Almost eighteen months ago my wife and I sold our dream home, gave away or sold a good percentage of our furniture, put our stuff into a storage unit and moved our family (including four young children) into the basement of another family with four children.

About a year ago we made the move from the midwest to the far south to assist with the startup of a new church campus in the central Florida area. Since our rental home is furnished, we brought with us only two packed cars and a twelve foot trailer for a family of six.

Fast forward to later this week. After almost a year in Florida we’re going to be moving from our furnished rental home into another home that is unfurnished. It’s time to have our remaining stuff extracted from our storage unit and shipped down to be reunited with us.

However, after being without our things for almost a year and a half, my wife and I question how much of our stuff do we really need? Quite frankly, only a little bit of our stuff and no mortgage have been nice. Part of me wants to send the stuff directly to a charitable organization.

With four children (soon to be five!), we are not quite at the level of being able to commit to purchasing and living in a Tiny House designed by Jay Shafer. However, I must say that the thought of reducing our living quarters to nearly the same size as the trailer that I used to move us to Florida last year is enticing. I guess it will have to wait until we are empty nesters.

Most people focus particularly on the level of salaries (~$16 to $20 million per season) garnered to play a few games of basketball each year. Others questioned the motivation behind a one hour special to announce where you are going to sign your next contract? Apparently the monies generated were to benefit a charitable organization, which if true, helps to lessen the inherent pomposity.

Less obvious in this entire situation is the impact on the organization that James leaves behind. At the core, professional sports are a business and the significant investment of capital by sports fans is what dictates the athletes’ salaries. It is the business nature and tweaking done by professional sports organizations that parallel a business of any size.

Akin to a game a Tetris, organizations in professional sports are always tweaking and fine-tuning their rosters through signings and releases, hiring and firing coaches, and making management personnel changes.

The same is necessary for any business. Tweaking of management and staff, business strategies, product offerings, marketing campaigns, sales positioning, and all business systems must be done continuously in order to remain on top.

No organization knows this better right now than the Cleveland Cavaliers who are left in a precarious situation of having to radically rebuild their roster. Reaching the top in any profession is hard. Continuously tuning your business to stay there is even harder. And so it is with your business.

For most folks, the big idea remains as an idea. Some will explore a bit further but quickly cast it aside once the reality of actually implementing the idea takes hold. Others will dabble at implementation as side project but never gain the traction to transform the idea into a commercialized product or service. And a small percentage of people will buck the odds and turn their big idea into something that might even be life-changing.

Why is it that the majority of big ideas remain unfulfilled? One of the most obvious obstacles involves the knowledge of HOW to push the idea forward (or lack thereof). It is this obstacle that often keeps people from even getting started.

There exists a need for a system to be defined and interjected as the foundation that guides aspiring entrepreneurs down an otherwise blind path. The vision is for a foundation that would shift entrepreneurial training from experiential and experience-based to a platform of systematic assessment and teaching.

This has always been my vision and it is the reason why I created Cashmaps®. Over the past four years, Cashmap Systems has not only materialized as a starting point but has and continues to successfully push the concept of workflow-based entrepreneurship forward.

However, there still exists the need to fulfill an even larger vision. The education, training, and development of entrepreneurial skills, attitude, and knowledge are begging for an improved approach. The better that this vision is fulfilled the easier it will be for aspiring entrepreneurs to systematically transform their big idea into reality.

Just a few days ago my wife and I experienced an interesting circumstance at a local furniture store in central Florida. After two evenings and over four hours of combined furniture shopping, we pulled the plug on a significant purchase at Kane’s Furniture.

Unfortunately, misguided communication from the sales representative nixed a savings discount that was previously promised to us. A multi-thousand dollar purchase lost over a few hundred dollars. Apparently, upholding some misunderstood policy was more important than closing a sale and gaining a happy customer.

The salespeople claimed that a hard lined owner tied their hands. “I’ve watched a $20,000 sale walk out over $200” quipped one of the sales representatives. This comment solidified my decision to forgo the purchase. My wife and I unanimously agreed to walk away from the deal unless the promised pricing was upheld. It wasn’t. We left.

I walked out the door shaking my head as another sales representative chased my wife to give her two tins of butter cookies. As I walked to our car I wondered if Kane’s family-owned corporation is aware of such customer circumstances or if the ownership is actually the culprit behind creating them.

I’m sure that Kane’s Furniture has trained their sales representatives on the rules and regulations of their sale promotions and discounts. However, what is often missing is the feedback loop to monitor the effectiveness of training and implementation of the intended systems.

A good friend of mine is an owner of three Subway stores. The other day he mentioned how he “doesn’t know what he doesn’t know” about the daily happenings at his stores. On one hand, effective systems should enable such autonomy. However, there must also be mechanisms to verify the effectiveness of business operations.

The key is to identify ways in which you can leverage your business systems to not only guide performance but to provide inherent feedback on actual performance. In the absence of feedback you “don’t know what you don’t know” and this is a risky way to run a business. Just be sure that if you choose this route that you stock a few extra tins of butter cookies to send home with your unhappy customers.

Computers are the ultimate optimization tools for human processes. They process information faster than we can. They analyze things. They do calculations in a fraction of the time that it may take you or I to simply find a pencil. Computers automate things for us.

However, as wonderful as computers are and as powerful as computers can be, sometimes they are used as a crutch in situations when they should not be used at all. This is a statement that has rung true with numerous business clients in my many years of consulting on business system optimization.

The crutch develops when a business owner or manager makes a decision to improve the business by adding computers or implementing a new software package. Such a decision is not bad in itself. The issue arises when the new computers or software are positioned as the sole improvement plan without solid underlying processes.

Computers make good processes faster. Software helps to automate repetitive tasks that take a human employee longer to do. In any case, a working process must be put in place first before computers are layered on to automate the process.

Far too many businesses skip the process part and turn straight to the new software package to fix all of their woes. Unfortunately, when you have crappy systems and layer computers and software on top of those systems, the only thing that you will create is crappy automated systems.

Increased connectedness is the enabler of this shift caused by rapidly growing mobile technologies and the social aspect of the internet. It is this shift that is also challenging the Human Resource (HR) departments of many of the world’s largest companies.

No longer are employees “owned” by a corporation. The old school loyalty has evaporated from both sides. Pension is not a recognized word in this generation of workers and promised pensions from previous generations are in jeopardy. The result is that employees are forced to lookout for themselves. This combination of self-preservation and societal connectedness breeds the “social employee”.

The social employee does not feel indebted to her employer. The social employee uses the internet to spread her beliefs, express personal creativity, and to engage with friends and family outside of the workplace. The social employee challenges the bounds of workplace restrictions and is clearly a different kind of worker than what employers are accustomed to managing.

For example, a recent set of videos were produced and released by an employee of a large retail chain. His videos have garnered millions of views (consider this your R-rated warning). Although this employee did not once mention his employer in the videos he is now facing the prospect of losing his job.

Independent of your opinion on this particular workplace incident, it supports the fact that times have changed. HR departments are struggling to define new rules, regulations, and policies that apply to the social employee inside of the workplace. However, this is not an easy set of tasks since the first foundational question that must be answered is “What is the workplace?”

A few weeks ago, I signed up for the Disney Marathon in next January. Lee walked into my office the next day pushing me to get started on my training plan. Before she even finished voicing her suggestion I was on Google looking for a marathon-training regimen. “See honey, training is only sixteen weeks long”, I quipped. Smiling proudly I continued, “I don’t need to start training yet” I replied as I clicked on the next Google search result. “Oh wait, here’s one for only twelve weeks. That’s me.” She shook her head and laughed.

In hindsight, I am laughing at myself. I made a commitment to run a marathon yet immediately look for a sprinter-like training plan. Not a training plan to run fast but instead a training plan to train fast. The least effort and the shorter the time it takes to train is better, right?

My actions draw similar parallels to what I often see in business owners and entrepreneurs. We routinely receive emails and phone calls asking, “How can I make $10,000 by next Monday?” Are you kidding me? I laugh at the requests the same way that Lee laughed at me.

Our society carries the mindset of a sprinter. Let’s get from here to there as fast as possible. Yet what makes this approach even worse is that most people want to sprint but they do not want to put in the practice time or work that is required. “I want it now with no effort on my part.” That’s actually a motto that fits our society at large. A sad motto in my opinion.

So what about your business? Are you building a business with the right foundational building blocks, systems, and value-laden products and services to provide sustainable growth, revenue, and profitability? Or are you looking for a shortcut to fast money?

Not sure? Come join me next January at Disney. I’d love to meet you and we’ll have 26.2 miles to chat about it.

Unfortunately I have “been there, done that” and it is not anything that I am proud to admit. However, it’s the truth and fact. More men than not also know exactly what I am talking about. The sad part is that wives and children know it, too.

As men, our wirings are part of the blame. We are wired in a manner to seek success and find fulfillment in our accomplishments at work. I believe that most of time our intentions are not to consciously sacrifice our families for business yet it happens anyways.

It is that report that you need to finish or the one last phone call that you need to complete. Today’s technologically insane culture contributes to the issue by making it more difficult to unplug from the business environment and more likely that family gets the proverbial short end of the stick.

Systematizing your business or work environment helps. Building the necessary systems will help to streamline and increase efficiencies in your own actions. These same systems enable you reduce your workload through outsourcing or delegation of activities to others.

Yet even systems are not enough. Each day it is up to you on whether you sacrifice family for business. Can you turn it off, shut it down, and walk away proudly in what you have accomplished for this day and know that whatever work remains will be ready for you to tackle tomorrow morning?

However, even though I’m a self-proclaimed “Mac guy” I do not own an iPhone™. And there’s something wrong with that picture. Instead I am carting around the HTC EVO on Sprint’s “soon to be” 4G network. I find this to be a happy medium between Mac, Gmail, flash video and 4G. I’m a fan of all and find myself even happier in my decision given the latest iPhone blunder.

Early users of the new iPhone 4 are reporting dropped calls and blocked signals. Mr. Jobs downplayed the situation with a blame game comment that pushed the onus of the issue onto the consumer. Apparently, there is a specific way that a user must hold the new iPhone in order to refrain from blocking the antenna and causing poor reception.

I find this development to be atypical for Apple. It reeks of a lack of a systems approach in a release of a flagship product. The myopic view is to be concerned with the phone itself. Yes it is beautiful, stylish, feature packed, and has the best resolution of any competitive smartphone. This would be fine if the phone was meant to be a wall hanging in your dining room or office.

