George: Recording in progress. That means greatness in progress.
Camille: Greatness is in progress.
Camille: We are here only for greatness.
Camille: Welcome to The Belief Shift. The show that explores. What you really need to know about building a successful small business.
Camille: I'm your host, Camille Rapacz: small business coach and consultant who spent too much of her career working in corporate business performance.
George: And I'm George Drapeau: your co-host and her brother. I'm a leader in the tech world bringing my corporate perspective, but mostly my curiosity.
Camille: Together, we're exploring beliefs about success and how to achieve it. But mostly we're bringing practical solutions so you and your business can thrive.
Camille: Today we're gonna talk about high performance business and it's a conversation we started in the last pod when we were talking about the importance of reflection, cuz that was a theme that kept coming up.
Camille: So I wanted to introduce my framework for how I approach with my clients this development of creating a high performance business. And it really comes down to three areas that you focus on: clarity, systems and mindset.
Camille: Today we are all about clarity. Clarity.
Camille: So the real question for everybody I want you to be thinking about, do I have enough clarity in my business?
Camille: So we're gonna talk about what is clarity? And run through some examples, maybe have a little fun with it, and just talk about the significance, why it's important, what are we even talking about and how do you improve clarity in your business?
Camille: And I will just say, I do think every single business, no matter how good you are, can improve on clarity.
George: Yeah, for sure.
Camille: There's always improvement to be made. There's always work to do. And greater clarity will only help you.
George: But don't let it freak you out either. Just cuz you're not a hundred percent perfectly good. Don't amp out about like, ah, give me more clarity. So I can't do anything.
Camille: Yeah, exactly. I mean that's my point. You're always gonna be working to improve it.
Camille: That's just part of the job. It's part of the journey. There's no done here and that's on purpose. And I know some people that makes you crazy cuz you're like, No, I just wanna be done. Get clear and be done and move on. That's a general theme I think in developing growing a business is there's just no done here.
Camille: So I hope you're in this for the journey and the fun that you can have as you're working in improving clarity. Cuz personally I find it really rewarding when I do you have that aha and you get that next level clarity in your business. It's pretty cool. Just like anything. When you just go, Oh! Another light bulb, this is great. This is helpful. That's what we're really after.
Camille: So I want you to be thinking, is there enough clarity in your business for where you are now and what are you gonna do to improve that? That's really what we're all about.
Camille: If you didn't listen to the last episode, I highly recommend you do that because we really introduce the big picture of high performance business: clarity, systems and mindset.
Camille: And it really was from that frame of reflection and why that's important. But it gives you a good big picture on the clarity systems and mindset.
Camille: But just to hone in on clarity for a minute, the types of things I think about when I think about having clarity in your business would be having a clear purpose and a vision for your business.
Camille: And so in the previous episode, we talked about how that means you coming up with your own definition of what high performance means. How much revenue you want it to make, how much effort you wanna put into that business. All of these things are up to you as a business owner.
Camille: Then there's also setting that strategy. So how? How am I gonna differentiate my business from the other businesses? What's my approach?
Camille: Having clear goals or measures for success, having metrics for your business.
Camille: Also, having the data and information to support decisions. So gathering data, which can be a bit of a struggle as a small business owner cuz it's just me and maybe some helpers and how do I get good at collecting good data? But very important to get more clarity.
Camille: And then just your day to day. Do I have clarity around what my focus and my priorities should be in just my day to day work? So it kind of ranges from that really big picture down to just the daily work. That's the overview when I think of clarity.
Camille: Would you add anything to that, George?
George: No, no, no. I'm not gonna anymore. I've got questions for you already.
Camille: Okay. Go.
George: Question number one, like, do you have any tips for how I could test myself if I have sufficient clarity? How am I gonna know if I'm clear?
Camille: Great question. At the end of this, I'm gonna offer some tips for how we're gonna help people to get more clarity. But I think in general, I would say some of this is gonna be more qualitative than quantitative is how I'm gonna start people off.
Camille: We tend to lack in the data spot, right? So how do I know if I can't look at hard data?
Camille: One of the indicators that maybe you need some more clarity in your business would be that things are really chaotic. If you have that chaotic feeling of I think I know what my priorities are, but I'm not really sure, but I'm getting bombarded all the time and things just feel chaotic and a little out of my control. That's a space where clarity would help you to get rid of some of that chaos.
Camille: If you have a business that is not developing the way that you want. You're starting to end up with a business that isn't what you had imagined in the beginning. Maybe it's because you weren't clear enough about what that was that you wanted your business to be. So that would be a lack of clarity.
Camille: Like, I didn't know business was gonna be like this. It might be because you weren't clear enough about what you wanted it to do. So that's another space. And I see that happen where people are saying yes to ways to make money and then realize I didn't really want my business to be like that.
Camille: Yeah. So those are like my two big ones that I think of when I think of how do I know?
George: Yes. And I have a following question, which is what tests could you give people or rules of thumb to help them realize if they've achieved MVC? Minimal Viable Clarity. I'll give you an example of myself.
George: When I interview people, one thing I'll do is I'll ask them, in your current job how do you assess your goals? How do you assess success? And I can tell very quickly whether they're clear about themselves. Because if they have an answer to themselves, Oh, here's the framework I used to measure goals, or Here's how I did assess myself in the last quarter. If they have a story about that, that's a good sign they're clear.
