Designing A Company You Don't Have to Escape From
If you are experiencing burnout as a leader, it is hard to focus on fixing your company. So why not try to create a company that will endure even if you have to take a step back. In this episode, Traci and Rob discuss Rob’s talk titled Designing A Company You Don't Have to Escape From. Learn five steps to creating a healthy and sustainable company.
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Traci:
Hey Rob, how you doing?
Rob:
I'm good, how are you?
Traci:
Good. I'm excited for today because we have been talking about sharing with all of our listeners the workshop that you and I have worked on kind of diligently together. We've actually delivered a couple of times for the Bureau specifically most recently and have had such good feedback and a ton of fun doing it.
It was kind of generated out of our conversations here and some of the conversations we've had offline just talking about just what it's like being a leader today, the struggles, all of us coming off of the last couple of years, which may be great business-wise and we've seen a lot of our colleagues out there in the industry doing well from business perspective, but from a human perspective, which is what we talk about here, is we're all wrestling with the balance of it all, with making sure we're the leaders of our lives, just like we're leaders of our companies.
We put together a day-long workshop and your talk specifically was called Designing A Company You Don't Have to Escape From. We're going to talk about that today and I'm super excited.
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Traci:
Let's talk about kind of how you came up with that title, what made you want to put the talk together. I know you've had some specific experiences that were kind of the impetus, kind of put the pieces together. So tell me a little bit about that.
Rob:
Yeah, I think that like we've talked in the past specifically around the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, about this whole idea of being designers and being able to be in control and be intentional about what we're doing with our life. I think that applies to the businesses that a lot of us run, too. What do you want it to be?
One of my early mentors used to say, "You have a choice. You can either run your business or your business will run you." So that was one of the things that I've carried with me since almost the very beginning of my journey running Sparkbox is what do I want it to be and what do I want it to not be? I want to be in control of this because it should be something that I can do sustainably while sleeping at night, not something I dread doing.
There was a couple other experiences over the last several years, a couple of them are several years ago Blair Enns was talking about this whole idea of Blairtopia. One of the rules of Blairtopia was is you can never sell your business. At first when I first heard that many years ago it really kind of bothered me, but since then, after talking with Blair and hearing him speak more and reading some of his writings and his podcasts, which big fan of 2Bobs Podcast. If you don't listen to that, definitely check it out. Is this whole idea of the mindset of if you have to do this forever, what changes would you make to make it sustainable?
That was a huge impetus for this, is it's not that you can't ever get out, it's can you build something that you don't want to get out of, to be that driver? I've done a bunch of—or several different times—I've consulted with other studio owners, and it's a common thing that I hear is, "I can't do it this way. This hurts." My question always is, "What can we change to make it so that you can do this?"
Traci:
Yeah. And I like that whole premise of that you don't have to escape from because I do feel like a lot of owners are continually planning their escape. Their business is set up in such a way that it's causing anxiety and anxiety keeps us from being in the present and being content and we just start planning the escape. So creating a business that we can be content in and we can actually enjoy and get joy from, I think, like you said, it takes design. It takes intentionality.
So, you put together five steps that point us in the right direction. What are they?
Rob:
Yeah, the five steps that I put together is, it's fairly simplistic, but I had to have a way to organize my thoughts here, is this whole idea of…
First step is, you have to truly understand what you want. It's so easy to have these ideas of, "Well, I want freedom or autonomy," but I don't think that's specific enough. I don't think that has to be what you want has to line up with your values and where you're going. And you have to have that end in mind to manage towards.
I think that something that gets really lost in this whole figuring out what you want thing, is getting locked into a destination and thinking that it's the ruthless pursuit of that instinct. I don't think that's it at all. That's not real sustainable. It's using that what you want as a bearing to set your course by and it's about the journey to get there because it's always going to change. What you want today probably will be different in five years, probably will be different in 10. The phase of your life will be different, maybe you don't have kids and you'll have kids, or you have kids now and they're little and when they're older it'll be different, or whatever various many things that change in our lives, but having that end in mind that allows you to set that bearing, allows you to manage the journey on the way.
Traci:
Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like it aligns with so much of the work that we do, begin with the end in mind because so often people feel like it can be too confining to do that, but what that ends up happening is that all roads lead to any destination and so we can end up somewhere we don't want to be. That's when the frustration sets in. I do think it is right to set the bearing, to know what you want out of your company and out of your life. What's the ultimate end goal?
And when we can decide on that and set that, we can let go. We can let go because now we know which direction we're headed in, enjoy the journey, and know also how we're going to get there, put some strategy behind it. People don't realize until they do it how much freedom it gives them, just simply having direction and knowing what you want gives you the freedom you've been looking for all along.