The complete and ultimate value system to the customer encompasses the iPhone 4, the network (AT&T), and the end user. The beautiful phone continues to be shackled to a carrier sporting a poor network and a new “pay for data” strategy. Usability, which is normally a strength for the iPhone, now requires the consumer to hold the phone daintily in your fingertips being careful not to cover the antenna.

I don’t suspect that this is the publicity that Apple and Steve Jobs had in mind for the iPhone 4 especially with Android breathing down their neck. Yet for the sake of Apple and loyal iPhone users, I hope that Apple can come up with an elegant and seamless fix for a potentially disastrous blunder. Personally, I am happy that I am not one who will have to train myself on a new way of holding my smartphone.

First, there is a continued push in our society for “green”. The green thumb, green manufacturing, green recycling, green products, and even green systems are increasing in popularity each day.

As a formally educated environmental engineer (yes, my bachelors degree), I spent a great deal of time investigating “green stuff” years ago before trading environmental brain energy for systems-based thinking. My personal opinion is that green initiatives are healthy in most cases that do not involve politics.

A great example of a political-based agenda is global warming. Believe what you may, but nobody is going to convince me that there is statistically significant variation in the earth’s temperature in the short years that humans have been recording such information to back such a claim. In combining research with monetary flow, I’ve watched individuals become filthy rich in large part due to the global warming scare.

My family and I recently made one of our patented last minute stops into one of the parks at Walt Disney World. This time we slipped into Magic Kingdom only to catch the brand new “Nightastic!” fireworks show. We entered as a light parade was passing by and we were quickly stifled by the multiple rows of people standing along the parade route.

As we always do, we quickly engaged in one of our shortcut paths through the rows of air-conditioned stores. As we walked, I watched as person after person would walk through the wide-open store doors and into a rather frigid inside environment. You could literally see the sigh of relief on people’s faces that are not accustomed to the outside heat.

Yes, I did say wide-open doors. Disney makes a habit of air conditioning all of their stores and opening every door possible. Interesting, huh? This certainly does not align with any such green initiatives. It is no doubt an ingenious way of pulling people off of the street and into stores where pocketbooks can be opened.

In the normal world, nobody leaves windows or doors open when their air conditioner is running. If I were a betting man, I would bet that Disney knows exactly what they are doing and that the Return-On-Investment (ROI) for air conditioning the outside air is high. I just wonder if their ROI is pushed even higher by certain political groups for rewarding Disney in their efforts to fight global warming.

The perspective from this vantage point is different than when you are on the ground. When on the ground, you are caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily activity and interaction with other people. You are interacting with family at home, colleagues at work, or maybe even bumping paint with other cars on the highway.

From 30,000 feet above the surface of the earth, your eyes scan over miles of terrain. You may see manicured farmland that surrounds a small city or a mountain range with a highway that disappears through the center.

When you are on the ground you are in the middle of daily activity. When you are flying high above you look down on it. This “in it versus on it” distinction is an important one especially when it comes to business.

Working in your business means that you are enthralled in the day-to-day activities and necessary tactics that make your business go. Working on your business is different. When you work on your business you are focusing on the forward vision and strategy of the business. I send kudos to Michael Gerber who has so eloquently framed this conceptualization in his E-myth business, books, and teachings.

There are times in which you must walk the earth in your business. And there are times that you should hop into an airplane to observe your business from the sky. What is most critical is that you understand the difference between the two vantage points and that you develop your ability as a Zoom Thinker™. Your real challenge as an entrepreneur, business owner, or leader or manager at your organization is to spend more time flying at 30,000 feet than walking on the ground.

Thinking way back, I started golfing when I was young. Around five or six years old my Dad introduced me to the game and my love for golf grew throughout my childhood. I golfed for 35 years without ever taking a lesson. Hovering around a 10-12 handicap and playing only a handful of rounds per year did not seem to justify the expense of a lesson.

However, after our move to Florida I made the decision to take advantage of our new residency beginning last fall. The first lesson was filled with foundational work. The instructor cleaned up minor flaws that I had in my grip, stance, and posture. These are the building blocks of a solid and efficient swing.

After mastering those changes, I returned for my next lesson. This second lesson involved the start of major swing reconstruction. What the instructor asked me to do made sense but didn’t (and still doesn’t) feel natural. At times my new swing even feels awkward. I’ve learned that swing changes take patience, practice, and a high level of trust in the instructor.

A few days ago I found myself in the middle of a round of golf. Unfortunately, my swing is not yet comfortable and the results were not nearly what I had come to expect. With each swing, I was unsure of the direction in which my golf ball was headed. However, I kept reminding myself that uneasiness and the lack of comfort was part of the process of building a better golf swing.

The process of building a better golf swing is very much akin to building better business systems. It is similar in that one must see the entire business system just as a golf instructor can visualize the final, mechanically sound golf swing. In golf, it is impossible to transform the swing of an average player to that of a pro player in a single lesson or in one round of golf. Instead there is a process of change that begins with solidifying the fundamentals and then crafting the final swing piece by piece.

This is no different than your business systems. Gaining a new found level of business systematization is accomplished in a step-by-step manner. What is often difficult is to step back from your business and see the bigger picture in the same way that it is difficult to analyze your own golf swing. You may feel that you do not need a lesson but there are times in which a “golf instructor” for your business can bring the vision for crafting profitable and sustainable systems.

Trying arises under two conditions. First, the individual is not confident that his/her skills will allow a particular action to be accomplished. Second, it is an indication that either a system is not in place or the one there is not effective.

For the former, a lack of training could be the culprit or it may be that you simply have the wrong person in a particular role. For the latter, all systems should clearly dictate necessary actions. There is no need and no time for trying. Implementing the clearly outlined actions of a system eliminates the need to try.

“But what about innovation or thinking outside of the box?” you might be shouting to me through your computer screen. Innovation and outside-the-box thinking manifest themselves in the form of a system for implementation. If they do not, than you have nothing more than a thought experiment on your hands.

Changing your systems allows you as the business owner, manager, or leader to test out a possible change to your business systems. Yet the implementation of those systems should come in the form of dedicated focused action. No trying is necessary.

If you work for someone, avoid telling your manager that you will “try” to do something. Just do it. If you manage people, build your systems and position your team so that doing is straightforward and just trying is not. Do not plan to fail by trying. Plan to succeed through doing. Your organization will notice the improvement.

A similar trend exists on the business front. We look to minimize cycle times to produce as many widgets as fast as possible. Designs are rushed through launch in order to claim the “first to market” tag. Let’s see who will be the first to release a computer with a 5TB hard drive or a phone with a 12MP camera. Everything is about now. It’s all about speed.

We see this in the business systems that exist within companies. The focus is always about reducing steps, eliminating workers, lowering cycle time, and automating systems so that they produce more at a faster rate. The goal of achieving these objectives is fine. What can be concerning is the approach in which we take to accomplish these ends.

Unfortunately, lost in our push for speed is the notion of patience. Most people think of slow when the word patience is said. Yet speed and patience do not have to be mutually exclusive. You can be patient and fast at the same time. Fast involves moving at an accelerated pace whereas patience invokes an enduring perseverance, a quiet diligence, and an unmatched exactness for accomplishing one’s goals.

The key is to understand how the two work together in your own situation. The norm in this society is about being fast in the absence of patience. You have to ask yourself if you are going to follow the norm or look to find a place for patience in your endeavors.

I’ve personally experienced more companies than I can count on two hands in which simply receiving a response from customer service seemed like a win. It shouldn’t be this way. With the interconnectedness of people and an abundance of technology to support communication, there is no longer the need for a customer inquiry to be written down on a notepad for someone to respond the following day.

The minimum bar for customer service is now higher. The target response times for customer service organizations should be hours; it definitely should not be days and an argument can be made for a response time metric in minutes.

Shutterfly is one company that I have found (well, thanks to my beautiful bride!) to demonstrate a preemptive mindset when it comes to customer service and the implementation of key business processes. Check them out if you are into photo taking, printing, or digital scrap-booking.

How is this for customer service?

• Immediate and live chat with a Shutterfly support agent while you are building your digital books <== talk about preemptive
• No questions asked extension to expired coupons
• Over apologetic responses and re-shipment of items that “might” be lost in the mail
• Responses from customer support in hours (not days)

The desire of most companies is to meet the minimum bar for customer service. Doing so will create a business that is viewed as just that. Take that path only if you want your business to be perceived as middle of the road and average.

Shutterfly gets it. They are not building their customer service process to be like everyone else. Their customer service processes are preemptive and demonstrate innovation and “outside of the box” thinking. As a result, they are different. And better.

However, the human mind – your most important organ – plays a central role in your ability to achieve success. Yes, I’m sure that there has been some level of luck, fate, blessings or whatever else you would like to attribute to the success of other individuals. At the core, however, is an individual’s ability to process information and take a set of actions that generate above average results and significant impact in this world.

In watching and studying people who have generated what I would consider to be significant impact, there are some common traits that I have been able to identify in the way that these people think.

• Vertical Zoom Thinking
• Horizontal Zoom Thinking
• Contextual Zoom Thinking

Vertical Zoom Thinking is the ability to conceptualize from different perspectives. This is thinking “big picture” when necessary to stay out of the details but also being able to zoom in and examine a tree that sits within the forest.

Horizontal Zoom Thinking is the capability to activate both sides of your brain. The left hemisphere of your brain allows you think logically while the right half enables creative thought. You challenge is to consciously leverage the best of both halves by framing creative thought inside of reasonable and productive logic.

Contextual Zoom Thinking brings in the third dimension. Demonstrating the ability to think at the right levels of vertical and horizontal thought is not enough. To achieve maximum impact, your thought consciousness must also be within the proper context of the business or life situation in which you reside.

There is a strong case for the power of “zoom thinking” in producing results. This case is founded upon my personal experiences and in watching influential individuals who have and who continue to impact this world in significant ways. Do you consciously think along all three of these axes? A Zoom Thinker™ does.

The Zoom Thinker

Dictionary.com defines the word ‘control’ as to exercise restraint or direction over, to dominate, or to command. As you punch away on your keyboard the ‘X’ key types that particular letter. In the PC environment, this holds true in all cases unless the control key is depressed simultaneously. At that point, the ‘X’ key is restrained from performing its normal function. You could say that the ‘X’ key is restrained, dominated, or even commanded to do something else.

I am sure that the ‘X’ key on your keyboard does not get too emotional over being controlled. However, unlike keys on the keyboard, people who interact with your business systems do not like to be controlled. In general, human nature doesn’t jive with a self-controlling parent or boss. However, many people (especially children) thrive when provided a clear boundary that guides their actions. Bounding is good. Controlling can be disastrous.