George: If you ask somebody and pick one of these, Hey, can you tell me your business strategy? And they're like, wow. Good question. I don't know. Then, okay, you need work there.
George: Do you have rules of thumb? How you help people understand when they've got MVC?
Camille: So the only twist I would put on that is I do think asking yourself, you know, what do I want this to do? Am I clear how I'm gonna get there? And if I can't answer those questions, then yeah, you need more clarity.
Camille: But back to what you said in the beginning, don't freak out.
Camille: What I want people to be doing when they're trying to get more clarity is continuing to ask these questions of, usually the lack of clarity shows up in the how more than the what. I know what I want, but I haven't determined how I want to get there clearly enough.
Camille: And that's okay. What you need to be doing is continually asking and answering the question, but don't freeze up if you can't answer the question.
Camille: The gaps exist always, and your job is to actually look for them. I would say the biggest indicator to me of where clarity goes wrong is when we're not actually even seeking more clarity.
Camille: Does that make sense? I know there's gaps in my what? Where? How? Of my business. It's never perfect. Am I seeking them out so that I can improve my clarity? Or am I just moving through life as if I've got it all figured out? The biggest indicator of lack of clarity is that you think you have all the clarity you need.
George: Interesting. Okay.
Camille: One of the things we're gonna talk about next is getting back to your question of is my lack of clarity actually causing this problem?
Camille: So I wanna talk through a couple of specific examples that are kind of the big ones that I think might help people to get back to answering your question of how do I know if I have enough clarity or don't have enough? How do I know if that's actually what I should be seeking in this instance to solve the problem that's in front of me?
Camille: You could literally say, Well, clarity helps with everything. Yes, but. Let's get more specific about that. What kind of clarity are we looking for to solve what kind of problem?
George: Yeah, let's do it.
Camille: So if we think about the kinds of problems that are caused by having a lack of clarity, one of the big ones I would say is you're not making enough money or you're not hitting your financial targets.
Camille: So let's make the case for this. First George, turn on your lizard brain. So turn off thoughtful, thinky, curious George. Or like we talked in a previous episode about Systems One and Systems two thinking. This is Systems One. You're just very reactive. You barely even put thought to this.
Camille: So here's the challenge you have and you're a business owner or a business leader, and you're responsible for bringing clients in. And so we need more clients. George, what are you going to do? What is the first thing you can think of in order to fix this problem right now?
George: Oh man. Okay. Well, for me, I've got people, so the first thing I'm gonna do is change their incentives for short term spiffs. Spend more hours on this. Sell, sell. Always be closing.
George: Without even thinking. I'm not analyzing why it's happened. I'm just like, not enough money. So go talk to more people, have more conversations. You guys are great, great salespeople. Do what you do. Just do more of it. That's my first thing.
Camille: Yes, I love this. I think this is everybody's first thing. Do more marketing. Do more of what you're already doing and sometimes that can help, but only to a point. I think that there's a point of diminishing returns on that approach. It might get you a little spike, but is that sustainable? Can you keep giving 'em those spiffs? Can you keep asking them to push at that level? Do they have no other work to do and that's all they can do now, forever and ever?
Camille: Like maybe you make a good quarter, but can you keep doing it quarter after quarter after quarter?
George: Certainly not.
Camille: People are gonna max out. The other thing that I see happens in a small business world is that a small business owners just try to launch something new. So they'll say, Oh, I got this new offer and I think people will really like it, and so I'm gonna put this new thing out. Underestimating the amount of energy that that takes.
Camille: I dunno, big business probably does this too. Like, oh, let's offer them this new big thing and totally underestimating the effort that's gonna go into standing up a new revenue stream. You have to put all the pieces together.
Camille: So these are the two go-tos. Like, of course, immediately in my brain I'm thinking, I gotta go get more marketing, more sales. I gotta put new product I gotta do. But this is a clarity problem.
Camille: For one, do I have information that is telling me a strategy for how to go do it? Cause I'm just knee jerk reaction my way into it. I'm just gonna go try and do a bunch of things. But do I have data that will back that up? And so, Either one of these things we talk about, whether it's marketing or sales or any of things, they might need some improvement.
Camille: You might need to have a better product or service. Maybe your sales are bad because the thing that you're selling isn't good. Or maybe your sales people aren't aware of what it is that they do that actually closes deals.
Camille: So this is all about clarity. Do I actually have information that guides my strategy for how I'm gonna get more sales? How I'm gonna increase revenue in my business? So this process of going through creating a strategic plan, it doesn't just ask this question of how many widgets do I need to sell? It also asks the question of, and how am I going to do it? And that's the differentiator and that's the next level clarity.
Camille: Clarity level one is, how many of these things do I need to sell in order to have the target revenue I need to make? But then below that is, and how am I gonna do that? And then reevaluating that because maybe the first, how you came up with didn't work as well as you hoped. And so you have to iterate on that.
Camille: This is all levels of clarity. I gotta get more clear about how I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna get clear about how I'm gonna update it. And so you're really looking into, do I know if my marketing plan is broken, and if so, what about that marketing plan is broken? Yeah. Or just how I want to improve it.
Camille: Do I know why people aren't buying my widget as much as I thought they would? If you aren't looking deeper into the, what I'm selling, how I'm selling it, how all of that process is working, then you really can't devise much of a strategy to do it. You can either whack a mole your way through this problem, which is not going to set you up for long term increasing of revenue, it might just give you a short spike in revenue.
