If you’ve been contemplating starting your own business, good for you! But be forewarned: prepare to be busy. There’s so much to think about and lots to be done. You’ll be working long hours with very few breaks for a good long while, so before you jump right in, it’s a good idea to sit back and take (what might be) your last calm, deep breath. Relax, take a moment, and contemplate exactly who you are as a person. After all, you’re the one who’s going to lead your team to victory, and knowing your instinctual habits will help you map out a plan for success.
When I founded SkillPath Seminars, I walked into 1200 square feet of unfurnished office space, sat down on a chair that I had borrowed from the building’s communal break room, and started thinking about all the processes that would be required to create a “soup to nuts” seminar company. Talk about a blank slate! Every single aspect of the business had to be invented from scratch—not just the seminars themselves (I already had plenty of experience creating and delivering training programs, so that was no problem), but all the “behind the scenes” systems that make a seminar company run smoothly: enrollment systems, billing systems, customer service scripts—every last thing, both big and small. I had absolutely no pre-made templates, no business forms I’d purchased online, no how-to manuals.
The company eventually grew to become the world’s largest public training company: 350 employees, 700 trainers, and $200 million in annual sales—so I guess you could say that I have a lot of experience in successfully analyzing my personal, instinctual work habits, as well as my vision for SkillPath (its mission, products, and services), and then conveying the information to those I eventually hired.
Here’s a simple, two-part exercise I found to be very helpful before I ever put pen to paper and laid out a plan:
- Start with a brief personal analysis. It doesn’t have to be too complicated, formal, or lengthy. What comes naturally to you? What are you already good at doing? What do you need to improve upon? What do you struggle with? Is there anything that you avoid doing? Anything you out-and-out hate doing? What stresses you out? What’s your best/worst time of day for tackling various types of projects? Knowing the answers to questions like these will help you understand how you see the world—and the company you’re creating. I guarantee that your company will be an extension of your character and temperament, even if you attempt to resist the pull of your “personality gravity.”
As a quick aside, I often refer to SkillPath Seminars as my “firstborn.” I have two human children who came along later, who always pretend to hate this joke, but it’s candidly true. Creating a company is like birthing a child. They take on your traits, for better or for worse, so embrace this phenomenon and make it work for you.
- Now think about your employees—both real (if you’ve already hired them) or imagined (if they’re yet to be found). What drives them? What gets them excited? What aspects of work are they most likely to enjoy? What will they attempt to put off or avoid altogether? And the biggest question of all: In what ways are they likely to naturally differ from you? This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to assessing your instinctual habits and creating replicable workplace processes. It’s in the gap—the one between your intrinsic personality traits and your employees’ natural inclinations—that you will do your most challenging work as a leader and creator.
Armed with an awareness of your personal predispositions, tendencies, and biases (both positive and negative), coupled with an awareness of how your employees’ views may vary from yours, it becomes much easier to create instructional systems for your employees that are understandable, unambiguous, and un-screw-up-able—from how to handle unhappy customers, to how to collect overdue accounts, to how to organize the company’s social get-togethers.
For example, I’m a friendly, highly verbal type of person, and I’m also a psychologist, so I wouldn’t necessarily need much training (or even a script) for how to deal with an unhappy customer—you could say that I have an instinctual habit of solving problems positively and enjoyably. However, most people differ from my attitude toward resolving conflict, so in creating a system for handling complaints, I had to communicate my vision of comprehensive customer satisfaction in specific detail, employing very clear instructions—and with discernible enthusiasm! (Passion and enthusiasm are always contagious and serve to reinforce important messages.) I also incline toward perfectionism, although many people do not, so I needed to communicate my instinctual habit of 100% accuracy to my employees, using very concrete examples and “gnat’s eyelash” instructions—delivered, again, with positive enthusiasm.
Here’s the bottom line: Virtually all skills are learnable if the directions are clear. So as the creator of your new business, be sure to keep talking, instructing, giving feedback (especially the positive sort), and don’t leave your employees guessing about how to translate your instinctual habits into their concrete workplace processes.
As business leaders, we must practice clear, thorough, well-thought-out communication, in both written and oral form, and to convey our vision with clarity. Knowing where your natural disposition is likely to vary from the “average person’s” disposition will help you see where to place the extra effort.
That’s it for today! Thanks for being a reader and/or follower. And as usual, please send me feedback on this article, as well as suggestions for future topics. I read all your comments personally, and I appreciate your support and feedback. See you next time!