The most important consideration is to structure your business systems in a manner that bounds rather than controls. An effective business system provides the guiding framework in which an intelligent human being can operate. Do not make the mistake of trying to control (or micro-manage) your employees and team members. Focus instead on building, managing and continuously improving business systems that communicate the bounds of business operations and your performance expectations. Trust me – your team will love you for it.

Personally, this debate hits me at the core. I am a self-proclaimed Apple slappy yet I purchased the HTC EVO last Friday on opening day. Thus far I love the EVO (and will love it more as soon as the Android 2.2 OS – also called Froyo – becomes available). However, I have to admit that in reviewing the WWDC rollout I began to question whether I should take advantage of Sprint’s 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

Honestly, I’m still not 100% sure on which route I’m going to go. On one hand, I love the synergies with my other Mac products including the idea of a centralized iBook that is accessible from my laptop, iPad, or iPhone. Yet on the other side I welcome the ability to view Flash videos online and take advantage of the seamless integration with Google & Gmail.

Like politics, the only real way to make an educated decision is to put aside personal preferences, become aware of one-sided reviews, and leverage an easy yet objective trade-off system to guide my decision-making.

Here’s a simple, 8-step process that you can utilize to solve the iPhone versus EVO debate for yourself (and consider applying a similar process when the next presidential election rolls around, too):

• STEP 1: Put aside personal pride, preferences or vendettas that you may have associated with either smartphone
• STEP 2: Educate yourself on the features and functions of each smartphone
• STEP 3: Conduct a cost analysis being careful to look at lifetime costs that include the cost of the smartphone, the cost of monthly service, replacement costs, etc
• STEP 4: Assess your current situation and identify the most important goals & objectives that you have for a smartphone
• STEP 5: Align your goals & objectives with the features and functions of each smartphone (for instance, if on phone video editing isn’t something that helps you reach your goals, then the iPhone’s new iMovie editing feature should not carry much weight. It’s a great feature but is it valuable to you?)
• STEP 6: Add up the number of features and functions from each smartphone that align with your goals & objectives (for advanced-users, you can do a weighted trade-off)
• STEP 7: Remind yourself of STEP 1
• STEP 8: Make your decision, buy the smartphone, and do not look back

This approach will help bring an objective perspective to your decision-making process. Do not worry about which phone is “better”. Instead, spend your time on identifying the better technology for your particular situation.

Deciding upon a smartphone is no different than a business looking to purchase a software application. The overwhelming majority of time, a business will purchase technology without any regard of their goals, objectives, or processes. They let software dictate their business.

Do not make this same mistake. Do not let smartphone technology dictate the way that you go about your day. Instead, understand your own personal processes, goals, and objectives so that you can select the appropriate smartphone to optimize your efforts.

Just last weekend, my brother who is an electrical engineer was giving me an impromptu lesson in how the power grid works. With myself having only a limited understanding of the power system, his detailed explanation covering power generation, transmission, transformation, electrical conductance, and much more left me with a much greater understanding and appreciation.

I couldn’t help but feel a sense of amazement about the vast network of wires that traverse the countryside and that ultimately enables each of us to simply turn on a light in our home. It is easy (and common) to become overwhelmed when conceptualizing the complexity of a system. And for most, our nation’s electrical grid, an automobile engine, or airplanes are complex systems. Yet the complexity demonstrated in these systems did not occur overnight. Each of these systems began as a much simpler system many years before. Only over time have the systems that we now view as complex evolved to that point.

This is the precise nature of Gall’s Law: a complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. Every system invariably evolves from a more simple system. A simple system is not guaranteed to work but any system that does work evolved from a more simple system that did work.

Let those statements sink in for a few moments.

Can you see how this applies to your business? Google did not turn into the monstrosity of a company overnight. Neither did Microsoft, Apple, Coca-Cola, or McDonald’s. Yet each one did evolve from one or more simple systems that worked. Is there one simple system that you can put in place in your business today?

You can find hard evidence of this fact in the habitual circus of broken promises that arises on January 1st of each year. People gear up in “change suits” with the intention of changing something in their life once and for all. Some start and fade away. Others never even get started.

The intention was there. The action was not. How many times have you heard statements from people in your networking circle (or from yourself) such as:

• “I want to lose weight but I just don’t like to work out”
• “I hate my job but I’m too scared to try my own thing”
• “I’m going to start working out every Monday through Friday”
• “I am going to pray (meditate) for 5 minutes each morning”

This world is filled with intentions and many of them are good. Yet intentions alone do not mean a thing. If they did, than New Year’s Day would be one of the most impactful days of the year for the betterment of society. Instead it is relegated to just another starting point of more comical insanity.

What really matters is the action that we take in our lives and businesses to support our intentions. Intentions are the thinking part. Action is the doing part. Thinking void of action fails to bring you even a step closer toward seeing your intention to completion. Action that is taken void of intention is often a waste of your energy. Unfortunately, it is easy to forget that intention does not equal action.

Conceptual systems are a bit different. Conceptual systems are those that you hold in your mind. You set a boundary for conceptual systems that separates the objects and actions that you deem to be part of the system versus those that are not. Think for a moment about the world economy or the political system of the United States. You would have a hard time showing to me these systems in physical format.

Conceptual systems form the basis of personalized systems thinking. As soon as you begin to think of anything and everything in this world as a system, the power of conceptual systems becomes readily apparent. Conceptual systems enable you to mentally visualize connections between objects and actions that otherwise would be deemed independent.

You hold the power to define a system in your own mind. I provided a baseline definition in my “What Is A System?” post but looking beyond just a simple definition, the boundary that is defined for any given system is completely up to you. You hold the ability to define a system in a particular way. The way that you may define a system from your perspective may vary from that of mine. And it is not a matter of right or wrong.

Twelve years ago my life changed completely on this important question. I owe many thanks to Dr Patrick Dessert, a professor, my PhD committee chairperson and the individual responsible for changing the way that I think, act, live life, and do business.

Dr Dessert said in my first Master’s level Systems Engineering course “For some of you, the information that I’m about to share will revolutionize the way that you think about everything in this world. For others, this will be just another class. And for some, you won’t like the class and you simply want the grade to move closer to your degree.”

I was one in which the light bulb turned on. I quickly realized the power of a systems thinking approach. Everything in this world can be modeled in your mind in terms of a system. Doing so simplifies seemingly complex things that are encountered in life. It’s easier to understand how things relate to one another and to visualize how something is connected to and affects something else. This applies to life in general, business, spirituality, and much more.

It all begins with gaining an understanding of the definition of a system. A system is set of things that work together to accomplish a particular intention. Each part of that definition bears important meaning.

A “set of things” can be thought of in a literal sense. The things can include people, physical items, computers, software, etc. Those same things that make up a particular system interact with each other physically and through the functions (actions) that each thing does. Most importantly, the reason that things interact together as a system is to accomplish a specific intention (goal).

I know that this thought is a bit sci-fi but it stands as a great example of the speed and effect of the developing connectedness in this world. It was not long ago that you left home in a car and had to wait until your next stop to use the phone. Today it is call whenever and from wherever. If you would rather not call just send an email, text, or hop onto Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or one of the other hundreds of social media outlets to connect here and now.

The connectedness that can be seen in the world of digital communication is simply a front and center example of a phenomenon in this world. The saying “it’s a small world” isn’t just a cliché. It’s the truth. As humans we are connected and technology continues to add bridges to one another that did not exist the day previous.

However, this connectedness extends far beyond human relationships. This world, our lives, and our businesses are systems. Systems are a set of interacting things and actions that together perform a common goal. As you begin to view the things in this world as a set of systems, you will also start to see the nature of why it is that everything connects to everything.

From a systems perspective, humans make decisions about the actions that they take. Before taking an action, one’s mind processes multiple inputs about a given situation as part of the decision-making process. If the inputs into the mind are limited, than a particular decision may be made that is not an optimal one. For instance, failing to think larger about the impact on the global environment may lead to someone making the decision to discard a potentially recyclable item in the trash.

Furthermore, take almost any wrongdoing that you can think of and put it through this systems thinking filter. Embezzlement, bullying, lying, stealing, cheating, etc all make the grade for self-centered acts. The bully who beats up another child does so to make him or herself feel good without regard to the impact on the other child. Embezzlement stuffs the pockets of the embezzler to the detriment of the organization from which money was taken.

What if the bully was able to consciously visualize that there is an impact on the life of the child that he or she is bullying? What if an embezzler actually thought about the ramifications to the organization from which cash was siphoned away from? The ability to think at a higher level about a situation (systems thinking) has the possibility to change the inputs that are sent into the brain of an individual.

By changing inputs, there is at least a chance that behavior might change as well. I won’t go so far as to claim that systems thinking will fix everything in this world. In fact, many people think systemically yet those inputs to the decision-making process do not stop bad decisions from being made. However, systems thinking is a skill that when activated can assure that at least the right inputs are present in the mind. By activating systems thinking in the mind of an individual, we can begin to make a difference one individual at a time.

I often chuckle whenever I observe this situation. Throughout the years, I have always enjoyed this part of travel as I watch different people utilize their own personal systems for making it through the security checkpoint. Some claim ignorance of the travel rules and restrictions. For others, it is possible that this is their first flying experience. However, the speed and efficiency at which someone makes their way through an airport security screening boils down to one thing: a personal system.

Some have a very slick and streamlined system. I like to think that I fall into that category. Before I even hit the initial boarding pass and identification checkpoint, I have everything metal out of my pockets and into my bag. Any cash in my wallet is removed and placed in my pocket. My wallet and any change is tucked away in my carry-on. My laptop computer is out and ready to be placed into a bin. The final steps of my personal process involve slipping off my shoes and removing my belt. Voila. It’s fast and easy. It is my own personal system that works every time in a repeatable and expeditious manner.

Even when traveling as a family with my wife and four children, we have developed a system that pushes a family of six (all children 8 and under) with multiple carry-on bags and strollers through the security checkpoint in a fraction of the time that it takes some individuals. I know – in the end it isn’t a race but wouldn’t it be nice to not have to wait in long screening lines as some individuals act as bottlenecks to the entire process?

At the very least it is interesting to think about what we can learn from this real-life system example. People that are inefficient and hold up the line lack a system for performing the task at hand. The ad-hoc approach to loading items into the x-ray machine is clumsy at best and breeds forgetfulness. The lack of a system causes errors and prevents someone from consistently assuring that they have everything picked and placed in the proper location and at the appropriate time for screening.

HINT: Ever see an “Expert Traveler” sign at an airport screening area and avoid that line due fear of not knowing whether you qualify? Here’s a little secret. Essentially any individual (except if you are traveling as a family I believe) can hop into the “Expert Traveler” line. After having used this line at numerous airports throughout the country, the purpose is that it provides a faster moving line for people who have a personal system.

