The Disappearing Boss - Issue 9
Kirsten Gibbs ??
Take a break from business without breaking your business. Make everyone in your company a Boss, so you can disappear.
Last time, we looked at the different places and ways you could 'Show Up', so that the people you serve will find out that you and your Promise of Value exist.
This time, I want to drill down even further into how that might actually work for a particular way to Show Up. So that you can start to think about creating a repeatable process for doing it.?Repeatable by you or by someone else.
I'm going to do this following the pattern I use when designing with clients - I gather information by asking questions, then organise the answers into Activities (what has to happen), Props (things you need to make these Activities happen) and Roles (who is responsible for carrying out these Activities, and who else do they involve).
I'm going to go through a set of questions to ask yourself about a specific way of showing up.??Then I'll explain how you can use the answers to define the process.?You should be able to apply the same questions to a different method and come up with your own process definition.?That's the idea anyway!
Any old how, here goes.
Let's look at an unusual way to 'Show Up': entering for a business award:
Questions:
What would your answers be to these questions??Write them down.
Turning your answers into a process:
How will you find out about business awards you could enter?
Your answer probably consists of a number of steps - 'search the internet for?'business awards' or 'local business awards' or for '[my industry] business awards'; or review [my industry] magazine(s) for upcoming awards.??
This means that your process starts with an Activity called something like "Find Business Awards to enter".?The outcome of this Activity is that you either have one or more options for entering a business award, or you have none.
How will you decide which of these, if any, to go for?
Remember, you are trying to 'Show Up' for the people you serve.?That means you want them to be able to find you there.??For example, if you're an accountant specialising in the beauty industry, it makes sense to enter some kind of beauty industry award rather than a construction industry one.?You might even suggest to the award organisers that they include a 'Best Salon Accountant' award.?That means that you are probably not going to want to enter every Award you find in the previous Activity.??
Apart from that, your criteria for entering a business award are up to you. They might include cost, location, time (if you're an accountant, January may not be the best time to attend an award ceremony), who's running it.?
There's another Activity here, called something like 'Choose Award' or 'Select Award'.??In this Activity you apply your criteria to the options you identified in the previous Activity, and select one to go forward with.??If you write your criteria down somewhere where everyone can get to them, you'll also create a Prop (called something like 'Award Criteria') that can be used every time someone does this Activity.?You're starting to make it repeatable.
What's the lead time for applying?
Make a note of this.?It will be a trigger for starting the next Activity for this particular Award.?
Who do you need to deal with on the Awarder side?
You'll need to create a Role to represent the Award organisers.?They are external to your process, but do need to be involved in it.?For now, you might call this Role 'Award Organiser'.
How do you submit your entry?
Some Awards ask you to fill in a form.??Others ask you to find someone to nominate you.??Either way, the answer to this question tells you there as at least one Activity here.?If 'Submit Entry'?is a simple (ish) matter of completing a form, that can be your Activity.?If it requires a nomination, the Activity will be something more like 'Request Nomination', which itself may turn into a bit of a process (Who do you ask?, How do you know if they've done it, etc...)???
If you decide you're going to make a habit of entering awards, you might keep the information you submit to reuse elsewhere. That's another Prop you've created for the next time you do this.
How will you know whether your entry has been accepted??What will you do with this information?
There's another Activity here, called something like 'Receive entry confirmation'.?If you've entered for an award why not tell people??You could add the fact to your email signature(s), share the fact on social media, include it on your website.?
Some awards need people to vote for you.?What can you do to encourage votes for you??Spot the Activity there!
How will you know whether you've been shortlisted or nominated???What will you do with this information??
This leads to another Activity, this time called something like 'Get Nominated' or 'Get Shortlisted'.??As before, what further activities does this prompt??
Will there be an awards ceremony??Will you attend?
If the answer is yes in both cases, then you have another Activity, called, predictably enough, 'Attend Awards Ceremony'.
Who from your business will attend???If it's not everyone, how will you choose?
By now you've probably worked out that choosing is a separate Activity.?In this case, you might call it 'Select Attendees'.?
How you choose is completely up to you.?You could do it by sortition, have people take turns, pick a team - any criteria you like.?Or you can do what many of my clients do and treat it as a bit of team-building and take everyone.
What arrangements need to be made to make this possible? What resources are needed to make this happen?
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Whoever is going to attend, there will be arrangements that need to be made - a table booked, travel organised, perhaps even hotel stays arranged if the ceremony is to be held a long way off, or you plan to celebrate in style.?So you may end up with these Activities: 'Book Table', 'Book Travel' or 'Arrange Travel' and perhaps 'Book Hotel'.?