Rob:
Yeah, and I think that one of the things that I've, and you advise to, is write it down. Write it down. Put a date on it and give yourself permission to change it. But that history looking back will tell the journey of where you've been and what you've accomplished and you'll use that to help project forward where you want to be.
Traci:
Right. What's the second thing?
Rob:
Second thing is preparing the vessel, and this whole idea of preparing the vessel is if we want to take control of our schedules and our business and run it instead of having it run us, we have to make sure that there's room in the margins. There has to be profit and the business principles have to be sound. All of those things have to be working well.
One of the things that I've noticed during my consulting time is I have met a lot of owners or principals who are already burned out and by the time they start thinking about change and when we sit down and I say, "Okay, there are steps we can go through. There is things that can be done." But my question I always ask to start with is, "Is the business prepared for those things to happen?" Maybe a little bit unsurprisingly, sometimes it's pretty bleak. The business has followed the emotions and the path of the owner, and it's not ready. There's no room in the margins for changes to be made without tackling the fundamental business stuff, which always takes an investment of time.
If you're not thinking about avoiding burnout well before it happens, you're already behind the ball. So there has been times where I've sat down with somebody, I'm like, "Well, this is great, but you're probably 18 months away from getting some of that freedom you want because you got to fix some things or this isn't going to be here anymore."
Traci:
Yeah, and just hearing you talk about it, I think about how you are such an operations guy and you have such a mind for that, and I imagine if there isn't a keen focus on creating a well-oiled machine and having a great operations mind and focus on your company, that it's really hard to create those margins.
Rob:
Yeah, it totally is. And so much of this comes back to this idea of complexity. The natural state of things as businesses go along is for things to become more and more complex over time. I hear a lot of people in the operation space or in the ownership space be like, "Well, my business is just too complex for that to happen." My immediate reaction to that is always, "Simplicity isn't something that happens by accident. Complexity happens by accident, by unintention. Simplicity happens by intention.” You have to constantly fight for it to have it. That is so much of the work in small businesses and as things change over time, is to constantly reanalyze and fight for that simplicity because otherwise things become a tangled mess and nobody knows what's going on.
It's so hard to get simplicity. It's so easy to get complexity. I think that's tied into this preparing the vessel, is preparing our business so that it's maintainable, is making sure that we have simple systems that make sense, that we're not doing things that don't make sense, so that we can do the next step.
Traci:
Yes, which is?
Rob:
Delegation for the win. Setting things up and people up so that you don't have to do everything.
I think one of the things that goes into this is this whole idea of leadership is a full-time job and it's enough of a job. In order to delegate our things in our business we have to think about this whole idea of stewardship delegation.
We talked about this awhile ago, but the two big models for delegation are go for delegation, which is go do this thing and then come back and tell me when you're done and I'm going to really prescriptive. That's cool, but that still puts you at the center of that. You're still responsible.
The other model that we talk about is stewardship is how do I give this thing over to somebody else, help them set measurable goals, tell them what things they have at their disposal to accomplish those goals, tell them what the outcomes will be, or what the desired outcomes will be, and what some guidelines are. That really gives them autonomy and control over it.
That helps get things off of your plate because most people when they start these businesses, they do a little bit of everything because they have to to survive. But if they don't give those things away systematically over time, then they will be overwhelmed and not be able to keep up with everything and feel run down.
Traci:
Why do you think, what are the biggest things you see that keep people from delegating?
Rob:
I think it all comes back to trust like so much of this conversation. One of my favorite kind of quotes I've come across recently is, "You have a choice. You can either control things or you can trust things. If you don't trust them, you will try to control them. But if you trust them, you will give control up." I think that's so much of what is going on right now and it's bigger than just our businesses. We know that trust is the foundation for so much of results and all the other things, all of the human connections that we need to accomplish things.
Because when we talk about business and investment, and especially small business, yeah there is examples of really small business with one person or maybe two people, but it's hard for me not to think in a lot of cases that's more of a job mentality if you're the only person because you're doing it and finding the work and doing all of that. It's when you get to teams of people that can accomplish things together where trust becomes critical.
I think that we're in a place right now where there's a little bit of a bigger systemic problem where trust has been eroded over the last many, many years in society at large, where it's affecting us in ways that we don't quite understand. Where before, I won't go into how many years ago exactly, but there was almost a little bit more default trust available and you showed up with maybe a little bit more of that. I don't feel like that's the case anymore. I don't even think that we as groups, society—most talking about in the US here, but maybe this is a bigger, global thing—I don't think that that trust is there in a way that's useful at all. We have to start over and not assume that there's any there that's showing up by default.