• An explosion that leaves workers dead and that has poured 2.5 million gallons of oil daily into the world’s ocean waters for 36 days (as of today)
• Cars that seemingly have a mind of their own and accelerate uncontrollably leading to human injury and death
• A truck accident that spills 17 million bees into the air requiring firemen to douse the cloud of insects with a fire hose

Designing, developing, and implementing your business upon a solid systemic foundation is a start. However, regardless of how well you plan and operate your business to those systems there will undoubtedly be things that you simply do not expect.

By anticipating the unexpected, we can move events or situations from what would have been unexpected to the expected (and normal realm). This is what has me puzzled with the situation in the Gulf of Mexico. Is it really possible that a large oil company never anticipated that rupture of an oil line at the ocean floor? Or did they anticipate this very scenario but the fix is being held up by a larger system, i.e. the political system?

I don’t have the answer. Yet this is a great lesson for all of us to stop, think and try to anticipate the unexpected in our businesses and lives.

Due to popularity of the concept, Staples® turned the tagline into a saleable physical product and I have seen others use the concept of the “easy button” in some marketing efforts. I always believed that the Easy Button™ concept conveyed a particular level of genius marketing creative. But lately, I have had visions of similar buttons in my head only with different words printed on top.

For instance, how about replacing the word “easy” with the words “Who Cares?”. There are many things that business owners care about on a daily basis. Most people would go so far as to say that a business owner must care about everything. I beg to differ.

Now I am not suggesting that a business owner should not care about his or her business. In fact, my belief is quite the opposite. The challenge as a business owner (or anyone working in a business) is to clearly identify what to care about and what to not waste precious energy and brainpower on. Here are just a few of the common “cares” that plague businesses and lead to a degradation in productivity and morale:

• Micro-managing one of your team members
• Holding personal vendettas against a co-worker or competitor
• Participating in workplace gossip
• Trying to build your own empire within the company
• Worrying about the salary of someone else

For businesses that are systematized and operating with a level of measurable performance, the process of identifying things to care about becomes a relatively straightforward exercise. Every business system should have an owner. Every task within a business system is to be assigned and performed by an individual.

Focusing on the business systems that you own or in which you participate defines the scope of which you should “care”. The overall performance and continuous improvement of those business systems is something in which you should focus upon.

Stop wasting time meddling in things that aren’t part of the business system in which you operate. Instead, keep the “Who Cares?” button on the top of you desk. You might just find that by pressing it you will reduce your levels of worry, frustration, anger, and ultimately the levels of a silent killer – stress!

Yesterday, I observed an irrational customer. After experiencing my second tire blow out in 5 months the day before, it was definitely time for a new set of tires on my SUV. While waiting on my car to be brought into the bay, I sat at the customer counter and typed away at future blogs posts for the coming weeks.

I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on the conversation that started only a few feet away from me. However, voices quickly elevated and it was nearly impossible not to be a witness of the words that were exchanged.

Evan, an employee at the tire shop, calmly explained to the aggravated customer that three tires would have to be replaced instead of only two. The customer wasn’t happy. Even though Evan clearly offered to replace one of the tires for free, she was calling her husband to come down and look at the three tires (since he used to work at a tire shop).

Evan agreed and told her that he would pull the car out of the bay until her husband arrived. “You mean to tell me that now you are pulling my car out of the bay? My husband will be here in five minutes!” yelled the customer. Evan replied, “I am really sorry Mam but we have a long list of waiting customers that I need to service before we close in thirty minutes. Please let me know as soon as your husband gets here and I’ll be glad to review everything with him.”

“I’m done with you!” yelled the customer. “We are through!”

Twenty minutes the later the customer’s husband arrived to speak with Evan. From observation in the parking lot, it appeared that the husband understood and agreed with the assessment.

This was a great example of an irrational customer. Every attempt that Evan made to apologize and diffuse the situation was cast aside in the fogged mind of the customer. With every response, her anger elevated exponentially. I’m not even sure that she realized that he was offering to replace a tire for free. It simply didn’t matter to her.

Such a situation is a two-way street. We always put the onus on the business under the motto of “the customer is always right”. Although I subscribe to this approach as well, taking the high road as a business owner is not always easy. An angry customer tests everything associated with your customer service systems. And you can expect the testing to be extreme when the customer is irrational.

Think about it. Almost everyone (including yourself) is guided by a routine. You have routines that surround how you get ready in the morning, how you go about your workday, and the manner in which you end your day with a bedtime routine.

In many ways, routines are good. Routines provide a way in which you can assure that certain tasks get performed throughout the day. For children, routines breed familiarity, comfort, and structure that they so crave.

However, a routine is often the antithesis of creativity. Routines help people to not have to think. Routines are left-brained, step-by-step, logical actions that are often guided by the subconscious mind. You do something so often that you really do not even have to think about what you are doing. And unlike a routine, being creative requires thought that occurs in the right hemisphere of your mind.

So how do you leverage the benefits of a routine yet unleash the creative side of your brain? The secret lies in how well you establish a creative routine. A creative routine leverages the benefits of a structured framework yet allows for creativity and spontaneity within it.

The old way of planning your day involves scheduling every minute of the day. Under this approach, you schedule a specific and fixed period of time to perform a certain task. For instance, you plan from 10AM to 11AM to focus on product design, book writing, or for reviewing a proposal.

But what if you are not in the right mindset to tackle that particular task at that specific time? This is where the creative routine takes over. You give yourself permission within your day to adjust and re-adjust. It might be that at 10AM you need a break. If so, go take a walk, complete your daily workout, sit out in the sun, or go work on your golf game. You’ll come back rejuvenated, refreshed, and ready to tackle the specific task that you weren’t ready to start immediately at 10AM.

You should consider managing your day with a creative routine. Your goal should be to design a loose framework yet give yourself permission to be spontaneous and creative within it. Try it. There’s a good chance that you’ll find yourself happier and more productive as you move away from your old boring routines.

Every time I see these bugs I ask myself, “What is their purpose?”. I’ve actually looked it up…and I’ll pass along the details in a minute.

However, have you ever stopped to think about the purpose behind whatever it is that you are doing right now? For instance, why are you at this very moment reading what I have to say?

I hope that you would answer to deepen your understanding of systems and to find new and useful applications of them within your own life and business. Or maybe you find my stuff entertaining and thus the purpose of you reading this post is to put a smile on your face (I am just using that as an example).

In my mind, it is less about the type of purpose and it is more that there does exist a purpose behind your actions. Without purpose, your actions are relegated to waste. I’ve learned personally that if you fill your life with purposeful actions that you will achieve your goals and objectives with regularity.

I challenge you to start right now by understanding the purpose of every action that you take. Let’s revisit the reason why you are reading my words at this very moment. If you cannot seem to come up with a compelling purpose, take the purposeful action of unsubscribing. I mean it. I would hate to see you go but I care more about you as an individual than I do about you simply reading my stuff. I would love to see you learn to take purposeful action toward whatever success you seek.

Now, if you do have a purpose behind reading, I’d love to hear your comment about it. Also, feel free to take the purposeful action of forwarding this post to any of your friends, family, or business colleagues!

So back to the “lovebugs”…it turns out that the larvae, i.e. maggots live in grassy areas and feed on dead vegetation within the thatch. This feeding leads to the release of nutrients into the soil. This is a pretty impactful purpose for an insect in which the male dies immediately after mating and the average life span of the female is only long enough to lay eggs (3-4 days).

I remember visiting the home on a day when a pile of bricks had just been delivered and were still sitting on pallets. I returned the following day to find the majority of the brickwork to have already been completed. It wasn’t the fact that the bricklayers had bricked almost the entire home in less than a full day of work. I personally experienced many top performing service providers who amaze me with their efficiency and rate of production. However, there was something else at which I was taken aback.

The only portion of the home that had yet to be bricked was the top quarter of the two-story colonial. The workers had built an intricate maze of scaffolding in order to reach the areas still exposed with exterior wallboard. Some bricklayers were on top while others danced around the pile of bricks on the ground.

I looked at the pile of bricks sitting atop the scaffolding platform and thought to myself, “Wow – that sucks having to get all of those bricks up onto that platform”. Without hesitation I had assumed that the bricks were lifted from the ground to the platform with a Skytrak. It was only a few minutes later that my assumption was proved wrong.

I looked up and saw a bricklayer on the ground literally throwing six bricks at a time up to another bricklayer who stood upon the scaffolding. While in the air, the bricks separated just as a stream of water fans out once leaving a garden hose. With each toss, the bricklayer on the platform calmly scooped all six bricks out of the air, collected them, and added them to the growing pile. I stood for several minutes and stared in amazement.

My mind had assumed a standard system. Wouldn’t it just make sense to lift bricks using a machine? Instead the bricklayers had developed an innovative set of actions that streamlined the bricklaying process. There was no need for a Skytrak or any sort of third party equipment. The only thing need was traditional human ingenuity that led to bricks being tossed up in a manner to expedite the entire process.

The next time that you engage in thought about your business systems, challenge yourself and your team members to think outside of the box. Innovation isn’t something only for the world of product design. Systems can (and should) be improved by interjecting a dose of innovation.

“Darn” I said to myself and took the initiative to re-send the fax the very next morning. Again, the fax transmission failed. Having struck out twice, I made the decision to not try again and instead call the toll-free number to confirm the fax number.

I dialed the toll-free number and without surprise ended up in an automated phone system. Listening to all of the available options, I selected the appropriate menu and pressed the respective number on my cell phone. Another set of menus and again I made a selection. Next was a third set of menus. That again was not what I wanted so I opted to return to the previous menu. Finally, after about five minutes of being on the phone I hit “0” to make my way to a real live person.

The next automated response I heard was “We’re sorry. Due to a high call volume all of our representatives are currently busy. Please try your call again at a later time.”

Click.

Are you kidding me? After five minutes of being on the phone and fumbling through multiple automated menus I encounter the dreaded hang up? It gets worse. My wife and I have tried calling this organization over two days at various times throughout the day. We’re talking about a high profile State governmental entity. Yet each time the same thing happens.

Talk about a breakdown in a system. Unfortunately, this sort of frustrating encounter is common in today’s business environment. Companies have become so focused on reducing costs through the automation or outsourcing of systems to low-cost countries that the human customers and clients have been forgotten.

This is a super illustration of what Human-Centric Systems™ are all about. The time is now to shift the focus back from the single-minded approach to reduce costs at the expense of customers. If your customers are not happy, then who cares about how much money you save through outsourcing or automating your systems?