Camille: If you start to look deeper into the problem and devise a strategy, then you start getting that long term steady increase in revenue. So back to your point. Am I gonna ask my team to go do something permanent? Is this a permanent change? Or is this just a temporary boost? And sometimes you need that.
Camille: Sometimes you need to just do the temporary, We just gotta hit this thing this month, but it's just temporary. But being clear that that's what you're doing is also important. And I see people make that mistake too, where they're not being clear that, look, this is not following specifically the strategy that we have.
Camille: We're gonna make a little pivot here, but this is why, and we're clear about it, and then we go back to the plan. So that's my thing about the clarity.
Camille: If you are struggling with, I don't have enough money, or not hitting my financial targets. The revenue part just isn't working out, you might want to do both things at once. So if it's really hitting you hard, you might need to do some quick fix work. But do not do that without also working on the back end on strategy.
Camille: So, I might be in a financial crunch where I'm like, you know what? I need to go do this other thing that's gonna close that gap.
Camille: But this is all strategy. You were strategically saying, I'm gonna make this exception to go make X amount of money here while I, So that gives, that's a little stop gap, and it gives me the space to then develop my longer term strategy in my business. It's a both and approach.
George: Yeah. I have a comment about that. What I'm getting outta this is, we're not saying you never go all hands on deck. We're not saying you'd never be reactive, but there's a framework when that works well. It's like, yeah, we want to be planners, we want to be strategic, we wanna know why we're doing what we're doing and how we're gonna do that.
George: But well, for one thing, If we know that from time to time we have crunch mode, we know that's a part of our business.
George: Then designing and training the staff for, okay, we go to crunch mode, we have a code word, crunch mode, and we know what to do or whatever. There's things that you know how you behave differently in crunch mode.
George: Do we know that things that we set aside and things that we focus so we can have time to focus on. You could train people for that. And also there's always gonna be times when crisis happens or something unexpected happens, and just forgive yourself. Like, okay, this is just one of those times where I am reactive, but not all the time.
Camille: Yes. I think you're totally getting at what the point here is, which is I'm not arguing that every problem you solve should always only use System Two thinking and take time to do it, because that's not how life works.
Camille: What I'm saying is don't only do systems one thinking, don't only do the quick fix or whack-a-mole approach and not also come up with a longer term strategy.
Camille: Like if all you do in any given moment every time is react to these problems in the same way with just a reactionary approach, then you really are doing that whack-a-mole game and you're not going to have the stability in your business to actually grow. Yeah. So it is a both and scenario.
Camille: As often as you can, you want to avoid that quick fix. But yeah, like you said sometimes like, Hey, we're in crutch motor, we've got a crisis here. We need to do something different. We gotta hit payroll this month, so we've gotta do something unique just to close this month cuz some crazy stuff happened or we have extra expenses or whatever's happening in your business.
Camille: Yes, sometimes you have to have a very quick, unique emergency response. But I would say what you're doing is if you have a stable strategy for your business, what you're doing is identifying a point in that business where you're gonna pivot. Like, I gotta pivot point here for this thing. And then I'm still back on track to the bigger goals.
Camille: Don't ever drop that big picture. You're always looking to get more clarity and deepen your understanding of the problems you're solving so you can solve them better and more permanently.
Camille: But that doesn't mean there's no value in doing like your description of maybe I do need to motivate them just for this month to close this gap because that's what we actually need to do.
Camille: Knowing that it's not sustainable. That's the key is I'm not doing it like it's a permanent solution. I'm consciously making a choice, being very clear that this is temporary and this is why we're doing it. That's really what it's about.
Camille: Clarity within clarity. So that's the example on the money problem.
Camille: Let's take another example. So the other one is you're running a business that is running you. So it is more in control of you than you are. You do not have time for yourself. You're losing yourself in the business.
Camille: So you, George, are this business owner who has to be in your business every day. So now you gotta pretend you're a business owner. You're in it every day. I don't know. You could, It could be in your, your regular day job. Who knows? You have to be in it every day, or the money's gonna stop flowing, but you are freaking exhausted. What is your system's one reactive lizard brain tell you to do?
George: This is happening to me now. I'm running this local political campaign that is my business, and it's all hands on deck for the last two months. My lizard brain is first like, acknowledge okay, I just don't have a life. Or just tell my family I will see you in two months and not before then.
George: I can start to cut out other habits, like, you know, I really liked watching this TV show, but I don't have time for one. I'm just not gonna watch that TV show. And then after a while I realized, Wow, it's been six months and I stopped watching tv like I like to, or stop reading.
George: I can get rid of some of my other healthy habits. One of the things that I see managers do in my business when they get this way is they stop having one-on-ones with the direct reports, which is exactly the wrong thing to do.
George: That's one thing they do cuz they're just kind of panicked and I'm just gotta focus on this stuff and I can't focus on the other stuff that actually long term plant seeds and feeds them. I could go on.
George: After all of these things, and I've seen this happen before, if I keep going this way, I start to acquire learned helplessness.
George: Like I'll explain like these experiments they do with rats, where they'll say, you know, teach a rat to press a button and get a treat and then mess it up. So when they press a button, sometimes it gives 'em a treat, sometimes it doesn't get 'em a treat and it's no longer predictable and you kinda lower the success rate a little bit.
