the good news is that there are many companies out there that can help you make the changes to the way you do business. The only thing you need to remember is to ask the questions that are frustrating you now - i.e. how do i get that order to the customer on time every time? There are many logistics companies that specialise in this area and can help you develop a system to work in your business.
My advice is simply remember to ask for help and not try to do everything ourselves.
cheers liz
Submitted Sep 14, 2007 4:57 PM
Damian R. says:
Ah yes Growth and Speed are great things but the Frustration and Business Development processes are the cornerstones of these within your business. If you don't have them you can be off chasing new oppourtunities, otherwise the foundation upon which you launched will simply fall apart beneath you and cause a crash landing. Having these processes in place will allow anyone to maintain your business through systems so that whenever a new strategy is sought you can do it confidently because an effective and obective frustration and system updating process keeps it all together.
Damian
Systems Maintenance Manager
Eastmon Business Management
Australia
Submitted Sep 18, 2007 11:40 PM
Frank C. says:
A former boss of mine once asked me this question when things seemed overwhelming for me: "Frank, Do you know how to eat an Elephant?" I said, "Well, you're a big boy, I know you can probably eat it all up!" He said, "You can, too, Frank. You just need to take it one bite a time. You may not eat it all in one setting. It may take you a few days, weeks, etc. But the important thing is that you eat it one bite at time until you've eaten what you have set out to eat.
Frank
Submitted Sep 21, 2007 11:00 AM
John S. says:
From my experience in building a business that relies on a high number of unskilled staff the response given was right on.
The benefit of doing this can also be leveraged by getting managers and even front-line employees to track such frustrations. Micheal Dell is known for his trick of having a broad range of employees track their frustrations and then Michael would read the trends once a week.
A better approach, I've found, is to involve everyone in documenting frustrations so that everyone can see together. I've been a strong proponent for daily huddles and integrating KPI's into the meeting. By structuring the "war room" dash board properly - you can include helpful information as to "why" the numbers are the way they are (also known as frustrations) and then add a simple "what" component (what/who/when). That's where you can tie accountability to this concept.
This may seem like overkill but it is the complete solution for helping to build "friction-free" organizaitons which in turn make for happy owners.
John Stepleton
Submitted Feb 3, 2008 1:36 PM
Joe H. says:
John,
This is certainly great advise. My issue is that I feel before I embark on tracking all these frustration, I need to get a base structure in place, otherwise I will just spent a lot of time tracking what I already know does not work very well.
Joe
Submitted Feb 25, 2008 4:09 AM
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