This topic came to the forefront of my mind as I watched the public growth and notoriety of a sixth grade young man in Edmond, Oklahoma. Last week, my wife brought to my attention 12 year old Greyson Chance. His rapid rise to YouTube stardom was triggered by a seemingly innocuous sixth grade talent show. Only weeks after his awesome cover performance of Lady GaGa’s “Paparazzi” hit song, Greyson has accumulated millions of YouTube hits (over 17 million views as of this writing), a raving fan base, and an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show.

If you haven’t seen his performance, check out his rendition of Paparazzi.

So we revisit this question again. Is there such thing as an overnight success? On one hand, Greyson has never taken vocal lessons (according to him). On the other hand, he has taken three years of piano lessons. What is the definition of an overnight success? What is success? Does overnight mean that you only had a few years of piano lessons before being recognized in industry? Is overnight success some sort of ratio between investments to payback?

You can see how quickly we move into the “grey area” in trying to answer this question. The answer is obviously not black and white. So we’re left to answer this question in our own minds based upon our life experiences and beliefs. Here’s my take on it.

Every system has inputs and outputs. Something is never created from nothing. This is so in life and in business. For some reason, many folks in business and entrepreneurship become distraught when overnight success does not occur. Where visualizing and expecting overnight success is fine, finding yourself discouraged because hard work comes before success is not.

I believe strongly that there is no such thing as an overnight success but I challenge you to prove me wrong. If you should climb in bed tonight and wake up tomorrow as an overnight success, please be sure to share your story with me.

After having completed my PhD Systems Engineering, I now reflect upon a long and arduous path with satisfaction. However, this new perspective also points out the fact that my brain had been functioning at a less than optimal efficiency for that same period of time.

There was not a day (probably not even a minute) that went by in which I didn’t feel the weight and pressure of having to further my PhD research. Yes, there were times when I might temporarily get my mind off of the PhD but it never disappeared completely. This meant that my businesses were short changed. And my family received only 80% or maybe 90% of my focus. Not good.

If you are currently harboring anger, resentment, stress, or thoughts of something else going on in your life, you are chewing up a portion of your mental energies. Just like your computer, it works well when have only one application open. However, try opening 12 different applications and get ready for the blue screen of death (if you are a PC user).

Whatever the nature of your consuming thoughts, most folks believe that those thoughts affect only themselves. What’s scary is that when you apply a “systems lens” it shows us that this is not true. When your mental energies are being consumed, you cannot give 100% to the event at-hand. When you fail to give 100% of you to an effort, you are not only affecting yourself but you are affecting others around you.

Your challenge is “clear your mental runway” for take-off. Ideally, try to resolve the consuming thoughts and rid yourself of them entirely. The fall back plan is to focus yourself from event to event or situation to situation. For instance, leave work thoughts at work so that you are 100% present with family. Or leave family thoughts at the door when you punch in for work.

“Clearing your mental runway” is easier said than done. Yet half the battle is being aware of the fact that you may be harboring mental energies that are negatively affecting everything that you are doing.

Most business discourages such interaction. There exists a thick concrete wall between the two with only a network or phone cable that passes through. Outside of an occasional email or phone call to a spouse or other family member, family is an undesired interruption to most work environments.

Beyond communication, the societal norm for businesses is to push family to second in the totem pole of values. Work harder. Work longer hours. Your family comes second. At least that is the message that I’ve observed across many industries and over many years. In fact, I’ve been guilty of perpetuating this philosophy at points of my career.

What I just described is the current (and aging) way of thinking. It’s the fragmented, disjointed, and small-minded thinking that is commonplace in today’s corporate environment.

It’s time to buck the system but making such a change within society is a two-way street. One way is the business owners and managers. Heading in the opposite direction are the team members (employees).

As business owners and managers, a necessary component of creating a work environment flooded with fully devoted team members requires a new level of holistic, systems-based thinking. Your mind must extend beyond the walls of your corporate office building and beyond the hours of 8AM to 5PM. The boundary of your business system does not stop within the office nor is it constrained to work hours.

Opening your mind to a larger system will help you to understand how the pressures and demands of work affect your team members at home. For your team to have optimal effectiveness at work, the impact of work on their family life needs to be considered in your demands, systems, benefits, and more.

If you are an employee, you deserve more. Stop relegating yourself to the antiquated mindset in which you have to “turn it on” at work. Work is not separate from the rest of your life. It’s all one big system. You are responsible to carve out a work environment for yourself that allows you to optimize your life as a whole. If you cannot do so at your current place of employment, then it’s time to leave.

Doing business in the same ‘ole way is will garner the same ‘ole results. Do you want team members who are burned out, hate their job, and can’t wait for Friday to roll around? Or would you prefer fully devoted team members who would give anything to help your company because they know that such help is a two-way street? It is time for you to start thinking differently. Buck the system.

Creating a family-centric business

As a business owner or leader, a continuous stream of decisions is forced upon you throughout your day.  Big decisions and little ones present themselves.  The threat and associated worry of making the right decision or a wrong one will place unnecessary stress upon you (and burn you out over time).

Your challenge is to begin to view business and your role within it as a single component that makes the entire system work.  Whether you are a business owner, an executive, hourly worker, or contractor, you play a vital role in optimizing the performance of the business system.

Each component within a system is required.  Try to take away a tire from the car or truck that you drive.  How about pulling a wire out of the wall of your home and then trying to turn on your kitchen light.  How about this pool that I’m staring at right now?  Take away the salt tablets that were just dropped into the filter and all of a sudden the pool system will function at less than optimal capacity.

What few people realize is that everything in business is a trade-off.   This means that your decisions are mired in complexity.  People, decisions, actions, clients, customers, and other outside influences represent only a handful of the things that affect how your business performs.  Thinking that you have control over each of these items is ludicrous.

Rather than viewing business decisions as a 0 or a 1, right or wrong, or black or white…remember that everything is a trade-off.  Your role is to do the best that you can to optimize the overall business system with your actions, attitude, and decisions.

I challenge you to change your mindset and adapt this way of thinking.  When you think in terms of trade-offs rather than in absolute, you may find a more happy and stress-free you.  And so it is with life (but this is for a topic on another day).

Upon arriving home to Orlando the other evening, I sat down on a bench to wait for my bag at the airport. As I sat and messed with my phone, I overheard a woman walking by who was giving her email address to the person on the other end of the line.

All of a sudden I heard it. It seemed as if my ears had tuned out everything else she was saying until I listened to her say “@aol.com”. My head immediately picked up to look at this woman talking on the phone. I wanted to know who was still using an AOL email address nowadays. I admit…I did chuckle.

Say Google. Talk about Facebook. Send a tweet on Twitter. AOL once was a well-known brand name as common as Google, Facebook, and Twitter are today.

What the heck happened?

AOL remained firm on their business strategy and the world around them changed. AOL was super when the internet was new. However, as people became accustomed to web browsers the need for AOL diminished.

It goes to show you how important it is to keep you business strategy flexible and current. The economy and your business market continuously change. Very few businesses find sustainability over long periods of time without revisiting their business strategy and approach on a consistent basis. In this case, the market changed and AOL tried to remain firm under a strategy that was successful in a previous era.

A good friend and business partner of mine was telling myself yesterday about how his two children stumbled across a rotary phone. “Dad, what is that?” they asked him. How fast times change. It’s kind of funny to think about how our children look cross-eyed at a rotary dial phone. It’s almost as funny as when I heard that woman give an @aol.com email address.

The Rotary Phone

Your business needs to expand so you decide to hire a new team member. After many hours of interviews you find who you consider to be the best possible candidate. You hire her. And then the fun really begins.

For the first three to six months, your work life actually gets harder because you’re doing two jobs. You have to take care of your normal responsibilities but you also are training your new hire. You look forward to the day when your new staff member is fully up and running on her own.

Finally, the transition point arrives when she understands how your company works and she has plugged into daily operations. You are now free to focus solely on your own responsibilities. Whew, finally!

The next day you head into the office like any other day. Knock, knock. The knock at your door is your now self-sustaining team member who you have spent months to train. She informs you that she has decided to take another opportunity. BAM! Overnight you are back to square one.

Does this story sound familiar?

The other day I was waiting at the airline terminal to board my flight. Two pilots were already standing at the door to the jet way when a crew of flight attendants walked up. The pilots and the crew spent a few minutes introducing themselves to one another and making small conversation.

In only a few more minutes, this team of pilots and crew who didn’t even know each other would be transporting people 35,000 feet in the air across 1,000 miles. How is this possible? How can pilots, crew, and airplanes be interchanged with one another yet you lose a single team member and are forced to start the 3-6 month hiring and training process all over? The answer is systems.

The airline industry relies on systems in which the workforce can be interchanged. Yes, there is extensive training of pilots and crew members but it is the underlying pre-flight, flight, and post-flight systems that enable consistency, repeatability, and an interchangeable workforce to be utilized.

Actions produce results. Actions take time. Results occur over time. The ART Triangle is a great way to solidify these principles in your mind.

Let’s take a closer look at each of three key parts of the ART Triangle and how you can leverage the concepts to improve your productivity and performance.

ACTIONS: In order to produce results in the shortest amount of time you must pay close attention to your actions. There exists a set of actions that will produce your intended results in the shortest time possible. However, if you perform other wasted actions or fail to leverage the power of outsourcing and delegation it will delay how quickly you are able to achieve success.

TIME: The actions that you perform take time. Taking on every action within your business may prove that you are superwoman (or superman) but it does very little to leverage your time. Instead, you should seek to build your business systems and position yourself so that you perform tasks that are aligned with your core expertise and talents. Look to delegate to a team member or outsource to a third party provider any actions that you hate to perform or simply take too much of your time. Build your systems and then leverage them.

RESULTS: There’s a set of results that you seek to achieve through the actions that you perform. Have you ever felt as if some people consistently produce results when you feel like you cannot seem bring anything to completion? Those people have the same number of hours in their day as you do. So what gives? The difference is that those other folks have identified the necessary actions to produce the results that they intend to produce. They have also expedited their results by ridding their plates of actions that others can perform as well or even faster than themselves.

So are you consciously aware of the actions that you should be taking in order to produce your intended results as fast as possible? If not, start today to change your approach. Otherwise, tomorrow you’ll go about your day performing random actions and choking off your own success.

What is going to actually happen? I honestly have no idea. First, I haven’t studied the plan in great detail to intelligently comment on the bill itself. Second, the healthcare system is a super complex one that is further pushed, pulled, prodded and stretched by the powerful medical and insurance industries, dual-minded politicians (money & remaining in office) and other pork barrel politics.