George: The rats eventually stop pressing the button and starve. What they've learned is, I have no control in my environment. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I work, I can't do it until I give up. And that happens here too, like when I'm losing myself in the business, ultimately it gets so bad that I realize, I've given up everything else. I'm not happy at all and I'm not releasing the benefits I can't affect this at all. Done.
Camille: You nailed it. Nice job, lizard- brain, George. The resigning myself to this just being my life and I don't see any way out, I do hear that from business owners.
Camille: I think that's real for all people just in work sometimes they're like, Well, this is just the way that it is, which is heartbreaking for me.
George: It's horrible. Yeah.
Camille: It's just not good for anybody, you or anybody else in your life.
Camille: The more extreme reaction I hear is for business owners who are sort of out there winging it on their own little micro-businesses, sometimes it's enough to make them just go, I just want out. I think I need to go get a day job.
Camille: And my message there is: it happens in both places. You are describing it.
George: Well, that's uplifting coaching message, Camille.
Camille: These people. Well, I know, but it's the reality of like, this is a human nature problem. It's not a problem whether I own my business or don't own my business.
Camille: This is more society cultural issue of how we drive, drive, drive to these results. And so the work starts to take over our lives. Yeah. And we feel like that's what we're supposed to be doing to some extent. It's very hard for us to push back on all these things.
Camille: Cuz we're trying to perform for somebody in some way and deliver something that we've made up in our heads is really important. And then the stuff we actually really value that really makes us feel fulfilled, we let go of. And so as a business owner, this is the case of the business is running you instead of you running your business.
Camille: Or if you're working in a business, it's similar, it's the work is running you instead of you are in charge of that work.
Camille: How is this a clarity problem? Any ideas, George?
George: Great question. When I'm not clear about why I'm spending my time in this particular way or why I'm being overrun, I should be able to know why it's consuming all my time. This goes back to one of the belief shifts about making tradeoffs instead of sacrifices. And right now we're under water like this. We feel like we're sacrificing part of our time to serve as so thing instead of explicitly making a trade off.
George: And you need clarity in order to know how to make that trade off. That's my answer. How'd I do, boss?
Camille: Wow, that was impressive. I didn't even have the cheat sheet of belief shifts. And you totally nailed that one. Good job!
George: Hey folks, I listen to every podcast I record and this is what I've learned from listening to this podcast. True story.
Camille: I'm gonna put up a little chart that gives you a gold star every time you get these belief shifts all on your own.
Camille: Yes, 100%. If I was to take this another layer deeper, I would say so especially speaking to either business owners or leaders who have some responsibility for setting direction.
Camille: It comes down to when you run a business, you wanna run a business that is meeting both your financial and your personal needs. You want a job that does that too, right? Some of us choose jobs because of some type of flexibility it offers.
Camille: Especially lately it's been about, you know, do I have work from home or not work from home, has been the biggest thing. That's personally better for me or not better for me.
Camille: But to have any of that happen for you, you've gotta have a plan to get there. Sometimes I end up coaching people on their career or mentoring them, and they'll be really hooked on the amount of money they're gonna make and not on all the other things about the job that I know is either gonna make or break them.
Camille: It gets back to what type of work are you doing? And is it fulfilling?
Camille: And so as a business owner, it's, I want my business to make X amount of money, but also I choose to run it in this way. And you can either build a business around what you want so that it's long term sustainable, or you can build a business where you're just crazy chasing after the next dollar and it's not sustainable.
Camille: You end up being miserable about it. Yeah. So I think that the clarity point in here is really about do I have a long term vision for where I wanna be with my business, with my job?
Camille: What is that long term goal? what do I imagine myself doing down the road? And sometimes that can be tricky for people to figure out. They're like, I don't know, I'm just doing the day to day. Yeah. And it gets back to what we talked about last time, you gotta spend some more time reflecting on what you actually want.
Camille: And especially as a business owner, you really have to have some clarity about where am I headed with this business? And then what's my strategy to get there and how do I create this business in a way that it does not take over? That it does not start to run me. How do I build it in a way that I can be in it for the long haul?
Camille: To me, that is the true definition of creating a high performance business.
Camille: I have brought together both the what the business needs to make the money it's supposed to make with what I want from the business that will be fulfilling and rewarding to me.
Camille: That's not to say you can build a perfect business, that's never gonna drive you crazy, but if you feel trapped in your business or you feel trapped in that job, like I'm on this hamster wheel and I don't know how to get off, usually people are stuck on the hamster wheel cuz they haven't worked down that process of getting enough clarity, not just about what they want, but how they're gonna get there.
Camille: That's why I think clarity is a big deal on this one.
George: Makes sense.
Camille: I do like your angle too, of am I clear about why I'm doing what I'm doing? Am I clear about why I have allowed myself to sacrifice over make trade offs? Yeah. That's kind of the start of that reflection process.
George: May I tell you a story from my personal life right now?
Camille: Yes, please.
George: Folks, I'm running for local school board, Vote George Drapeau for School Board.
George: And election day is tomorrow as we're recording this. And I was told by a bunch of people who've done this stuff for a period of time, you just need to get good with your family and tell 'em you're gonna be focusing on this and you can't focus on them for a while.