The resources needed tell you something about which Props you might need -?the Award ceremony booking, a train timetable, or a travel booking site, a hotel booking site, tickets.?They'll also tell you something about other external Roles that might be involved, such as the Award Organiser again, or a Travel Agent.
What will you do with this information?
As before, what further marketing activities does this prompt??If you've been nominated, tell people about it.
What will you do if you win?
Apart from celebrating, what else can you do with your win to 'Show Up' to more people, or enhance your bond with existing clients??Obviously you could share on social media, update your email signatures, post it on your website.?You could ask one of your team to write up the experience as a blog post.?Perhaps you might thank clients for their support, or for helping to make you the winning business you are.?The point is not to waste the opportunity created by this piece of content.
Who in your organisation is responsible for making all of this happen?
I'm a firm believer that people should run processes not other people, and that people should have the satisfaction of seeing a process through from beginning to end.??
So, which Role in your organisation is going to be responsible for running this 'Enter Business Award' process??They may not execute all of it, but they should be responsible for all of it.??I'm asking for a Role, because its not about an individual, but about the hat they wear.??If you are the CEO (chief everything officer), then it's going to be you, wearing your 'Promise Sharer' hat.
Who else in your organisation needs to be involved?
Your 'Promise Sharer' may be responsible, but they may need to enlist the help of others in your team.?Perhaps you have a dedicated copywriter for all your writing.?Perhaps you have an administrator who looks after all the bookings.??Make a note of these Roles.?They are not necessarily direct employees.
By now, you have a list of Activities, Props and Roles.?Now you can sketch out the process.
Get yourself some big sheets of paper and a pen or pencil.?Put the name of the overall process at the top left.?In this case 'Enter Business Award'.
Starting on the left hand side, draw a bubble and write the name of the first Activity inside it.?In this case, 'Find Business Awards to Enter'.??
To the right of this bubble, draw another one, labelled 'Choose Business Award'. You can't choose an award until you have some to choose from, so draw an arrow pointing from the first Activity to the second.?The arrow shows that?'Choose Business Award' depends on 'Find Business Awards to Enter' being completed.
Add another bubble to the right, this time called 'Submit Entry' (I'm keeping it simple :)). You can't submit an entry until you've chosen an award, so there's an arrow from 'Choose Business Award' to 'Submit Entry'.
Add another bubble to the right for 'Receive Confirmation of Entry', and an arrow from 'Submit Entry' to this new bubble (you can't receive confirmation until you've submitted an entry).?
Now add another bubble for 'Get Shortlisted', again with an arrow from 'Receive Confirmation' to 'Get Shortlisted'.?
You've probably got the idea by now.??Have a go at completing the sketch from the Activities you've identified for yourself.?Remember though, that all the arrangements for getting to the Awards ceremony need to be completed before you actually attend.?
If attending doesn't always involve travel, or hotel stays, then your process branches after 'Book Table'.?One branch goes straight to 'Attend Awards Ceremony', while the other branch goes to 'Book Travel', followed by 'Book Hotel' before arriving at 'Attend Awards Ceremony'.
Finally, this Enter Business Award process might feed into another way of Showing Up - such as publishing an article or blog post.?You can add a bubble for that at the end of this process to show the connection, but make sure you define it separately, so it can be repeated in isolation.?
Remember to answer the last question too:
How frequently do you want to do this?
Now you've sketched out a repeatable process, it would be a shame to only use it once. There may be an awards season for your industry, where there's an Award to enter every week, or this may be something you want to investigate every month, or every quarter.
Whatever the cadence, if entering awards works for you, it makes sense to make running this process a habit your business gets into.
Here's what I drew up while going through the process:
There's obviously more detail behind each bubble.? I usually capture those details as simple bullet points as reminders of what needs to happen to complete the Activity. I also include the frequency, the name of the Role responsible for doing it, and a list of Props used or created by the Activity. This helps the person playing the Role to make sure they have everything assembled before they start, and to be clear what gets produced by it.
It shouldn't take more than a page of A4 to cover all this. If you find it does, you probably have more than one Activity going on.
For now though, high-level sketches like this are really useful as a way to start getting the music out of your head and into a form that someone else can play, and although they look stupidly obvious once you've done them, you'll be surprised how useful other people find them, even without the detail.
Have a go at sketching other ways you can 'Show Up'.?And do let me know how you get on.
As always, thank you for reading.??I love to know what you think, so do tell, even if it's negative.?It's all feedback.?
Cheers,