Time Marches On

The book is coming along slower than I had anticipated. The process includes rewrite after rewrite and it just doesn't seem to end. But, each rewrite has fewer and fewer corrections and each time I like the results more. The 77,000 word text has gone through a full professional preliminary edit but I am going to go through the editing process again. I am now in the process of selecting that editor. Also, a book designer and printer. I have updated the website and there is a new chapter one. That, and an updated Preface are now posted there. The site itself has been reworked, too.

Linda and I spent two weeks in Italy in the first part of June and then I spent a week in Alaska, returning just a couple of days ago (yes, I brought back lots of fish). Funny thing, though: While away I got an enormous amount of writing accomplished.

I am guessing Work The System will be in print by summer's end. Here's another excerpt:

Is the Focus on the Product or the System?

It seems logical that the new entrepreneur’s total efforts should be focused on the product or service itself . All energy is directed to the work that must be done, the customers who must be found – the money that must be made. And this is the problem! Focus entirely on these tasks without a systemized overall strategy and dysfunction will be imminent. Failure to adopt that outside and slightly elevated perspective is the reason that 80 out of 100 new businesses fail within five years – and it’s the reason that out of those 20 survivors, only four will be in business ten years – and less than one of the original 100 will have survived 15 years. Here’s the good-news part of those sad statistics: The bulk of those one percent survivors are doing very well indeed. And, although morbid, here’s the other good news: The vast majority of your new competitors are doomed.

What should you do right now? Start by understanding what large successful businesses have in common with each other:The owner is not doing the work. He or she is holding court, carefully observing and adjusting the systems that produce and sell the product or the service. Also, the business operation is documented into goals, methodology and procedures and this documentation is followed exactly.

Can you imagine the CEO of Wal-Mart working at a cash register? Of course not! It is the CEO’s job to implement a primary system that is clear and forthright, a system that is sensible and efficient. And it is his or her job to hire managers who see the vision and who will understand that it is their job to oversee sub-systems. If you are to operate a successful business that has intrinsic value, should your role be any different?

Large successful businesses don’t have documented systems because they are large; they are large because they have documented systems. This is an absolute key point, one that is obvious once the systems thinking epiphany strikes home.

Remember that the extraordinarily talented people of the world are already – or soon will be – operating their own businesses or professional offices. It behooves you to provide a superior situation to those talented people who are in the early stages of their careers. These are people who can become intrigued with your personal vision and who want to continue into the future with you at least for a while. These people are the bedrock of your future and they are everywhere. They are honest, hard-working people – the guts and the future of America – to these people you owe the best – and the best’s centerpiece is the carefully constructed and easy to understand systems that you provide them. And if your people grow with your company and you teach them well, it will be a compliment to you if someday they go out and start their own businesses. It will be the supreme personal compliment if they stay with you over the long term.

And, as for me? I write these words but I am nothing special. My background is lower-middle class – blue collar to be sure; my IQ is higher than average but not extraordinary. I don’t have an advanced education degree. I had a mentor for a short time. But, like most everything else, success ultimately lies in hard work and paying attention and I have been able to succeed by doing those things as well as getting things right most of the time. Of course, in the end, the systems-epiphany is what made the most difference as it steered me away from managing random results and, instead, asked me to look at how things are assembled.

And what about the typical large company CEO? Most often they are not innately special people either. What makes them unique, besides an adequate degree of intelligence and their willingness to work hard, is that they operate from a systems perspective – while the huge majority of people do not. These leaders are heavyweights because they innately understand that the moles must be eliminated, not repeatedly whacked. They see the big picture and they separate themselves from it in order to make it better.

That’s really all there is to it. The large business CEO is in charge of perfecting his or her systems and keeping them that way; constantly making efficiency adjustments and always keeping up with trends and changes. It’s the same for you and if you want to get out of the morass that 98 percent of the world struggles in, know that it’s about systems that you must be concerned.