George: And so we actually did talk about it within our family and came up with a plan for how we were gonna get help for Avi. So my mother-in-law's with us right now, and she's been a hero spending a lot of time and kind of broke some of our systems for like when we ask for help or ask for a date night or so, she's like, Safety's off.
George: Don't ask, just assume I'm gonna do it. And then Savita, actually, my wife has stuff that she's trying to do so she can help with some stuff. But we also agreed, don't assume help on all these times when you're getting it before because she's got some other stuff from this period of time.
George: And then the last thing that really helps me is I know there's an end date. So doing this perpetually with no end date, that would just break me. But I know it's gonna stop and We'll make a decision about when to halt this crazy behavior.
Camille: We're kind of merging these two things that we just talked about together because we talked about how sometimes you have to go into a very different emergency mode, which is what you are talking about. Yeah. But you have an end date. We know that this is shortlived, but we need to operate in a different way.
Camille: It's not sustainable. We couldn't do this long term, but we gotta do it to get through this. But there is clarity within that.
Camille: We're clear what people are gonna do and what they're not going to do, and how we will collectively get through it. So that is an important, two levels of clarity: how long it's going to last, and that it's temporary and how you are all changing your roles in that space.
Camille: Yeah. So that's one level.
Camille: That we just talked about before I talk about the second one, that level of clarity is I think sometimes we don't get enough clarity within that when we go into emergency mode, we just start reacting, instead of stopping for just a minute to, like you said, get the clarity with your mother-in-law at like, what are, how are people changing their roles so we can move more quickly?
Camille: So that's one that I think is important to do but is in some ways easier to manage.
Camille: The harder one is what you're alluding to, which is, well, what happens when you're in a business, and this is when I say you're on the hamster wheel of I'm, I'm running, but now the wheel's moving and I can't stop running.
Camille: I don't know how to stop. I don't know how to get off this wheel. Yeah.
Camille: Somehow hamsters do and we don't .Apparently but we get running on this wheel and we don't know how to stop. We don't know how to get off.
Camille: And so A) I want business owners to as much as they can avoid even getting on that wheel.
Camille: And for me, that path is, am I really clear about what I want my business to do and how I'm going to get there? Doing that in a way that keeps me from ending up on that hamster wheel. Cuz you end up on the hamster wheel sort of by accident. It's not like, Oh, there's that hamster wheel. I'm gonna jump on that. That looks fun. Nobody does that.
Camille: Nobody chooses to be on it. You just one day realize, Oh, I'm on it and I'm running and I've just been running and running and I'm getting exhausted now cuz I realize I don't know how to stop.
Camille: And so it requires you as a business owner to have a plan up front that designs a business that doesn't put you into that hamster wheel phase.
Camille: Yeah. But if you're already on it, then it, it's the same process. You just have to have a much more strategic how to get off. And this is the biggest problem I see most business owners running up against when they come to me is they're like, I have these other things I wanna do, but I don't know how to get out of the mode I'm in.
Camille: I keep every year having the same goals and I don't get any closer to them cuz I'm stuck. I'm just stuck in my business in this way. So it's a very real problem but you can get off of it. You just have to work on that approach to how are you gonna navigate that for you? What are the choices you're gonna have to make?
Camille: And probably one of the hardest parts about that, I think is that people have this feeling that if I do get off this hamster wheel, there's always somebody in that process. They think they're gonna be letting down when they change how they do things.
George: That's interesting. Yeah.
Camille: I always do X, Y, and Z for so and so, and now I've gotta not do that? I'm like, well, that's one of your tradeoffs. You have to stop doing that so you can start doing the new thing that takes you off the hamster wheel.
Camille: That's one of the hardest choices I think people have to make when they do it. But there's a series of those and again, clarity about exactly what am I gonna do that moves me from this mode to that mode.
Camille: And That takes your Systems Two thinking, that's not lizard brain.
George: Yeah, absolutely.
Camille: Do we have time to talk about a third problem?
George: Oh, I think we need to talk about the third problem.
Camille: You like this third problem, I know. Here's the third problem. Potentially could be a root cause of lack of clarity.
Camille: So George, you have three people working for you. I dunno, they're employees, contractors whatever I don't care. But they're working for you. They are not delivering on the work the way that you want. I know it's ridiculous.
Camille: There's like some poor customer service, or maybe when you see your work, you just kind of roll your eyes like, Oh, that's not how I would've done it. Yeah. Or maybe they're just kind of flaky and unreliable.
Camille: So, quick fix. What are you gonna do? Lizard brain.
George: I'm so sorry. I need to fire you.
George: If I'm keeping these people on then, my first thing is I'm gonna start micromanaging you. You're not doing what I want, then I'm gonna start poking in your business much more clearly, and I clearly can't trust you cuz for whatever reason you're not doing things the way I want.
George: Why aren't you reading my mind? Or whatever. So yeah, if I'm not gonna fire you, then I'm gonna micromanage you. That's the main thing. Or I'm gonna tell you like, well, look, look, go ask him of your coworkers. Go out that person, that guy's killing it. Go ask him how he's doing it. And you're not giving you any more direction than that.
George: You know, Don't bother giving direction or tell you what I'm thinking. Just like tell you, go work harder. Tell me every meeting you're in, I'm gonna be there with you and expecting I'm not gonna trust you.
Camille: This is very therapeutic for you.