Traci:
Yeah. The lack of trust, from a psychological standpoint, is typically rooted in fear. And so, a lot of what's going on in America, but can also go on in companies, is just this fear. It can sometimes be rooted in a little bit of truth, but often times it's just rooted in our imagination gone wild or feeling like we're the only one who can do this right or the whole company's going to fall apart if we aren't holding onto the reins as tightly as possible.
What oftentimes a lot of leaders don't realize is that not pushing through that fear and having that lack of trust and showing your teammates that lack of trust, is going to do much more harm than they ever realize just like the fear and lack of trust nationwide is doing much more harm than we realize. So we have to push past that fear and let go of the reins and delegate. I totally agree.
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Traci:
So, what's the fourth step?
Rob:
The fourth step is setting boundaries. Now we've understood what we want. We have our end in mind. The business is prepared to take this on. We've started delegating. And now we're having to set boundaries so that we don't fall back into old habits, so that we can then start to set examples and take some of that time back.
It's as easy, I think sometimes, as blocking things on your calendar. One of the things that I like to do on my calendar is put large blocks that just say, "Please ask before putting meetings here." Does that mean I'm not working? No, not all the time, but it means that's my time that I've asked whoever wants to take it, permission. They have to ask me first and that's allowed me to have more control over my calendar, which is something really important to me. I think that you can block entire days and it's really about starting to set up a sustainable pattern over time.
One of the things, like you said, I love talking about operations. I'm a very rigorous person with my scheduling. I like to have control over it. One of my biggest pet peeves—and I try to fight this when it comes out—is when somebody changes my calendar at the last minute. Just drives me bonkers. I try to, like I said, push that down because I know that's probably not healthy. Change happens, but it really rubs against all of my internals.
So, what that means for me is I know I like to have set times of when I'm going to do things. There's a certain day of the week I like to do biz-dev heavy kind of things. There's a day of the week and a time of the week I like to do my one-on-ones. There's a day out of the time of the week that I like to do this, as well as some of the self-care stuff that we talk about. I think that, like for me, that's setting time aside a couple days a week to go to the gym where I know it's on my calendar. It's not going to move and it's scheduled between now and indefinite.
I think that that's a lot of what I mean setting those boundaries again so that you can make those changes sustainable.
Traci:
Do you share that with your staff, meaning do you encourage them to set boundaries as well?
Rob:
I do. One of the things that I try to coach our leadership team and our director team, our entire management team, is that self-care is part of your job description. It's in there. You have to put your mask on yourself first. You are responsible for other humans. What that means is you have to be in a place where you can help them and that might mean that you need to put some time on your calendar to go to the gym. Block your lunches. Be careful about letting others dictate your schedule to you. It's easier said than done sometimes, but I think that's why it's part of the work.
Traci:
Yeah, I think it's interesting and important for leaders to really understand this, obviously first to be doing it for themselves, but when we're dealing with companies that are constantly talking about the billable hour, constantly talking about bottom lines and all of that, it can be confusing for staff. It can be confusing for them to think that if they do have the right to set boundaries.
But in a way you're creating an even more productive staff by encouraging them to really look at their calendar, control their calendar, set some boundaries so that they do have the energy and the space and the time to put the work in needed to get projects done.
Rob:
Yeah, trying to. Plans and reality, there's always some dissonance sometimes, like “best laid plans” all that fun stuff. But I think the huge part of that is when we set goals in measurables for people, is we don't overwhelm them. Because what gets measured gets done. So, if we're really careful and only setting expectations that are clear and kind around things that move the business forward and not distract them with too many goals, then that's one of the ways we tell people what we're prioritizing and what the guidelines are for their behavior, what success looks like.
I think that most people have the capacity really to care about three things at a time. If you start asking and measuring more aspects than that, what most people will do is pick and choose what they think is important and that's not why we have goals. We don't set goals from the top down so that individuals can pick and choose which ones they want to do and which ones they don't. We have to do the work of refining those back to where there's a smaller subset of those so we can say it's like, "Hey, if you do these three things you will be successful here. This is how we're measuring you." That's enough where they have to be attainable, not aspirational, and all those other things that we talk about all the time.
But if we do that, then we help guide what behavior should look like and what success looks like because there's nothing worse than when things are unclear or there's too many and they get to review time and they're looking at their review or their evaluation saying, "What do you mean? I did the things I thought I was supposed to do." That expectation boundary is missed and that's where all the conflict comes from, is when two different mindsets walk into a meeting.
