3 mindsets that prevent process, and why it matters

What on earth is a process mindset?

Well, you’ve heard of the saying “Get your head in the game?”

It means “Pay attention” or “Focus on what you are doing.”

But how can you focus in business if you’ve got three thousand things to do or are trying to put out fires in your business.

Yes, you can meditate and do exercise to start your day but as a leader you’re probably not going to get anywhere unless you create process and systemize your business to help you focus.?

What it means to have a process mindset?

To understand more on what it means to have a process mindset, we spoke to Liza Gonzalez Author, Speaker and EOS Implementer?.

Lisa González is no stranger to the world of entrepreneurship. Lisa grew up in an entrepreneurial family in California and supported them in their many business operations. With a wealth of entrepreneurial experience since then and as co-author of the book Process! we hosted Lisa on the Unlocking Growth Podcast to talk about the 3 mindsets that prevent process, and ultimately success.

What typical blocks do entrepreneurs have to developing a process mindset?

This is the reason myself and Mike Paton actually wrote the book Process!?

We realized that as much as entrepreneurs want to lead more effective and rewarding professional and personal lives, they’re often the ones holding themselves back.?

When we were writing the book, we realized there was one piece that’s often missing in the discussion about process, is the importance of getting the right mindset around process. Because if you don’t get your head around it, then it’ll never get completed or you’ll keep stalling on it and won’t commit to getting it done.

The fact is that there are tools now such as Whale that help implement process in a simple and practical way. So there’s no excuse.

Process mindset stumbling block #1: “Process is not in my nature.”

Lisa, why do you say process IS in DNA of an entrepreneur?

It’s just not true because when you’ve started an organization or, or maybe you’ve taken over a department, the reality is you’ve found ways to do things right. You just kept on doing those over and over. Whether it was that you made a customer smile or found the perfect way to package sales, you decided I’m going to do more of that.

Maybe you didn’t write it down as an entrepreneur, but you captured what worked best in the organization. And then, you shared it with other people. That’s exactly what process is. That’s just called being naturally process oriented.

As humans in general, we are naturally process-oriented. When we realized how to capture fire, we kept and shared that knowledge with other people. Today we know how to do that in more complex ways, but the survival of the human race depended on us being process oriented.

Maybe you haven’t put it into a manual, but the reality is that if we want to grow as organizations and get consistent results, you can’t do it without process. Process is a given because it’s in our nature. It’s just that you have to capture it and document it.

We’re not talking about a 500-page document! In a standard operating procedure, it can be very high level.

So that’s the first myth that we really help our teams understand; Process is in your nature. It’s just, that you’re so good at it. You don’t realize that you are naturally process-oriented.

Process mindset stumbling block #2: “Process takes too much time!.”

Lisa, why is time such a challenge for entrepreneurs?

I think beyond visionaries, everyone just thinks process takes too much time. Entrepreneurs are phenomenal at getting a lot done in a little bit of time with little; little time, maybe little money, and little resources.

Why I’m so passionate about this work, is because there’s a cost to it. If you don’t take care of your health or your home life, you just burn yourself out.

There’s a quote by coach John Wooden, who is UCLA’s most celebrated and victorious basketball coach, that says

He would spend time really helping his teams before they even went out on the court to put their socks on correctly and tie their shoes correctly so they wouldn’t get blisters. So they wouldn’t lose time.

That’s the same mindset that we teach our entrepreneurs and our leaders to have, and why we emphasis getting process done.

Entrepreneurs have 2 challenges….

Firstly?we underestimate how much time we spend just doing stuff over and recouping lost goodwill and redoing the same activities.

Then secondly, we also overestimate the amount, the amount of time it takes to invest in capturing your processes.

This is why we emphasize an?80-20 approach; capture 20% of the major steps that’ll get you 80% of the way there.

“It’s going to take too much time!”

We hear this a lot!

We just don’t know if it’s gonna fit our schedule, we have so much on our plate and we’re so busy already.

If they would actually work on this, it would alleviate a lot of the issues that they have.

Process mindset stumbling block #3: “Process destroys freedom.”

If you systemize the predictable, you can humanize the exceptional.

Lisa, what is the dynamic between freedom and process?

Entrepreneurs, by their nature, are individualists. They often started their company cause they did not want to report to anybody I’ve even had clients in training say, “if you are going to turn my team into a bunch of robots, we’re not doing this.”

That is absolutely not what we’re talking about here. Freedom is actually destroyed by your lack of process; because you don’t know how someone carried out their actions or because you have to micromanage your people.

Isadore Sharp, the founder of the exceptional?Four Seasons Hotel?once said;

Because hotels like the Four Seasons and The Hilton have?outstanding onboarding processes?in place, when someone joins on their first day, everything is set in motion to help make them feel part of the team and ready to deliver excellence.

For the first day team members are made to feel special with a bottle of wine that says welcome to the company team.

When you have your processes in place, that’s the type of freedom you have to innovate and create.

By taking care of repeatable actions people can start to think of ways to bring additional value the company.

We hear a lot as well in, in the creative industry. They’re afraid that process will stifle creativity. But it’s the opposite!

By having the repeatable in place, people are free to explore their creativity and to innovate.

Bottom line

Embracing a process mindset is paramount in today’s fast-paced and complex world.

By adopting this approach, entrepreneurs and teams can achieve higher levels of efficiency, productivity, and success. Studies have shown that organizations that prioritize process improvement experience a 10% increase in customer satisfaction and a 20% reduction in operational costs.

So, whether you’re a professional aiming for personal growth or a business striving for excellence, remember that a process mindset is not just a mindset—it’s a game-changer.

Embrace it, refine it, and watch your results soar!