Camille: I think it is worse than firing them. I think the other version of that is, I'm just gonna do it for them. I'm gonna redo their work.
George: I forgot about that one. Totally.
Camille: Yeah, I've seen that one too. It's like I had to fix it.
George: Faster if I just did it myself. Like, yes, this one time. What about the other 99 times you want this done and you hired somebody to, Yeah, you're right.
Camille: Again, not sustainable.
George: No.
Camille: Why would we hire people if that's always the way it was?
George: By the way, this exact thing happens in parenting all the time. Big, big parenting thing.
Camille: So yes, you nailed it. The main reaction I see is: I need to fire them. A lot of times it's also I'm just redoing their work.
George: That is a good one.
Camille: Micromanaging is another one, which means we're getting really nitpicky and telling people what to do, but we're not giving them enough information to actually do it better next time.
George: It's a lose lose.
Camille: Yeah. So I have kind of some bad news, good news. The bad news is 99% of the time, this is your fault.
Camille: A, you either hired poorly. So you hired the wrong person, the wrong fit for the job. Or B, you're just not providing proper feedback and support. Either way, it's on you.
Camille: This is one of these brutal truths that can be really hard to take, especially as a business owner, if you don't have a lot of experience hiring people it takes some work. And when you do it right, it is the best thing you can ever do in your business.
Camille: And also know that you're gonna do it wrong. I mean, how many times have you hired poorly, George? Yeah. And then like, oops.
George: I'm very clear about the hiring mistakes I've made. Those stand out. Yes. Oh my goodness. They're horrible.
Camille: And they give you clarity about how to do it better.
George: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Camille: I think in the beginning you gotta make a couple of those mistakes, cuz it really does give you some clarity. So if you are hiring and you're just learning how, just know that like you wanna hire the best that you can, but you might have a couple of not so great hires.
Camille: Yeah. And that's okay, because that's a learning process of figuring that out and why that's not working.
Camille: But if you want people to deliver on your expectations, you've gotta be more clear then you probably think you do.
Camille: I think we have to explain more of what we're thinking to people and this is in life, right?
Camille: Yeah, absolutely.
Camille: And that means you have to be clear about what you're talking about. So the clarity starts with you. Am I really clear about the direction I am headed and the outcome that I actually want?
Camille: That's level one clarity. You've gotta be really clear about setting these expectations, and you probably are gonna have to be more clear than you want.
Camille: And then as you're describing it to them, Not just telling them steps, but actually sharing with them now that you have clarity for yourself of where you're headed, why you're headed that direction. You would be surprised how much that helps people do a better job. Because when they get more bought into the importance of the thing they're doing.
Camille: Cause sometimes you're giving people the less exciting tasks to do in your business. And so it needs a little bit of purpose and why behind it for them to do the job you actually want them to do. Mm-hmm. So even if you're thinking about, you know, well it's just a virtual assistant or it's just a, you know, admin person, or it's just a accountant, they will all benefit from having , and it doesn't have to be your entire strategic plan and story of your life business.
Camille: It's just giving them one level more information than you probably would normally give. Yes. Don't assign tasks. Give people substance and purpose around the task that you're asking them to do.
Camille: So here's my crazy example of this. Let's say I'm asking you to make me a salad. What kind of salad are you gonna make?
George: I don't know. I don't know what you like and what you don't like.
Camille: But you gotta go make one. So you're just gonna do it.
George: No. I'm gonna ask you, like, I'm gonna ask you questions.
Camille: I'm not, available.
George: Oh, you're not.
Camille: You just gotta go do it.
George: Screw you, I'm making a peanut walnut and shrimp salad.
Camille: Ew, gross.
Camille: So there's like a million salads you could make. Yeah. Cause I haven't told you what kind, and I'm not available for you to ask. I just expect you to do it.
Camille: Now if I said, make me a cob salad.
Camille: Better. Right? And there's no shrimp in it, so that's good.
Camille: Now I want you to make me a cob salad. The picture's clearer. I've given you more information.
Camille: Now if I say I want you to make me a cob salad that can feed 10 people. Even more clarity.
Camille: I'm giving you the information you need. I want it to serve 10 people and then I might say, and it's for X event. Like is this just for a birthday party? Is it for a wedding, this is context that would matter and how you might approach making the salad.
Camille: What I don't have to do is tell you exactly how I want you to hard boil those eggs. So there's a line here of, I don't need to give you the exact steps. I can leave room for you to be a little creative. Like you do those horrible eggs however you want. You can steam 'em or boil 'em or whatever you wanna do.
Camille: However you get there is fine, but I'm giving you enough information to deliver on the thing I want instead of being generic and assuming that you just know all the other stuff. Yeah. Even if my business is a wedding business, and I assume you know everything we're doing is for weddings, I should never make that assumption.
Camille: Yeah. I should just be really clear about what are things for, It's for this, it's for that. What is it all about? So that's my silly example of provide as much context for the thing you're asking for as you can without micromanaging and telling them how to do every single stinking step.
George: What I'm thinking now is, I feel like I'm pretty good on understanding where that line is between enough context and too much micromanaging.
George: But what if people are not used to this? How do people learn where to stop?
Camille: I think this does take some practice. As you start to really be a leader and guiding people into delivering work for you, it takes a little bit of practice and it also will vary depending on who you're talking to and what their area of expertise and knowledge is.