However, when I read articles like this one I can’t help but wonder about the amount of innovation (or lack thereof) that went into the writing of this bill. Companies who provide full healthcare benefits packages may actually save money by dropping coverage and paying penalties to the government. Are you kidding me? Please say it isn’t so.

The lack of a holistic and innovative approach is more than evident in this situation. I watch daily as the minds of my children whirr with excitement and creative thought. Political paradigms and other constraints on their thoughts and actions are non-existent in children. In fact, many psychologists will say that human creativity peaks at around 5 years of age. After 5 years old, innate creativity begins to be spun, chopped, and dismantled by societal influences.

I’m not arguing one way or another regarding the effectiveness of the healthcare reform bill. What concerns me is that an innovative approach is the only hope in solving such a complex dilemma. Unfortunately, the last time I had checked I didn’t see any 5-year-old politicians voting on the bill.

This statement by itself is not alarming. There are plenty of times in life when situations dictate this as a necessary response. From a personal perspective, the ability to say no to requests or opportunities is an important one.

It is healthy at times to refrain from agreeing to additional outside activities or responsibilities in order to focus on your relationships or self-rejuvenation. For some this ability comes naturally. For others, the ability to say no must be learned.

Unlike your personal life, saying no in a business environment brings different ramifications. When a task request is declined in business, it is possible that something important in your company is not getting done.

You have probably heard a multitude of reasons (or excuses) for rejecting or avoiding a particular task request. Yet there is one particular response that should raise an alarm whenever it is uttered…“I do not have time”.

Why?

When someone verbalizes a concern for his or her work availability, there is a larger underlying issue. “I do not have time” is either an individual cop out or an indication of larger systemic issues. The former raises questions about the work ethic, efficiency, or performance of the team member making the statement. The latter indicates a potential issue with the systematization of the business.

The use of this particular statement should raise a red flag. If the business were systematized and efficient, a particular task request would have its place within the system. The alternative is to leave a task to the mercy of someone who does not have enough time.

A conceptual system is a set of things that works together to perform a common goal but does not exist in a tangible manner. For instance, an automobile is a system in which you can see, touch, and feel. Another tangible system is the human body that is the most complex and amazing system in the world.

In contrast to the systems that you can point out and clearly describe, conceptual systems are not tangible yet exist all around us. Think about the world economy or the financial system of the United States as a set of things working together to provide a means of exchange between humans and countries. How about our insurance system? The insurance system consists of a set of agents, agencies, policies, claims, etc that work together to provide insurance coverage to humans. This is without a doubt a system. However, it is impossible for you to show me an insurance system in the same way that you can show me your car.

One of the most important conceptual systems is the family system. The family system is a set of things (mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, physical stuff, actions, decisions, accomplishments, challenges) that work together to produce our unique family experience. As with any system, every part of a system plays a vital role in the overall optimization (or lack thereof) and performance of the system.

Today we celebrate one of the most important roles in the family system and in society at large: Mothers. Mothers are not only part of the gateway to the breeding of new life but play an instrumental role in the development of our young people. Mothers provide the type of caring, love and intangibles that enable the family system to thrive.

Even more impressive is the fact that a Mother’s job is not easy; I would argue that it is the most difficult job on this earth. It’s more difficult than being a CEO, an entrepreneur, or business owner. Mothers are ON twenty-four hours per day…seven days per week.

For all of this and more, today is a day to celebrate your Mother and all of the Moms of our society. In large part to them, the family system works.

Happy Mother’s Day to every Mom around the globe! May you be forever Blessed.

P.S. If you are a Mother who is reading this post – Happy Mother’s Day to you! Everyone else – please forward this to a Mom you know!

As a business leader or manager, there is a tendency to err on the side of dictatorship. You know what’s best for the company, right? Not so fast there Mr. or Mrs. CXO. Let’s check your ego for a minute.

Depending on the size of your company, you may very well be sitting behind a mahogany desk and responsible for thousands of employees. Or maybe you’re in a home office with only a few team members to manage. In either case, it is extremely easy for you to think that know what is best for the operations of a company.

Let’s take a quick peek at something that happened to me recently involving my favorite teaching company: Delta Airlines (thanks for the continued material, Delta!).

In the Detroit airport, Delta operates a specialized bag check area that exists separate from the main ticketing and terminal area. This is a convenient area for checking in your luggage for a flight.

A few weeks back, I walked up to the counter as I had done hundreds of times previously. This time, however, a frantic Delta employee scolded me about how I had skipped a grouping of four or five check-in kiosks located near the entrance of the line. The employee proceeded to explain to me that a new system had been put in place. No longer is a customer allowed to approach the luggage drop counter without first having checked in at one of the kiosks.

At this point, the new check-in system seemed a bit cumbersome but I was willing to keep an open mind to the fact that there may be reasons for it that are not readily apparent to me. Upon approaching the counter, I made small talk with another Delta employee behind the counter. With a roll of her eyes, she uttered, “Yeah, management has put in this new system. I have no idea why they changed it. You’d think that they would talk to us about what might work the best as we deal with it every day”.

Uh oh. There’s the mistake. Business systems changed without soliciting input from those who know the daily operations of your business the best. Who knows the airline check-in process better than terminal and gate agents? Who knows the automobile assembly line better? Is it the CEO of the company or an hourly worker who is actually assembling cars and trucks each day of their life?

Try to avoid this mistake as the leader or manager of your organization. Check your ego at the door. If you are going to err on a side, let it be on the side of absorbing too much input from your team. You may just stumble upon a more fully devoted team and increased performance.

You know what I mean by a “hole in the wall” restaurant, right? There’s no flashiness. It’s not about prime real estate and major brand awareness. It’s sometimes even a little dirty. Yet the stereotypical “hole in the wall” provides two things: great tasting food and a superior atmosphere.

For an example, let’s enter into a coney war in downtown Detroit. Sitting in the prime real estate location is American Coney Island sitting on the forefront of the triangular corner formed by West Lafayette Boulevard and Michigan Avenue. Tucked a few feet down the street but right next door is a much smaller Lafayette Coney Island.

American has the prime position, the big lights and even bigger seating area. Lafayette is the consummate “hole in the wall”. American is good. Lafayette is better. American is busy. Lafayette is busier. Why? It’s the “hole in the wall” effect.

Having a strong brand, great exposure, and large availability (seating in this case) is always a plus. You can even provide an excellent product with tremendous value as American Coney Island does. However, why is it that people walk right by the prime corner spot and enter into another doorway just ten paces further?

It’s the “hole in the wall” effect.

Your business may be doing all the right things in advertising, product development, innovation, and selling and fulfilling your products and services. You can build a solid business by focusing on these business systems.

Yet you always have the opportunity in your business to create that “hole in the wall” kind of feeling. You do so by developing an atmosphere and relationships with your customers or clients that is unmatched by your competitors.

Great business systems produce results. Great business systems coupled with the “hole in the wall” effect will produce exponential results.

So I again ask you this interesting question…is your business a hole in the wall?

Rather than large and impactful interactions that spontaneously combust a relationship, it is often the combination of subtle things that you subconsciously analyze in others (and others analyze in you). Body language, handshake, eye movement, and the words that you use are all important in the crafting of a relationship with another individual.

There’s one particular company that seems to have mastered the subtlety of leveraging the spoken word to build customer relationships. Chick-Fil-A, one of my all-time favorite businesses, creates an interaction with its customers using two simple words: “My Pleasure”

This may seem trivial or even silly. How can the simple words of “My Pleasure” make a difference in developing a relationship? These words are delivered with a connotation that signifies class and importance. However insignificant these words may seem, if you have ever stepped inside a Chick-Fil-A restaurant than you know exactly the impact that these two words have on you.

Every employee uses those two words when responding to a customer request. To date I have never experienced a counter-example. This fact alone suggests that the policies, procedures, and training systems that have been implemented by Chick-Fil-A are working.

The success that Chick-Fil-A has garnered in the realm of customer satisfaction and service extends well beyond words. However, the consistent usage of “My Pleasure” is one of the subtle things that add up to create a lasting relationship with customers.

Do not expect your business revenue to blow up tomorrow simply by adding these words to your employee handbook or policy manual. Let this example remind you to look for subtle ways in your own business that provides value and meaning to customer relationships. Utilizing such subtlety in your business systems to optimize human engagement will put you well on your way toward establishing fanatical customer movements that will propel your business forward in perpetual fashion.

My family and I were recently flying Delta airlines to return home on a beautiful sunny afternoon. No threat of storms or rain. No other apparent delays. We boarded the plane on time only to end up sitting for over ninety minutes (which is the equivalent of two days for our four children).

If you fly enough, the delay itself was not abnormal. The abnormality came as neither the pilot nor the co-pilot ever provided an explanation for the delay. The fact that the plane sat motionless for almost an hour and a half was never even acknowledged.

Now there are times that businesses should and do implement systems designed to protect the customer base. As an example, the nature of a severe threat at a major amusement park or sporting event may not be fully disclosed do to the risk of public hysteria. A better approach is to calmly and efficiently exit folks from the venue. Yet this type of situation is the exception and under most circumstances a full disclosure to customers is warranted.

The annoyance of a tardy flight was compounded when no explanation for the delay was ever communicated. How can a plane be so late without even a single word given to the passengers regarding the cause?

To make matters worse, the co-pilot in his only addressing of the passengers after take-off calmly and succinctly relayed an estimated arrival time 65 minutes past the scheduled arrival time. No apology. No explanation. Unhappy customers.

I strongly doubt that this is standard protocol for Delta as my experiences have proven otherwise. Pilots routinely provide explanations and apologies for delays. So what happened? There are two potential scenarios in which this situation could occur:

1) There is no system that covers this particular scenario (hard to believe)
2) The system failed due to human error

Whatever the cause in this particular situation, it is vital that human touch points of your business systems are explicitly analyzed. Where do humans interact in your business systems? Study those points closely as these are often the “weak links” that cause these less than satisfying customer experiences.

It is important to design your business systems in a manner that refrains from keeping your clients and customers in the dark. Every time that your customer is kept in the dark it makes it harder for them to become part of a fanatical customer movement around your products and services.

Now let’s take a peek at one of the most important keys on your keyboard – the spacebar. In addition to being the most commonly used key, you can draw important parallels with your business.

The spacebar allows you to create space between letters. With a simple press of the spacebar a small area of separation is created. Pressing the spacebar again expands the area of separation.

How often are you pressing the spacebar in your business? Here are two reasons why you need to find separation from your business:

1) Mental freshness – by taking time away from your business you can refresh your mind and remain energized in your efforts. This separation can be a 5-minute meditation session, an hour workout or a multi-week vacation.

