part0012

The human body is a sophisticated and complex system of interconnected nerves, tissues and organs. At its centre is the heart, triggered by a synaptic transmission from the brain by which a neuron communicates with a target cell across a synapse, every second, minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day. Without the repeated rhythm of a heartbeat, we’d find it impossible to stay alive. As a metaphor, the heart is often (over) used to describe how we should think about our business and purpose in life. Although in my opinion, it serves to illustrate the emotional aspect of why we all do what we do.

However, if we look closer at the function of the heart, we’re able to draw an even deeper comparison with running a business that marries the why with the how. The heart doesn’t act in isolation, it’s dependent on neurotransmitters so that it performs its function with unfailing regularity. Conversely, the brain relies on a constant oxygen supply pumped around the body by the heart, acting as the body’s engine. It’s a perfect, symbiotic partnership of heart and mind that keeps us all moving forward from one moment to the next, day after day. In this chapter I’ll be exploring the functionality of the ‘heartbeat of business’ and how it can work in partnership with your own growth mind-set. Together, they enable your business engine to run smoothly, efficiently and automatically. To do that, we need to think more about how we structure our daily operations so that we become accustomed to running our businesses in a structured, succinct way. The more rhythm and discipline become automatic, the more we can best drive the business forward. Just as with the heart, our business engines need fuel, and then we need to ignite it.

I’ll be the first to admit that when I began my first business, none of this was a consideration. We were all too ready to be reactive and knee-jerk in our responses, only thinking in the moment, for the moment. It wasn’t long before we realised we needed to attempt to inject some planning processes, so we began by setting meetings, because that’s what was expected of management. They have meetings and this looks and feels really important and grown up. Except, we didn’t give any thought to structuring those meetings: there were no agendas, time limits or agreements as to what the outcomes of those meetings should be. In truth, the meetings were little more than talking shops and, dare I say it, a complete waste of time which didn’t drive the business forward one jot. Then it dawned on us that perhaps we ought to set our agendas and take minutes of these meetings, which perversely resulted in us setting more and more meetings than there were hours in the day. We were creating a monster and it was impossible for any of us to deliver all of the proposed outcomes. Looking back, we simply lacked discipline in how we structured and ran those very important meetings.

Fortunately, however, this coincided with the onset of our curiosity about our growth mind-set for the business. Instinctively we knew we needed to improve how we managed ourselves and our time if we wanted to realise the ambitions we’d set. We knew that we’d locked ourselves into the ‘death by meeting’ trap that Patrick Lencioni unpicks in his book of the same title (published in 2004) and we wanted to escape that before it was too late. Recognising that we all had growth mind-sets, we undertook a series of personal development challenges out of which the realisation came that, yes, meetings were all well and good, but they needed to be short, succinct and with clear, concise outcomes. Furthermore, we now knew they needed to be time-limited and scheduled at a certain time, on a certain day and on a regular basis. It was quite a revelation and it’s a practice we’ve continued to implement ever since, without fail. For example, these days my sales team meet daily at 11:58 precisely. The reason for setting such a specific time is that it sharpens people’s minds because it disrupts the norm by which meetings usually occur on the hour or half past. At 11.58, you have to think about it. The result is that nobody is late because it has become an automatic default. Yes, it does take some adjusting to so that it becomes a habit.

Of course, as is to be expected, it wasn’t a walk in the park for everyone in our business to adopt this habit and in the early days there were numerous absentees or late entries to meetings, but we persevered because we recognised the significance of this innovation. Today, my brain responds to it on its own body clock – I don’t need to think about it. By the time 11.45 comes around, I’m already gearing up for that sales meeting and at 11.51 my heart and mind are in sync with that meeting time, ready for 11.58, knowing that it will finish on time, seventeen minutes later.

For the sales team, this creates a regular rhythm of knowing the intended outcomes of the meeting and what they will do today, which will then be reviewed tomorrow. They also meet on a weekly basis on Wednesdays for an hour from 2pm. Similarly, our management team check in with each other daily at 10am for ten minutes and every Tuesday at 2.30pm we hold a management tactical meeting for an hour.