Camille: So you do have to sort of walk this fine line. And I think the best way for you to sort this out is high levels of communication with whoever that is.
Camille: Like, did I give you enough information? Do you have questions? Be available. Like when I said the salad thing, you were like, well, I'm gonna start asking you questions.
Camille: Yeah, you gotta be available cuz people are gonna have questions so that they can deliver the right stuff.
Camille: It's all about just figuring out what that line of alignment needs to look like and also be clear about what's gonna happen next?
Camille: So for example, am I giving you a task and I want you to do the final product? Or am I asking you to give me a draft that I'm gonna edit?
Camille: These are very different levels of output that I want people to produce. So even thinking at that level, like make sure they know what's gonna happen with this next? Because once I get that from you, here's what's gonna happen.
Camille: You have to know what's gonna happen next for people to make the right choices.
Camille: That's what I would say about actually having that clarity in how you're doing that. But it also does start right up front in this example, with being clear about what you do want from that person in that role so that you hire properly right out of the gate.
Camille: And that can be tricky too. That's where you might have some trial and error. And I see people do this and make the mistake of thinking, I can hire one person to do what's like five different skills. Just because they think it will only take 40 hours to do all the work.
Camille: So you have to be very careful that you're not saying, I'm gonna hire somebody who can both do social media and accounting and take out the garbage. These are all very different things and they're probably not just one individual. And that's where you can get really much more clear about who do I need? What kind of skillset do I need in each of these different roles?
Camille: And it might seem smart that you're just hiring one person to do 40 hours of work, but that's doing it with a lack of clarity. What you wanna do is hire people to do specific roles in your business no matter what that amount of time is.
Camille: So you hire a couple of part-time people instead of one full-time that isn't really skilled at doing any of the stuff that you want done.
George: Something hit me, which is from a theory of mine perspective, realize that different people have different levels of abstraction, or different amount of detail that they need.
George: So yes. Right. The person you're talking to doesn't think about tasks or planning the same way you do, most likely. That's rare. I'm not gonna tell you how to do the task, but I'm gonna tell you what I need. Got it? And they say, No, I don't get it.
George: Like, what's missing? Then they tell you, I'm missing stuff. And you think, what? I shouldn't have to tell you that. Like, just calm down. They have a different idea about how they'd set up to do the task? So just have like a little bit of patience about that.
George: The more you do it, the more you kind of figure out how you think differently. After doing that a few times, it's gonna go great!
Camille: Yes. And I think this definitely applies if you do give somebody a task and they don't deliver the way you wanted it. That's your opportunity to go, Oh, they thought about this differently.
Camille: I need to discover what that is because then I can do a better job of guiding them next time. Right? Yes. And that's really your job. That's how you're getting, you're using that level of clarity, getting more clear about how they were thinking to match, to how you think about it. And then you can have better communication.
George: Do you wanna hear the parenting part?
Camille: I wanna hear the parenting part. Yes.
George: Everybody who's a parent has kids, probably most parents get frustrated with their kids. I don't know yet about teenagers. I imagine it's bad that too.
George: But like with our six year old, sometimes we'll tell him to do something or not to do something, and he'll either not do it or he'll do it. Or he'll forget or something.
George: At first when we taught him how to take his own dishes to the sink after dinner, he's great. He's happy to do that.
George: But at first he would take them and literally drop them in the sink cuz he's kinda short. So we'd have to realize, we'd have to tell him a little bit more detail.
George: Oftentimes what we find is he's willing, he's happy to do a task or do something we tell him, but he hasn't done it 8 million times. Cause he is not 50 years old, he is new to this stuff. So he is a little more context for this stuff and we get upset with him when he somehow gets it wrong. Cuz we haven't give him good instructions. It's no good to get upset with people and you haven't given him good instructions.
George: The first thing we've learned to assume is if we tell him to do something and he doesn't do it, we try to train ourselves to think, Okay. What did I not tell him? What did we not inform him about? That's usually the problem. And we get so frustrated with our children that they just don't get this done.
George: Like you're expecting way too much of them. You don't even remember what it was like the first time you had to go get cereal for yourself.
Camille: And I think that just continues on into adulthood. It happens in our marriages. We have expectations of our partners to do things that they don't and we're like, What's going on? Why aren't they reading my mind?
Camille: We have that same expectation of people at work, whether they work for you or just around you.
Camille: This lack of clarity and expectations we make all these assumptions about how we think people are interpreting the world and the work to be done, and we're just all interpreting it differently.
Camille: So we need to get more clarity in order to close the gap so that we're all on the same page. That's the big message.
Camille: So to wrap this puppy up, I've got some questions that people can use to try and improve the clarity in their business. I'll drop these questions in the show notes. So if you find these to be useful, you can just look up in the show notes, these six questions that you can ask.
Camille: The first one is about getting more clarity and direction. So do I know what I want my business to look like in five years?
Camille: The second question is around clarity and how to get there. Do I have a clear strategy? Have I made a decision about I will do this and I will not do that?
Camille: The third one is around clarity and doing the right work. So do I have clear goals set at an annual, quarterly, or monthly level? Am I walking that down to not just what I want for the year, but down to what I actually want this month?
Camille: And then do I have clarity in the here and now? Which is, do I know what that one priority action is today that's gonna help me achieve these goals that I've set?
