Does your inside match the outside you want the world to see? What about your business, is it like that too? Let me take it from the top. One of my mentors, Brian Tracy, has said that “You have to become the person you want to be on the inside, before that person becomes visible on the outside”. By that he means that we have to work on our inner self before it is visible from the outside who we really are. So if we want to be seen as honest and decent to do business with, we have to create that personality for ourselves. We must have the perception that we are like that. Who you are on the inside is also shown on the outside for others to see. If there is a discrepancy between who you really are and who you show yourself to be, people will pick up on signals that something is not right and warning bells will ring. It is only people with psychopathy who can survive for a long time, which is what makes them so dangerous. Have you heard of what’s called the Johari Window, developed by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham? They divide this into a classic quadrilateral, called arenas, where the axes are what I know about myself and the other is what others know about me.
- An arena is what I know about myself and what others know about me. There is what you know about yourself and you also show it outwardly. Others know and see what you are also aware of.
- Another arena is that which is unknown to you but which others know about you. There are things that you show outwardly, but you are unaware of it.
- The third arena is what you know about yourself, but others do not. You have a ‘secret’, which you choose not to share.
- And the fourth arena is what neither others nor you know about you. These are things that are hidden.
What I find interesting, unlike many typical four-bar windows, is that you can measure this and get different sizes of the parts in the window. The bars in the window end up in different places depending on who you are. Some have larger open fields, while others have larger hidden fields. Some know more about themselves, others less.
What is it like in our businesses?
Then I shift the focus from us as people to our businesses. Because this can be translated to our organizations. As I mention in my trainings, in a business we need to focus on the individual, the group and the whole organization. The organization is made up of groups, which are made up of individuals. That is, an organization is built as a sum of all its constituent individuals. This means making 2+2 more than 4, because then we have created something more in the synergies between people. An organization also needs to create an internal image of who it is before it can be seen outwardly in the way it wants to be perceived. If you want to be an honest and fair business, with a real focus on customers, then you first need to agree internally that this is how you really are. I think you can probably immediately think of businesses that outwardly say they are customer-centric or “have the customer in focus”, but then they deliver quite a poor customer experience.
Is the patient in focus?
“The patient in focus” is quite common in healthcare, but then the care queues and reports to IVO grow, and patients are sent here and there. This is because they do not internally have the common view that it is actually the patient who is in focus, but they are more based on their own organizational affiliation. At the same time, there are so many other things that they have to deal with, which has not supported the patients. It’s similar in many organizations, so I’m not just going to highlight healthcare as the only problem area. Far from it, however, it is extra important that it works with “customers” who in this case are in great need of getting the help they need and are weak in their role as “customer“. There is an extra responsibility on such a “provider” to live up to a good business. I come across many organizations that say they struggle to retain staff and have difficulty recruiting new ones. Those who leave because things are not working well in the organization naturally pass this on, which in turn means that those who might previously have considered applying for a position in that organization refrain. Of course, such an organization does not really want to be a negative place, but they have not managed to do anything about it internally.
Tip of the week!
So this week’s tip is for you to work together in your organization on the following:
- Decide that the points below are important. If they are not, don’t do them. It will only take a lot of time and hurt your improvement efforts if you do things you are not serious about. If you are serious, then read on…
- Describe how you want your customers and others to see you as a business. What are the epithets you want to be known for? Be precise in your description, because fluffy descriptions make it harder to live up to them.
- Find out how your external stakeholders, mainly your customers, see you in terms of who you want to be. Ask them. This will create a baseline against which you can measure in step 5.
- Then describe what these external epithets require of you on the inside. How do you need to think and behave to confidently become who you want to be and who your customers should see?
- Create a plan of activities to ensure that what you came up with in point three will also be able to come true. This plan has three perspectives: short, medium and long term.
- The short-term perspective needs to include very concrete things to do in the next three months. No longer, because then there is a good chance it will run out of steam. It wants to lift you up quickly, change course, completely change, or whatever expression resonates best with you.
- The medium-term perspective should include ways to measure and follow up that there is the desired change internally. Ask yourselves if you think you have come closer to your own desired self-image. If not, take corrective action to continue developing.
- The long term perspective includes measuring and monitoring how external stakeholders now view you. Use the same survey that you used in three above. Now you will be able to see if there is a development in the right direction. If it is not, you will have to implement corrective actions again to ensure progress.
Then perhaps I need to be very clear that there are no sacred cows when it comes to creating the business you want to be known for. No “it’s not possible because…”, because then you have already given up on becoming who you want to be. It’s probably going to sting in places, because it makes improvement work. It costs to get better, but it will also be much better and easier up front, when you have become who you want to be.
Why not think about the above now in the coming months? Make a little plan for yourself and you can start next month. If the above triggered thoughts that you want to discuss with me, please reply to this email and I can give you some advice tailored to your business. We can do an online consultation. No cost or obligation on your part.
