Redefine your problem as a missing or faulty system

Yesterday I wrote about seeing versus actually solving problems. Being aware of or seeing problems is only half the battle.

If you’ve been struggling with a recurring issue in your business, and no matter what you do, it’s still there, resurfacing and rearing its ugly head then what I am about to share, will help you to become more effective at solving your problems permanently.

Yesterday I emphasized that anything you do to improve the symptom will be a temporary fix.

When problems occur we usually blame a person or an event. We think it’s their fault we are not getting the results we are after. If you work as a solo entity, usually you are exceedingly tough on yourself. You berate yourself and knock yourself into the ground with remonstrations that are usually unpleasant.

Stop doing this immediately: Blaming yourself or another person. Instead consider that if you had the right system in place, the problem would not have happened in the first place. I am not suggesting that you don’t take personal responsibility for your actions nor am I suggesting that another person isn’t responsible. What I am saying is that with the right system in place, you would eliminate the chance of being disappointed altogether!

Here are the steps to solving problems once and for all and gaining the momentum you need to keep on getting better results.

I learned this from Rich Schefren who calls this the Frustration Elimination Process:

1. Identify a problem in your business
2. Reframe it as a systems problem, from who to what
3. Probe and get specific and quantify to get at the root of the problem
4. Get clear about the problem
5. Get clear about the outcome you want
6. Complete this sentence: “The solution is to install a system that will (put in the outcome desired here)
7. Define the specific system solution and assign the task of creating it
8. Implement the solution

In his report Systemize your Success, Rich shares the following case study and shows us how to put the Frustration Elimination Process into actionl

Rich decided to grow his online business. Realizing he couldn’t do it all himself, he hired two employees. One of them was a guy called David. According to Rich, he was a nice guy who knew computers better than he did. But it never worked out with David. He continuously made mistakes, never delivered the agreed upon expected improvements and in the end, Rich had to let him go, convinced that David was a bad apple. Rich in fact thought that David was an idiot.

Using the Frustration Elimination Process as a guide let’s see how we can move the focus from off of David and reframe it as a systems issue.

Identify the problem: The problem is David. He continuously screws things up

Reframe it as a systems problem: I need to look at my staffing/hiring systems. It’s not working properly.

Probe, get specific and quantify to get to the root of the problem:

• Did I clearly define the job and the responsibilities BEFORE searching for a candidate?
• Did I interview properly to assess David’s skill-set and make sure he was a good fit?
• Did we conduct a trial run of some sort to make sure he was REALLY what we were looking for and that we were really what he was looking for?
• Was training provided? And if so how did it go?
• When did the first performance issue surface? Was it handled appropriately.

Get clear about the problem: The real problems is that our hiring system isn’t optimized and therefore we are making costly mistakes.

Get clear about the outcome you wanted: I wanted to hire a great candidate for the job, someone who could easily meet the job’s current responsibilities, and be a valuable team member to help get out startup off the ground. What I want now is to ensure that any new employee is taken through a series of trainings to help him/her get up to speed in the shortest period of time possible.

Finish the sentence: “The solution is to install a system that will (plug in the outcome desired) – The solution is to install two systems:

1. One to locate, recruit, hire and bring on board the ideal candidate for both the responsibilities of the job and as a valuable team member in this company
2. The second – to train new employees on their first day and then continue on for the first few week of employment to get employees up to speed and productive as soon as possible and also serve as a confirmation process as to whether this new employee is a best fit for the role

Tomorrow I will share the steps to defining a specific system solution and how you can go about assigning the tasks to creating it.

Want to get in contact with me to help you improve your impact and income systems? Here’s how to do it!

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