2) Creative innovation – creative thinking takes separation and time to get into a state of flow. Position yourself to separate from your daily business tasks so that you can rev up your right brain.

So what is it that keeps most business owners from pressing the spacebar? Fear. Fear of the business falling apart when you are absent is the number one reason behind business owners working super long hours.

It’s time that you give the spacebar a try in your business. Scared to press it? Start by putting your business systems in place. Before you know it, you’ll be tapping it repeatedly to free yourself from the daily grind (while your business hums forward).

If you cut through the societal understanding of insanity, it’s very likely that insanity is affecting your life or business in one way or another. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting different results.

If you are trying to achieve something in your life or business but are having trouble reaching your goals, have you taken a hard look at the underlying actions that you are taking?

• Are you struggling to generate revenue in your business but continuing to take the same actions day after day?
• Are new leads for your business non-existent yet you do nothing different to change this fact?
• Are you not exercising yet feeling tired and sluggish?
• Are you practicing horrible eating habits yet still wondering why you can’t seem to shed those extra pounds of fat?
• Are your children ‘out of control’ yet you continue to discipline them in the same manner?
• Is your relationship with your spouse suffering yet you do nothing different to fix it and continue to live your life in the same manner day after day?

Personalize this concept and apply it to your own life. You must be honest with yourself. Are there any areas in which you are not achieving what you would like to achieve? If so, than you must look at the underlying actions that you are taking to reach your objective.

Sometimes you may be trying different ways (actions) to reach your goal yet find yourself still not achieving it. In this case, pat yourself on your back and keep pressing forward to find the right set of actions to generate your desired results. In some cases, you may need to seek the advice and guidance of a consultant or other expert to help identify the necessary actions.

Other times, you perform the same actions over and over yet expect different results. In this case, you are insane.

Today is my celebration in the form of PhD graduation. However, I celebrate this day not because of an academic accomplishment but as a celebration and thank you for the lives of my wife, children, family, and friends who have sacrificed over many years to make today possible.

Let’s not forget to celebrate life and the big things and the little things in it.

Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet that caused the fall. I say unfortunately because a single cause of failure could be prevented in the future. In this case, the blame can be put only on the system as a whole making it difficult to protect against a repeat occurrence.

What the automotive industry suffered was a catastrophic failure caused by multiple points of failure. We’re talking systemic failure in its truest form. As an insider in the industry, I can personally attest to some of the actions (or lack thereof) that pushed the industry to a collapse.

One of the biggest gremlins that undermined the industry was a myopic focus on piece price (cost). Over the years the automobile manufacturers became totally engulfed in driving (no pun intended) suppliers to lower sell prices in an attempt to reduce the production cost of a car or truck and therefore increase the bottom line.

This shortsighted focus on lower piece cost was so strong that supplier relationships were sacrificed. In fact, one of the Big 3 automotive companies believed that if one supplier went under that another would always step up. How is that for arrogant?

The pressure for lower piece cost was so extreme that suppliers were forced to seek low-cost countries for the procurement of parts and for their own manufacturing processes. On the surface this approach may seem logical. However, what was lacking was a holistic view of the situation to see that lower piece price demands were leading to other systemic issues:

Reduced quality and increased life-cycle costs due to overseas outsourcing
Suboptimal designs because of shortcuts to reduce costs
Jobs being pushed out of the US
Collapse of solid, reputable suppliers
Tarnished relationships with the legacy supply base

The situation went as far as the automotive manufacturers demanding payments from suppliers to maintain current business or to be awarded new business. These payments were commonly known in industry as “givebacks”. These givebacks started as checks that were written for absurd amounts of money and then changed into piece price concessions over the length of a given contract (the SEC wouldn’t necessary like the check approach, i.e. buying business).

Business is about more than just the bottom line. The way in which you go about producing profit makes a difference. Our friends in the automotive industry learned the hard way that relying upon myopic, dictatorial and selfishly driven profits at the expense of your suppliers and customers is not sustainable.

At one end, we have the ultimate planner that has everything in place, tidy, and ready to go in plenty of time for a looming event. As an example, my mother-in-law sits on the extreme planner end of the spectrum. She will start packing for a trip about 3-4 weeks early and cannot live without details of an event at least a week early.

Moving as far away from that end of spectrum, you have someone like my wife and I. Our friends and family place the major winger label on us. We’re the type that will pack our suitcases (and for our 4 children) only three hours before our flight is scheduled to leave for a week trip to Ireland.

Both ends of the spectrum have positives and negatives but I’ve learned over the years that wingers can learn from ultimate planners and vice-versa. Wingers need to understand there are times in which planning and preparation is a necessity for success. Ultimate planners can take notes from wingers to understand that situations cannot always be controlled and that worrying and stress simply does not change this fact.

So are you the ultimate planner or the major winger?

It’s good to know yourself and understand where you fall on the preparation spectrum. Being able to self reflect and understand your own personality allows you to be tolerable of others who might be of a different mold. And sometimes, you might even have to force yourself to the right or to the left on the spectrum to make the best out of a given situation.

Ok….I’m off to prepare for PhD graduation by attending the rehearsal. If I had my choice, I’d just show up on Sunday and “wing it”.

I’d like to share with you my perspective on this same topic. The post below is unchanged from when I had written it about a week ago. I did add “(from a systems perspective)” to the subject line. Here it is.

I recently obtained my PhD degree in Systems Engineering. The process was long, arduous and more of a test of perseverance than a test of knowledge in many ways. But what I found more interesting than my achievement was the experience and insight into the college system. A system that is definitely less than optimal and unsustainable.

Let’s look at a college as a business system. Yes, public universities are supported with tax dollars but all colleges (public or private) function as a business (or at least should). In the educational world, it’s an exchange of money for services. Students pay money. Colleges provide education, knowledge, and an experience.

What are missing from the current college model are innovation, vision, foresight, and human-centric optimization. The existing college business model is stagnant, failing, and ultimately not sustainable. Here’s just a few reasons why from a systems perspective (there’s many more):

1) Lead Generation – talk about limiting your potential pool of applicants. Right now the college system forces students to physically move to a campus in order to attend college courses. How many more leads could you pour into your funnel if your target market included an entire state, all of the US, or even the entire world? The supply is further limited by prestige and left-brain accomplishments used as acceptance criteria. Leads are the fuel for creating a perpetual business machine yet the existing college system inherently chokes the incoming lead pipelines.

2) Content Distribution – old, tired, left-brain thinking that does not leverage multi-media distribution in an effective manner. Why do we force college students to be physically in the same room as a professor and at a certain time? Have you ever thought about how much “learning” could be done if students were watching a lecture on an iPad rather than commuting for an on-site class? In-person learning is valuable in my opinion but what exactly is the most effective manner of engaging in-person? Is a one-way dialogue the best from professor to student?

3) Performance Measurement – this is clearly the biggest and most concerning hurdle of the current educational system – it’s called accreditation. Due to accreditation requirements, schools are stuck with certain curriculums and new, innovative approaches to change the education system are stifled. I believe that the way to change this issue begins with the hiring practices of businesses themselves. If businesses begin to hire people based on demonstrable knowledge and expertise and place less emphasis on a diploma, than non-standard and non-accredited educational models will become a possibility for folks to pursue

4) Team Member Motivation – the current college system measures college professors on research, published works, and service to the community. Unfortunately, far too much research misses the mark with real-world needs. How much impact on real-world activity comes from a paper published in a journal? As a PhD, I seek to convey my message and God-given talents to help as many people as possible around the world….not just to those located on one college campus.

Is it a coincidence that the largest university in North America has challenged the stereotypical educational model? Check out these statistics (courtesy of Wikipedia):

• 420,700 undergraduate students and 78,000 graduate students
• 95% of University of Phoenix instructors teach part-time
• The University paid $154.5 million for 20-year stadium naming rights for advertising purposes (even though the University itself does not participate in intercollegiate sports)
• More than 200 campuses worldwide

I give many props to the University of Phoenix for brining innovation to the tired college system. Although I think there’s even more that can be done there’s a reason why the University of Phoenix has captured the attention of such a large number of college students.

There’s a freight train coming around the bend that’s about to pulverize the old college model. The stubborn will be blindsided. But I guarantee that someone is going to take the University of Phoenix model to even higher heights.

Now it’s time for me to go read Seth’s blog post from today. You should too.

While in high school, I spent 2+ years working for the local funeral home in a small, rural town. The first time that I drove the hearse alone I remember feeling a bit weird as I jammed to a rock-n-roll song on the radio. However, the money was good and the opportunity to be excused from high school on funeral mornings was a nice perk, too.

Behind the scenes, I had the privilege to watch many different types of funerals as a third party bystander. I was witness to happy funerals, sad funerals, small funerals, large funerals, funerals from tragedy, life celebration funerals, and the occasional “super bowl” funeral.

A super bowl funeral was rare but occurred when the deceased had simply touched the lives of a countless number of people. In these situations, visitation hours were never long enough and the church it seemed needed to blow out its walls to accommodate an overwhelming number of funeral attendees.

What became clear was that living a life of impact is the ticket to hosting your own “super bowl”. Your life and your business are vehicles to impact other humans in a positive manner. If God turns your page today, will there be a super bowl three days from now?

As an entrepreneur or business owner, finding that delicate balance between work and family life is a challenge. The various stages of business growth can (and will) absorb the majority of your day if you let it. Here’s a simple yet effective system that will help to maintain boundaries between your business and personal lives and assure your spouse that you are married to him/her and not your business.

• Divert Daily – find time to focus one-on-one for a minimum of 5 minutes per day (talk, pray, or just stare into the eyes of one another)
• Engage Weekly – set a weekly dinner night, take a long walk, or find something to be alone for a few hours
• Retreat Annually – take your loved one on a weekend getaway or retreat at least one time per year

This is a simple system with a huge ROI. Want even more free time? Systematize your business so that it fuels itself and runs seamlessly without you.

But first let’s assume there are two points in space. The first point is where you are at right now. The second point is where you dream to go. The shortest path between two points is a straight line. The analogy of course is that to achieve your dreams in the shortest amount of time you need to put and keep yourself on that straight line.

Unfortunately, life happens. People happen. Business happens.

Before you know it, you are wandering aimlessly off-course or even backwards.

From a keyboard perspective, the backwards wandering part is the often used backspace key. Think about how often you use the backspace key (now commonly labeled the delete key) while you are typing. Every time that you hit the backspace (delete) key it interrupts your flow of thought and causes you time to regain your mojo.

Use of the backspace (delete) key should be avoided or at least minimized in order to continue plowing forward in your typing and worry about edits at the end. Give this some thought. Take the backspace key out of your daily actions and watch as you achieve your goals in rapid succession.

