Learn from Nature - How to Win Fun and Freedom
You're working all hours and have no friends or hobbies. Your family
think you're a distant relative.
You complain about not being able to find time to make improvements to
your business.
You dash from one crisis to the next. Embarrassing and costly mistakes
are being made by your staff. Cost and time lost to rework creeps
higher.
You even begin to revel as an expert fire fighter or trouble-shooter.
Reacting to demands all the time, who said running your own business was
fun and would give you freedom to do your own thing?
How did you find yourself in this state? Simply, you and your staff are
human. Humans make mistakes and forget things, especially when they are
in a hurry or lack experience.
So, What Can we Learn from Nature
Nature has produced complex, powerful, elegant, awe-inspiring,
incredibly capable organisms and species that have evolved, thrived, and
survived for millions of years.
Species compete for food and shelter. They also face the threat of
disease. Species survive using their traits and capabilities...their
genes.
Business is like a species you need to compete for business to survive,
and to defend yourself against business diseases such as fire fighting
or complacency.
Your business, like a species, exhibits distinct traits and capabilities
derived from your skills, experience and upbringing -your business
genes.
Here's How Nature Creates Incredibly Capable Species:
1)Living things evolve in small low-risk incremental steps not in giant
high-risk steps. They adapt to their environment all the time to improve
their chances of survival.
What's natures strategy?
The environment eliminates species that cant cope and only keeps those
who can meet the Survival of the Fittest rules. Nature doesn't have a
vision statement, foresight, mission statement, or manifesto.
It simple uses this process of natural selection. Nature just takes one
small step at a time to improve its current survival chances building on
the best or fittest and removing the least fit.
2)Nature builds everything in small independent modules or building
blocks genes. A gene is a length of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) a long
list of instructions or template on how to put the organism together and
make it work well. Genes determine the features, traits and capabilities
of the organism.
3)The DNA genetic structure gives outstanding stability. The gene
building blocks give the stability. The probability of any particular
part of a gene being miscopied on any one copying or reproduction
occasion is approximately one in a 1,000,000,000 (1 billion). It happens
but it takes a considerably length of time for an error or mutation to
occur. The lifetime of DNA messages of genetic code measures in millions
of years.
Genetic stability preserves the useful and best characteristics that
meet the environments needs. It ensures that the favourable
characteristics travel from one generation to the next.
4)The DNA replication or replacement process has brilliant proof-reading
and repairing capabilities to prevent errors occurring. About 5000
pieces of DNA chain degenerate per day in every human cell, and are
immediately replaced by the repair control mechanisms.
DNA acts as a template or checklist for copying with exceptional low
error rates.
Let Checklists become part of Your Genetic Code.
Generate these checklists benefits using natures solutions:
Eliminate lapses or mistakes
Create business stability across the generations of your staff.
Train new staff faster and better.
Capture your best practice and experience.
Capture improvements easily.
Demonstrate that you have not been negligent.
Here's how to checklist your way to fun and freedom using natures
solutions:
1)Start in a small way and build it up. Don't worry about getting
everything right first time. Take a simple task where things are being
forgotten or missed and create a checklist.
2)Make a list of tasks to be done in the correct order on a sheet with
check boxes to mark off that the tasks that are completed. Just write
down what you are doing now as a starter. Incorporate instructions into
your checklist.
3)Break down complex tasks into small manageable building blocks. Try to
break up the task into pieces where minimum or low risk links or
interfaces exist. Keep it simple.
4)Use diagrams. Remember, a picture is worth a 1000 words.
5)Use checklists to control the interface between a) staff and
departments internally and b) between you and you're customers and
suppliers. Failures often occur at interfaces
6)Involve your staff in the creation of the checklist. Note, in nature,
genes collaborate to survive. Remind staff that checklists mean no loss
of esteem. Airline pilots use them all the time. Checklists permit good
professional practice. Staff involvement will also lead to their
commitment to use the checklist.
7)Maximise the use of experience within and outside your business. Use
other peoples genes. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Find out what
others do. Beg, borrow and swipe checklist ideas.
8)Request your staff check off the checklist with their initials and
date. File your checklist as record of your good practice. If a customer
challenges your performance, you've great evidence to demonstrate that
you were not negligent in any way.
9)Modify the checklist to close any gap, if mistakes are still
occurring. Keep doing this until you can reproduce the task without
lapses. Checklists just make this so easy.
10)Make sure you use the correct checklist. Introduce a system that
ensures your staff will always use the most up to date version of the
checklist. If not old lapses will recur. Keep the latest master
checklists in a clearly titled folder (paper or computer).
11)Make the checklists readily available. You can use folders for
different areas or processes of your business, so that your staff can
readily find the right checklist for the job.
Simple checklists yield so much power. Let checklists become part of
your genetic code.
Start today, create your first checklist and start the process of
getting your life back. Stop fire fighting and begin to have fun and
freedom.
Syd Stewart is the author of "Smiling Owner How to Build a Great Small
Business An Evolutionary Business E-Handbook". He has been an owner and
manager for over 30 years. He Knows What Works and What Doesn't. Visit
his site to find out how you can 'Build a Great Small Business' at
http://www.smilingowner.com