Camille: The fifth one is clarity and how is it going? Do I have any metrics that are telling me so I can evaluate my progress and see how I'm doing? Cool.
Camille: And then the last one just hits on this clarity for my team, which I put in quotes because I want team to mean lots of things. This is employees, vendors, people's just supporting you in your business. Like my brother here on the podcast with me. Have I clearly communicated the long-term vision and purpose for my business? Yes. So that you would know how to support my plan?
Camille: I'm setting clear expectations with you and I'm guiding and providing feedback.
Camille: Those are the six things that if you just focus on those and asking yourself those questions and getting more clarity on them.
Camille: Again, like George said in the beginning, don't freak out. If you're like, I don't have any of those answers! Well now this is a great time to begin. You start building more clarity today.
George: That's super helpful. I love, love these things.
George: If you could take any of these and explain them to somebody else, you're on the right track.
George: I'll make another comment about number six, clarity for my team, big companies all have employee internal surveys and there's this whole segment like this, 50, 75 questions long, literally a scale from one to 10.
George: There's always a section, several questions that are just about do you feel like you understand the company's vision? Do you feel that you're acting in alignment with that vision?
George: There's clarity questions. It's fascinating to see the results of that section, the questioning in particular where you can see which groups feel like, Yep, I get it.
George: Which groups feel like I have no idea.
Camille: Oh, I love this because, yes. So while I would say as a business owner or business leader, this is the starting point for you first, but you can also see how well you're doing in developing a cohesive culture and clarity within your business, but then asking other people if they can also answer those questions.
George: We should ask our Aunt Carol about McDonald's. So here's an example of helping the team, everybody who's working at McDonald's, helping them understand clearly what the business is about.
George: I think she would tell them, We are not in the food business, we are in the service business. Our job is to make people happy.
George: That's service that's making the customer happy. But if they don't understand the clarity like, Hey, we're a service business, making people happy, here's what brings them back, not the particular food. That's a difference in mindset you can get the team aligned on.
Camille: Yes. And that would be a level of clarity. So if you assume everybody just knows that guess what they don't.
Camille: Maybe we get her on the pod one of these days to talk about that stuff because Yeah. I think it's an interesting angle on running a small business inside a big corporate structure is what she's doing.
Camille: Because every little McDonald's is kind of like a little micro-business. It'd be really fascinating.
Camille: Any last words about clarity before I do my spiel? No. Cause I have a spiel.
Camille: So I think in the last episode I was teasing that I was gonna do a little workshop cuz I've been thinking about how to teach people how to do this in a way that I can't really do on the podcast.
Camille: I'm giving you these questions, but what does it really mean to get clarity in your business? What does it really mean to get ready for creating or elevating your business to a high performance business in 2023?
Camille: So I'm gonna do a free workshop. It's gonna be two days, November 29th and December 1st.
Camille: There'll be link in the show notes so you can sign up.
Camille: If you wanna learn more about any of the stuff we've been talking about, how to make a high performance business. What are the steps you take to actually creating that plan?
Camille: Even if you do have some steps that you take, I recommend you join just to see if there's always an opportunity to, I mean, I'm not gonna say my way as like the perfect end all be all way, but I might have some new ideas to offer you that you can level up your own planning game.
Camille: It's about figuring out how to do this plan, not just the, I wanna make X amount of money so I'm gonna sell this number of widgets. It's beyond that.
Camille: It is getting at what we're talking about today with the, I have to have a better strategy for how, if I wanna end up with a business I actually enjoy and not end up in a business that is just running me ragged.
Camille: That's the main focus and really why I do this for small business owners is to give them the information and the structure that they need to do that, that they normally don't really have access to.
Camille: Big corporations have consultants and people that come help them with this stuff, where they have whole internal departments that do it for them, set their strategies and their annual plans, and there's a whole structure around how everybody contributes.
Camille: Small business owners don't have that. So I'm gonna help you understand how to do that yourself.
Camille: Whether you're feeling super motivated for next year and really have a big plan you wanna do, or maybe you're on the other side and you're feeling kind of anxious because you know the world's a little cattywampus right now and we don't know what's happening in the world and how that might impact our businesses.
Camille: Either way, having a plan and an approach to dealing with all of that is the way to do it. So I'll walk you through how to navigate all of that in that little two day workshop.
George: That sounds great.
Camille: So sign up everybody. I can't wait to see you cuz then we can actually all chat on Zoom, by the way.
Camille: It'll be live. I'll be there live. We'll be talking about your business and what's happening and sharing ideas, but mostly giving you the how do I go do this.
Camille: That is the plan for the end of the month.
George: Sounds great. Really cool.
Camille: I'm excited about it. It's always really fun to talk to business owners and hear what their challenges are and be able to guide them just a little bit.
Camille: Sometimes it's just one little piece of knowledge that you needed, that you filled in a gap that can really set you off on a new better path.
George: Okay, cool.
Camille: All right. That is all we have today on Clarity for your high performance business.
Camille: Next week we're gonna continue talking about high performance business, but I think next week we'll talk about systems.
Camille: There's one episode in here without George. Cause as he said, running for school board is taking a lot out of him. So we made a little minor adjustment.
Camille: So good luck to you, George.
George: Thank you very much. Have fun going solo.
Camille: It'll be fun.
Camille: All right, we'll be in your ears next week, everybody.
George: See you.