After reaching into my wallet a second time to re-swipe my ATM card, I completed my banking transaction only to be sent to screen that left me uncertain. Was my transaction complete or would the next lucky customer who walked up to the ATM be able to continue with access to my account? I couldn’t tell.

Computers and code are black and white. 0 or 1′s. Engaging with a real person is a different story. Businesses can take a step toward improving customer satisfaction by eliminating touch points that fail to set expectations. Explicitly tell the person what he/she can expect as the next step. Instead of leaving a customer hanging in a grey area of wonder, simply close the loop.

One of my favorite restaurant chains is the all-natural and organic food providing Chipotle. When I’m on the road, Chipotle has turned into my defacto choice for ‘food on the run’. HINT: Get yourself the Burrito Bol and skip the rice or sour cream for a delicious meal with minimal sugar and process grains.

While on the road this past week I ended up at Chipotle four times with each visit coming at a different location and spanning 2 states. On my last visit of the week, I noticed something that challenged this notion of consistency. It seems that every time that I pick up my fav Burrito Bol there is a heaping spoonful of chicken or steak that is piled onto my food creation. It turns out that this expectation was consistently met until my final visit of the week.

The young man behind the counter added a very guarded spoonful of steak onto magnificently beautiful mound of delicious food items. I took notice but unlike the woman behind me in line I made the decision not to question the worker. After receiving a similar portion of meat, the woman behind me asked for additional meat. The worker cautiously added 3 pieces of steak to which the customer asked for more meat and reluctantly agreed to an extra charge. What made my eyebrow raise and what prompted the woman behind me to speak up is not the absolute amount of meat that was placed onto our plates but it was the inconsistency as compared to our previous experiences.

There are many potential root causes behind Inconsistencies in your business systems. I’m not sure if this circumstance was brought on by a new worker strictly following portioning guidelines or if the other stores were being lax in controlling how much meat was portioned to Burrito Bol creations. Regardless of the reason, consistency was lost and it left customers with a feeling of dissatisfaction. Be sure to take a look at your systems and evaluate each human touch point for consistency in interaction. With consistency, you can be sure to meet and exceed the level of expectations of your customers on a consistent manner.

I walked away from my conversation with him thinking about the wisdom that he expressed in that single statement. In what I consider to be an extension of The Golden Rule, Zig’s view on his reading habits should apply universally to business. From a business perspective, if actions don’t result in the sharing of value or in the satisfaction of the people in whom we interact (customers and team members), should we be doing it?

I’m sure that you know the answer. Unfortunately, far too many companies build their systems and perform actions that are focused on selfish profit generation and less concerned about how those actions affect their customers or staff.

What started as voice of the people could arguably be coined now as voice of power and of the almighty dollar. Where did this breakdown occur? The founding fathers of this great nation assumed that elected representatives would speak for the people. This was their mistake.

The breakdown occurs when selfishness and greed of the human race overpower goodwill and concern for people at-large. When individuals are motivated to make decisions based upon financial gain and sustainability of governmental office positions, the foundation for democracy unravels.

Here’s the million-dollar question – would the forefathers of the US be found guilty of this lack of foresight in a court of law? Unfortunately, the only way to answer this question is to see what lobbyist groups enter the picture, check the timing of the next election year, and calculate how much money is being pumped into the pockets of elected officials.

For instance, an example of misalignment is if one of your personal values is quality family time yet your business requires you to be away from your family on a consistent basis. Another would be if money weren’t in your top personal values yet you are hanging onto the business only because the money is good.

In the same manner that our actions need a higher-level purpose, so do our businesses. It’s not about compartmentalizing business and personal lives. Instead, business needs to support your personal life and values.

Take the time to go through this value identification and alignment process. Although the return on your time and actions won’t be a direct monetary measurement, the clarity, focus, and happiness that you’ll experience when your personal and business values are aligned is worth more than anything that money can buy.

That objection does have some prima facie appeal. The idea of having key processes in your business and/or life “governed” by a system instead of maintaining the opportunity to address them on a flexible, creative basis undoubtedly sounds stifling to people.

A closer look at the objection, however, should make even the most free-spirited among us into systems advocates.

First, the very process of building systems rewards creative thinking. Having unique perspectives and new ideas is one of the best ways to create an ongoing strategy that will really work.

Second, systems immediately create the one finite resource that everyone–especially those who make freedom a priority–wants: Time. Good systems increase efficiency, streamlining processes in ways that reward their creators with more time to pursue other interests and pursuits. In other words, a good system can give you the time to be even more unfettered and creative.

Third, there’s no hard and fast rule that maintains you should use carefully planned systems in all situations. As a big “systems guy”, I’m an advocate of utilizing that kind of organization almost anywhere you can. You don’t need to be that “fanatical”, though. If there are certain parts of your life or business that, for whatever reason, you want to “leave open” to ad hoc approaches, you can do that. You can leave room to “fly by the seat of your pants”. In some situations, that could even be a good thing.

Do systems restrict freedom? In the sense that they may limit the number of times you’re confronting things without a strategy in mind, yes. Overall, however, they actually provide a creative outlet while providing more time to flex one’s creative muscles.

If you’ve been wary of become more systematized due to concerns about limiting your flexibility, you might want to take a closer look at what systems can really do for you.

They have a point. I’d hate to say that I really believe that matters of the heart could ever be (or should ever be) reduced to a flowchart. I understand what they mean when they claim that interpersonal communication with its unpredictable linkages, streams of consciousness and uncontrollable variables isn’t a good place for a system.

However, the fact that they have a point doesn’t mean I think they’re right.

There is room for systematization in interpersonal communication. Sales are a perfect example.

People think of good salesmanship as an art form. It’s a uniquely human skill that we can’t honestly pinpoint or accurately measure. There’s a certain personality-driven component to salesmanship that it can often seem just shy of being magical.

Nonetheless, salespeople benefit GREATLY by operating from a system. The research consistently demonstrates that sales staffs working with a structured approach to making and closing deals outperform the “mavericks” who are trying to make things happen with good interpersonal skills and that “sixth sense” the best sellers always seem to have.

The critics are right to point out the silliness of trying to tightly organize all potential communication into a structured process. Anyone who’s ever had an unrewarding conversation with a telemarketer or a tech support person who’s working from a diagrammed script can attest to that.

There is room, however, for systems that emphasize a certain series of steps in a more general sense; leaving the practitioners of the “art of sales” enough to do their own thing without wandering too far off the best overall technique.

That’s how systematizing works in sales and it’s how it can work in other parts of business and life that revolve around interpersonal communication. Establishing systems for these interactions isn’t an effort at creating predictable robots that lose their human element. It’s about giving full-fledged and talented people the space to be themselves while keeping them pointed in the right direction.

If you’ve been hesitant to do more the systems in your life because you feel that it just isn’t a good match with your “shake their hands and look ‘em in the eyes” business, think again. There’s room for beautiful, personal conversation and interaction in the right system.

It’s this exact fixation and focus that resulted in General Motors being owned by our very own United States government (a 61% ownership stake to be exact). It’s this exact fixation that is shipping jobs overseas to folks who can perform routine duties faster and at a more economical rate. It’s this exact fixation that I predict will cripple the US healthcare system at some point in my lifetime (God-willing and if you don’t already consider it crippled). It’s this exact fixation that has shifted the intended execution of democracy from the ‘voice of the people’ to the ‘needs & desires of an individual politician’.

Here’s the answer ==> MONEY

In all likelihood, your business or the company at which you work is focused on one thing ==> generating profits. Now I’m not here saying that generating profits is inherently a bad thing. Let’s face it – business is about generating a profit. What’s at stake here is the methodology behind doing so. Frank Reichhold refers to this as “bad profit” in his book The Ultimate Question.

Look around – with a bit of stereotyping one can conclude that most profits are being generated at the expense of humans. Profit being generated at the expense of human customers through higher prices in exchange for reduced value. And profit being generated at the expense of team members as people are continually pressed to work longer and harder.

It’s time for this old approach to be turned upside down. It’s entirely possible to generate profits in a way that creates fanatical customer movements and relies upon a team that prides themselves on working less hours and cultivating something that is missing from our culture (family).

Those that can turn their minds upside down will prosper. Those that push that resist will fail.

Unfortunately, the lopsided focus on sending work offshore or automating activities using machines and computers has caused businesses to forget about the single-most impactful type of relationship in business: a human relationship.

All relationships involve real people. Lost is the art (and science) of optimizing interactions with humans in a customer or employee relationship. Forgotten is that people buy products and services.

Human-Centric Systems™ (HCS), also referred to as Systems For Real People™, are systems that have been designed, developed, and implemented with a central focus on the interaction, engagement, and optimization of human activities and performance.

• How do you design a system to optimize your personal creativity and innovation?
• How do you optimize your systems so that our customer experience leads to a fanatical customer movement for your products or services?
• What does it take to build a team of fully devoted followers who view their involvement with your business as a cause rather than a job?

The importance of HCS to your (and every) business should now be readily apparent.

Action-Centric Systems™ (ACS) are a sign of the most common stage for today’s businesses. Characterized by at least some level of understanding of the processes that are necessary and utilized within a business environment, ACS communicate the routine and repeatable actions necessary to achieve a particular objective.

In other words, ACS are the result of systematizing a business.

Businesses that realize the importance of creating, implementing, and continuously improving their business systems are to be commended. ACS sets the foundation for outsourcing, automation, improved efficiencies, staff training, streamlined communication, and many other benefits that systems bring to a business.

Not too long ago, ACS was the pinnacle for businesses as it pertained to systemization. In today’s competitive environment, ACS is now a ‘false peak’ to something larger and more powerful: Human-Centric Systems™.

So now it’s finally time. It’s time for me to shift my focus from a broken, left-brained educational system to that of right-brained creativity and free thinking.

It’s that last statement that summarizes the entire intent of my blog. Too many people are falling behind as they focus on automating, outsourcing, and computers (all of which are important). However, in this fast-paced world there is something much more important that has been forgotten…..YOU…..as a human being.

As I completed my PhD research I began to observe an interesting pattern. A pattern that seemed to separate the uber successful from the successful. I took this theory and expanded upon it through reflection and practical application. Since then, it’s taken on a life of its own in what I call Human-Centric Systems™ (HCS). This blog is all about HCS – about the theory, about how you can apply the theory, and about how others apply the theory.

You’ll notice that this blog has no fancy name. Just Brad’s blog. No professionally written articles. Just Brad’s blog. My thoughts each day about HCS. I’m sure that you’ll enjoy. And if you do – all I can ask is that you’ll help me to continue to help others by introducing them to……Brad’s blog.