Traci:
Yeah, and if we don't have goals and we don't know what the goals and expectations are, we have no idea how to set priorities because we're uncertain what's most important and what the ultimate goal is for the mission of the company.
So, goal setting, it's huge. It's a gift. It's a gift to people so that they know what they need to do, what they need to accomplish, when they need to accomplish, in what order. It's just like with kids, setting boundaries makes them feel safe. It's the same thing with our employees.
So, what's the last step?
Rob:
The last step is work the plan and adjust. This probably shouldn't be a surprise if anybody who knows me is you've done all this work and now what can you learn and continue to refine over time.
There's a couple things I want to share about that and when we're doing that is one of the things that always happens is you have to be aware of sunk costs, specifically the sunk cost fallacy. That's thinking that what I invested my time in before was all good and I need to continue investing my time in the same place. I think that's one of the places we can get really stuck because sometimes what it took to get here isn't the thing that'll take us to the next phase.
So the second-best time to stop something that's not working is right now. The first best time is when you realized it. So let's not do things that continue that aren't the right direction. So, I think that's one of the big things that we really can get stuck on.
I think another one is there's seasons for things. There's seasons for people. There's seasons for clients. There's seasons for all things in life, and that's okay. Which means that sometimes the people you start with won't be the people you finish with. That means sometimes the clients you start with won't be the clients you finish with. Sometimes it means that the business partners you start with won't be the business partners you finish with. All of that is natural and there's ways to look at the what is the next best thing to do based on the season we're going into.
Traci:
Yeah, that's good because I feel like human nature changes. Most humans don't like change. It's hard. As leaders, we have to understand that. And that the first reaction is typically not good because we want comfort, and change is typically not comfortable. Familiar is comfortable. And so, change creates new things, and even though new things can be great and good, we have to remember to walk alongside each other with change.
Big change, sudden change is the hardest. So gradual change tends to be much easier for people—especially when something big happens. A big leader leaves, a big client resigns, the agency, something big happens, we really need to show up. We really need to help move people along and help them to adjust, as you said, and rework the plan if the plan needs to be reworked, but we need each other to kind of recalibrate and then get right back on track headed toward that destination we talked about in the beginning.
Rob:
Yeah.
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Traci:
These are great. We talked about complexity and we talked about trust. Is there anything else that you feel like is worth mentioning or how you'd kind of sum up the key things that leaders really need to remember as they kind of enter into work every day so that they are creating a space where not only they don't have to escape from, but their coworkers and partners don't want to escape from either?
Rob:
Yeah, I think one of the things is everyone should be replaceable, including you.
Traci:
That's good, yeah.
Rob:
If you can just constantly make sure that you don't have any single points of success. I know that the common phrase is "single point of failure." But I hate that phrase. Some people call this the bus problem—which is even worse—which is like, “What happens if this person gets hit by a bus? What do we do?” And I'm like, "Good grief. What kind of negative energy and vibes are we inviting into the world?" I prefer to say "single point of success” or the lottery problem. “What happens if this person wins the lottery and doesn't need us anymore? What do we do then?" That sounds much happier than the bus situation.
Because at the end of the day, the businesses we're trying to create want to be sustainable and it is absolutely all about the people, but it's not about any one person, including you. Your identity can't be wrapped up in the thing that you've created. I promise that the most interesting thing about everyone isn't what they do for a living or any of the businesses they've created. There's something more interesting about you. Don't confuse your identity with the things that you've created.
Traci:
Yeah, that's good. I think it's fabulous if you can love what you do and love the people that you do it with. I think you're right in that we should not find our identity in it, but back to the very beginning of what you said. If we want to love what we do and love who we do it with, it's going to take a great deal of intentionality.
Rob:
Always.
Traci:
Yeah, always. Always.
So, this has been really helpful. I think it's a helpful framework. Frameworks are my thing. I really love having a framework that is easy to implement—well, I should say easy to remember and easy to think about. Implementing it, it's as easy as blocking out time on your calendar.
As leaders, when we think about working on the business, it takes time. Not a terrible amount of time, but a committed amount of time.
Rob:
It's showing up intentionally and making progress as things change little by little.
Traci:
Yeah. Super helpful. Thank you for sharing these points and I'm sure we're going to be circling back to all of this on our next workshop as well. We probably should get better about making sure people know that's going on. So, keep an eye out folks because there's more to come in the future from Rob and Traci in the workshop form.
Thank you for sharing today.
Rob:
All right, thanks Traci.
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The Overly Human Podcast is brought to you by Navigate the Journey and Sparkbox. For more information on this podcast, or to get in touch with Traci or Rob, go to overlyhuman.com. If you like what you've heard, subscribe and tell your friends to listen. Thanks.
