How To Get Team Buy With Your Business Systems

Welcome back to the Business Processes Simplified podcast. I am normally your host, David Jennings. I am not your host today. I am the guest again. We're up to episode number two in this little mini series about systemology, and I'll hand over to Charlie and let you drive from here.

Thank you so much for joining me on my temporary podcast at the moment. Dave, it's a pleasure to have you as a guest on part two of this series. How are you doing? Good, good.

The pleasure is all mine.

No, I had a heap of fun on the first episode where we went really into Define, and if you haven't checked that out already, I would encourage you to go back and listen to that first one. We talk all about defining system, which. Which I thought was a lot of fun to hear the stories behind the book that is coming out in this part, though, Dave, we're going to be going deep into Integrate, and I have a funny feeling there's going to be a lot of laughs throughout these because I. I'm even reminiscing on some of the stories of my own experience. And I can only imagine what you've seen. But before we get into that, I just want to give everyone a reminder. The book will be out on the 18th of August. So wherever you are on the 18th of August or past it, I would encourage you to get a copy of it. It's coming out on Audible, it's coming out on Kindle, and it's coming out on Hard copy. Available everywhere. Amazon, I presume, will be the number one culprit, but we'll get it from there. So, Dave, I really want to open this one up in talking and defining the topic here on Integrate. So when you think about integrating systems and how it's presented in the book, tell us what it is.

The whole idea of the integrate stage is particularly focused to break the myth or bust the myth that your team won't follow the systems that you have in place even if you create them. And, and I heard that all the time and still do hear it where, look, there's no point in me creating systems because my team has a way of doing things and they'll just tell me, oh, well, why do I have to change? I've always done it this way, and it's that level of resistance that they believe will exist. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen. And I'm going to suggest when people go through the book that they actually test these assumptions because they've got a lot of assumptions around systemization that, that they may have just reached those conclusions very quickly, very prematurely and without any proper follow through. And oftentimes when you introduce change to a business or any organization, there will be some like a teething period. You will get some level of resistance. You have to push through that resistance and then that's where you get the biggest reward. So this is actually of all of the chapters in the book and all of the stages, I actually think it's probably the least well addressed area of business systems. So when I think about business, I often talk about the idea that business systems is one of the least addressed parts of business, particularly for small business. Like no one really talks about the systems and processes for small business to really make a small business. Hum. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Like oftentimes the business owner just doesn't get excited by the idea. And I'm trying to bring some of that excitement back. But within that topic of business systems, if you almost imagine like a segment of that is now the integration piece. It's the, the piece around getting your team to actually follow them. That's the least least addressed area of the least addressed area. So this is the bit I really want to make a big mark on in the category for how do you get your team to follow systems? It's one thing to have it documented, it's another thing to have the right tools in place. But how do you actually get buy in? Because without buying it doesn't matter you know, what you've got in place or how great your tools are. Because it won't matter anyway because your team's not following them.

Oh, completely. And I'm just laughing. I wonder if this is like I always laugh in these conversations because I think of when I did this. It's like if I was on a dating podcast. I think about my dating experiences, but nonetheless I think I made integration a bigger deal than it needed to be. I think I'd built up preconceptions and probably control freak mentality that my team wouldn't follow it. And it was really surprising how they actually did. Like, it was very interesting to see how it all kind of rolled out. Have you ever come across a situation when it's come to integration where the team that was in place didn't integrate and you've actually had to change people? Because I think this is probably something from my own experience where I noticed that certain people were great in the beginning of the business, but then they actually became huge friction points when we wanted to become more systemized and we're actually better off being replaced. So I wonder if you'd ever seen.

That before, seen it many times before. And you actually touched on a couple of things. Firstly, around that idea that the business owner is oftentimes wired a certain way. The entrepreneur brain, their brain works differently than a lot of other employees and team members and things like that. So the business owner can't help but see the world through their eyes. And they're imagining, how would I respond if I was in that person's shoes. Or they don't even, they try and think that, but they're actually still looking through it through their vantage point, which would be, oh, this is how I would respond if someone tried to introduce a system or a process. And they are often just projecting themselves onto the team member thinking, oh, look, I am rubbish at following systems and processes. And for those who are not listening, not watching the video here, Charlie's raising his hand.

I'm just laughing. I've realized that I was resistant to the change that I wanted to happen.

Yes, it's. So there's a level of this sabotage that goes on because the business owner thinks, well, because I would be horrible at following systems and processes, that means the rest of my staff would be as well. And there is a real difference in mentality from a business owner to a staff member to even a manager, for example. The business owner is often a visionary thinker. They see problems out there in the world, they, they want to solve that problem, they start a business to solve that problem and then to get it off the ground, there's a thousand things that they should be doing. There's never enough time in the day when you're in startup mode, so you have to firefight. You have to go for whatever is the most urgent issue that's front and center for you right now. And you just jump from one thing to the next. And that's okay. That's part of the business. You go through that process. But then there has to be a point. Most business owners get stuck there and all of their skills and behaviors get reinforced because they're acting a certain way and it's helped the business grow to a certain point. And now they think, oh, this is the way that I should be operating and this is how you build a great business. But what they've effectively done is built this machine that, that is so heavily dependent on them. Everything bottlenecks through them, and obviously their capacity is going to tap out, they'll hit a ceiling. And to grow through to that next level, the thing you need to focus on is actually increasing capacity of the business. Once you get to a certain level, then to grow through, you need to be able to take on more work so that you can crank up your marketing and your sales and things like that. So if that's the way that the business owner is wired and they're oftentimes just, you know, in reaction mode, they think that their staff would be in a similar position. But the truth of the matter is when you start to hire a players, they really shine. And underneath a systems culture, they thrive because it gives them an opportunity to demonstrate how great they are. And systems tells them, here's how to excel at your role. I'm going to tell you up front, here's the things that you need to do, here's the outcome that I'm looking for, here's how to do it. And that's great for them because now they can deliver to the standard that you're after. So systems and processes, as long as you're including as part of your recruitment criteria, and you look for that characteristic early, following systems and processes is something you want to bake into your organization. Now, the second part to your question addressed this idea of, well, what happens then? If you realize now that you want to build a systemized culture, but you're already quite far down the path, you've started to build teams.