Module 5: Lead Boldly
Business Improvement Workshop
An important part of the Box Theory™ Way is to hold regular business or systems improvement workshops, weekly if possible.
Meetings are among your most important business systems and the best place to start building a results-driven culture. Every meeting you hold should have a payoff!
Workshop-Style Meetings
Workshop-style meetings work exceptionally well. These meetings have the specific purpose of improving every aspect of your operation. In each workshop, you will focus all the relevant people on fixing or elevating just one part of the business—one system.
Together you will brainstorm ideas on how to improve the business systems that are holding your company back. For example, you might develop or refine procedures to become more customer-centered or seek to remove waste and rework from your operation. You will also create company policies that support your new or improved systems.
Learn, Improve and Grow Together
In these improvement meetings, your engaged staff will not only help you see problems and challenges more clearly, but they will usually know how to fix them. Your role is not to solve every problem single-handedly, but to guide the discussion and offer your experience and good judgment along the way. Keep in mind that when you invite open dialog, your people may point out the brutal facts about your company’s flaws, weakness, and “unconscious incompetence.” Welcome their constructive comments.
Remember: People liked to be asked their opinion. They want to add value to the organization and be recognized for their contribution. A business system built by those vested in its success will have far greater buy-in and results.
Work On the Business
Michael Gerber, author of “E-Myth Revisited,” said that most entrepreneurs work in the business and not so much on the business. Time spent every week in collaborative meetings working on the business to improve processes and policies will do more to get your company running smoothly and profitably than anything else you can do.
- Purpose: Learn how to put on a successful business improvement workshop.
- Principles:
Read Your First Business Improvement Workshop (7 min)
Read Box Theory™: All About Boxes (Sections 7 pg 22 and 9 pg 28; 5 min)
Read from eCourse chapter, “Leadership – Working Together” (12 min) - Enrichment:
Four Easy Steps to Creating a New Business System! (using a whiteboard)
What Do We Need to Fix and How Do We Fix It? (PDF)
Business Improvement: Eight Questions to Energize Your Team!
How a Systems Thinker Solves Problems
Work ON the Business: 7 Tips to Do It Right
Examples of Improved Business Systems
Process Improvement: The Rules of Engagement