Many entrepreneurs are trapped fighting the same fires over and over, pulling their focus into the weeds. They end up constantly looking down and into their business, when they need to be looking up and out.
What’s more, many small business leaders don’t take time to reflect back on a weekly basis to determine what issues they have wrestled with that need to be revisited and unpacked. The mindset is more one of, “That fires out, now on to the next one.” The problem is, they never slow down and do a “post-mortem” to solve for why the fire started in the first place.
Most issues in an entrepreneurial business are either a people issue or a process issue. If you don’t have a process in place to prevent an issue, it is hard to know for certain if you have a people issue. Here's a simple line of questioning to follow to get to the real underlying issue.
Do we have a process in place that should have prevented this issue?
If the answer is no, then figure out the process you need to implement to prevent the same thing from happening again. Document the process in a single source process repository so your process “playbooks” are not scattered all over the place. Then determine who needs to be trained on it and roll out the training on the new process.
If the answer is yes, and the right process is in place, then you ask...
Is the process documented, easy to find, and part of your training system?
If it is, then you may have a situation where somebody was rushed through an otherwise good onboarding system, so they didn’t get proper training, failed to follow the process and started a fire. Solve the training problem and tighten up the onboarding checks and balances to ensure nobody else gets rushed through their onboarding and training.
If your answer is no, it is possible that process playbooks exist, but different people created them at different times, and they are not all housed in one central and easy to access location. As a result, training on the process playbooks is inconsistent from one person to another and there is a lack of consistency in how things are done, which has caused unnecessary fires to start. Get your playbooks logically arranged in one location, audit them for accuracy, and ensure everyone has been trained and agrees that they will follow the processes.
It could also be that the process playbooks exist and are properly housed, but you have not created a formalized, well-defined onboarding and training system, so as people join the organization, they are more waterboarded than they are onboarded. In that case, somebody needs to take ownership of building the system for how the organization will onboard and train team members going forward.
Only when you are confident that you have the process playbooks and effective training in place, can you truly determine if you have a people issue. The two most common types of people issues are:
• Lack of cultural alignment: When a team member does not align with core values of an organization or is not bought in to the vision and purpose of the organization, they are often disengaged and, as a result, apathetic. They will take shortcuts to satisfy their own agenda rather than doing things the right way. It is difficult to coach these people up. In most cases, they need to be removed from the organization.
• Lack of aptitude: They might be a great cultural fit, but they lack the aptitude or skills necessary to perform their role to the expected standard. In this case, do your best to coach them up, but if they cannot level up and start meeting expectations, you have to coach them out. Otherwise, you are not only hurting them, but the organization.
Remember, most issues in entrepreneurial business are either a people issue or a process issue. When you identify and resolve the underlying issue, you should rarely, if ever, have to fight the same fires for the same reasons.
Michael Erath is founder of Phoenix business coaching firm Next Level Growth.