The result is that we’ve been able to reduce the number of meetings while at the same time increasing our time efficiency. The meetings are structured with clear agendas, are direct and very much focused on outcomes. There’s no need to waste time on waffle and generalities, and if ever we do need to extend a meeting beyond its set time limit, it needs to be for a very specific and special reason. Every attendee contributes with their updates, or questions, because they all feel invested in the meeting and its outcomes. That’s a major reason why it’s so important to be able to recruit the right talent to the business, since all input is valuable no matter how small or significant it is on the day. Our rhythm and discipline mirror our mind-set, and we marry our hearts with our minds. This allows us all to monitor the health of the business on a daily basis whereby we can listen to its heartbeat and determine if any issues need our attention, or if we simply need to bring some team members up to speed on recent developments. These meetings now play an important role in our continual learning, business growth and revenue growth, and that’s the real advantage we, as an SME, have over bigger corporations who often seem to hold meetings for meetings’ sake. We’re more about driving the business forward during our meetings.

I’m asking you to think about these questions now in respect of your own business because I often see others roll their eyes at the thought. They think that being their own boss, or an entrepreneur, sets them free from such ‘constraints’. I know where they’re coming from as I used to share that ‘shiny new penny’ syndrome. Yet, in all honesty, my business would not have grown to the extent it has today without me finding our own rhythm and discipline. From being unconvinced, I now see that having meetings in my life provides stability and a solid platform to work from. It’s not only good for me personally, and the people I work with, it also allows the business to keep its finger on the pulse of what’s going on. In essence, we can often manage the business in a small number of short meetings on a Tuesday and Wednesday, with the rest of the time focused on revenue-generating/asset-building activities. That, to me, is an extraordinary outcome in itself, especially armed with the knowledge that all our teams are involved in discussion and diagnosis.

We have gone to great lengths to recruit and reward our talented teams, and in return, through rhythm and discipline, they support the business with clarity. Not only that, these structures allow any problems and opportunities to come to light more quickly, resulting in us being able to turn them around faster. This removes a great deal of pressure from the senior team and prevents them from trying to handle everything themselves (thus freeing them up to work on new initiatives for the business). More importantly, it allows our employees to self-manage, which again allows the senior team to be more hands-off.

As with any business owner wanting to build their concern in order to sell, you need to take your hands off the steering wheel and let the car drive itself. That’s impossible to achieve without establishing rhythm and discipline. The ultimate aim for you as the leader is that, in time, you won’t need to attend many management meetings at all. Your team, that talent you selected through your recruitment process with due care and attention, will chair meetings themselves, working to the agenda with identifiable outcomes which they will then monitor and review. What you then do with your time is up to you: increased leisure time or working on key revenue areas and long-term business development plans that require time away from the humdrum of daily life.

If you’re serious about wanting to scale up your business then you need people to be self-managing in key areas without the whole shebang being incumbent on you. If you can set things up in such a way, it’ll happen regardless of whether you’re there or not because rhythm and discipline are embedded. I like to look at it this way: say a premiership footballer is about to kick off a match, but not all of the team turn up to play until the referee blows the whistle. That wouldn’t be acceptable, and they’d be on the defensive from the get-go. It would never happen, of course. The team would all be on the pitch five or ten minutes prior to kick-off, warming up. Why wouldn’t we as businesses not replicate that when it comes to meetings? I have witnessed this in some organisations, where team members arrive late, even if only by a minute or two, and this smacks of a lack of accountability, respect for others and the importance of the meeting. It’s simply not acceptable practice in my business; our team members value the rhythm and discipline that is now part of their habitual practice and they’ll often arrive five minutes early, ready to warm up. Similarly, they’re accountable for achieving the goals minuted and set in those meetings, following the SMART format:

Having rhythm and discipline, therefore, helps every one of us to be accountable for our goals and outcomes. These are fundamental principles to hold if you want to grow your business and be a success and they’re completely compatible with embracing your growth mind-set and personal development. I’ve seen not only our business grow as a result, but many others too.