How to Fix Big Problems

Let me be honest with you: as I’ve shared before, we’ve had a bumpy time here at Heart of Business until recently.

When we finally hired Lincoln Wachtel, our new operations manager, we had had several months of dropping balls. Not responding to emails in a timely manner, missing commitments.

We weren’t coming apart at the seams, and we were still taking care of business. But we had entered “Whitewater,” a term Les McKeown describes in his best-selling book Predictable Success. Briefly, it’s when a business has grown beyond the ability for an individual founder or even the hardest working team to keep things going smoothly without implementing more sophisticated systems and workflows.

Thankfully, between Lincoln and Susan, our amazing administrative wonder, we are righting the ship, so to speak.

I know it’s risky to talk about business problems. We teach business, how can we have problems? Shouldn’t we have it all figured out? I take heart from one of my business/activist heroes and Smith and Hawken cofounder Paul Hawken, who said, “The job of a business owner isn’t to make sure there aren’t any problems. It’s to make sure that the problems are interesting.”

A boring problem is one that keeps happening over and over. An interesting problem is something new, especially one caused by growth. For many self-employed people, it would be a new problem to confront the need for systems and workflows because of growth. What a nice problem to have!

I don’t feel any shame in having had problems. And after we’ve got a handle on them, I like to make them visible to you so you can learn from us.

There are two main lessons I want you to take away from my stumblings.

First: We Rarely Know At First Exactly What Mistake We Made

All we know is that something is “off.” It’s not working the way we expected. I had a ten year track record of growth, I forgive myself for comparing ten years of growth, with two or three stumbles and misunderstanding the systemic nature of problem.

When you finish our no-cost Remembrance Challenge you get the Cleaning Up Mistakes in Business workbook. In there, I describe a Sufi spiritual practice that helps you face mistakes or other problems where something feels “off” and discover where the most foundational miss-step actually happened.

It’s a powerful healing process, and extremely helpful in cleaning up business mistakes. I finally used it (that’s the problem, just because you own a tool… well… you have to use it for it to work) and got clarity.

The clarity was to receive empathy, rest and love, and then to get better help. I’m grateful to get help from Les McKeown himself. He was able to help me big time, basically by repeating what I had already read in his book (face-palm).

Actually, he helped me a lot more than that. As did my mastermind (thank you! Michael, Eric , Jen, Molly, Michele) The point is, that the empathy, rest and love allowed me to reach out for help without shame, and to get on the path moving forward.

Which leads me to the second lesson I want you to take away.

Second: Don’t Fix the Problem with More of the Problem

When I hired Lincoln this is what I told him:

“We have a lot of balls in the air, and we’ve been dropping some of them. Because of that, we’ve all been working hard and become frustrated. Your job is NOT to recreate this culture.

“Your job, and my job from now on, is to stare those dropped balls in the eye and instead of running around trying to pick them up, to slowly, methodically put in place the systems, workflow and culture that will keep those balls in the air effortlessly, with a lot less work.”

It’s not been easy. It’s painful knowing that people are waiting to hear from me, and yet I’m not going to work an extra five hours trying to get all of those emails answered. And I’m not going to ask it of Lincoln or Susan.

I told myself and Lincoln what I told a client some years ago: If you work in an unsustainable manner trying to make up for lost time, it’s like spending money on a credit card. You’re spending energy you don’t have.

Our job is to live within our means, financially and energetically. This means doing less. And it also means implementing systems and workflows to be able to get more done with less work.

It’s wonderful how far we’ve come in a short time, and I’m looking forward to even more! Lincoln has been a miracle for us, and in my heart it’s feeling like 2013 is going to be a really fun year at Heart of Business.

Some of the effects that have come from this approach:

• We had our first team retreat, and made some amazing decisions, as well as feeling the cohesion of our team for the first time. I was in tears feeling the support and love. Thank you Susan, Holly, Jason, Yollana, Lincoln and Rachna!
• Our last three promotions have oversold our numbers easily, without effort or push.
• Our cash flow and revenue recovered from a dip earlier in the year, putting us on much sounder footing.
• Each member of the team reports feeling happier, more engaged, more creative, more rested. That’s certainly true of me.
• I taught the first live workshops in 3 years, all of which were profitable.

It feels great to come through such a bumpy time having learned so much and developed tremendously.

Sometimes business is about growth. Sometimes it’s about developing so that you can support the growth you’ve had, and potentially have more growth.

Sometimes it’s just about gratitude for where we are. Today it’s about gratitude.

I’m curious: are you in a phase of growth, development, or gratitude? Are there any problems you need to stare down with love and compassion? Please tell me in the comments.

p.s. Opening the Moneyflow Program

Later in November we’re going to be opening up registration for our year-long Opening the Moneyflow program, details forthcoming. I mention it here simply so you can start to think about what it would be like to have all three of us, Jason, Yollana and myself, actively engaged in supporting your business. The support I’ve received? We love being that support for others as well.