Get More Out of Your Business – Or Get Out of Your Business?
It seems that there is a quaint ritual involving some odd animal in the USA that determines if it spring yet – and it was the trigger for the movie “Ground Hog Day” with Bill Murray. (It is usually around February 2nd)
The was funny, but with a message for business owners. It centres on the idea of what you could do if you were able to relive the same day – over and over – and recall the mistakes/errors/what worked from the previous versions of the day. And in the movie – this leads our hero to his “perfect day”.
In the normal course of my day, I meet people who have built themselves a similar “loop”, except that they somehow manage to “forget” the errors/mistakes/lessons/what worked from the previous day. These business owners just get up – and go again. And again. And again.
Over the last 40 years I have attended hundreds of “trainings”, “development courses”, “workshops” and such. And the very best of them have one thing in common. Just one thing that makes them transformative rather than just another training course.
And it is this “one thing” that is the key to the movie “Groundhog Day”, as well as moving your business to the better place. This “one thing” reminds me of another movie – “City Slickers”, where the Jack Palance tough cowboy character “Curly” explains to us the secret of life is “One thing, just one thing…” And then dies without tell us what it was!
Well – here is the secret to the difference in a workshop, seminar or just one day working in your business.
It is simple. There is more strategic value in the debriefing after an “exercise/job/activity/work day” than there is in the activity. This means that after a training activity – which ideally is designed for things to go wrong – the MOST IMPORTANT step is to stop, review and consider – What did I just learn? How will this impact on how I do things in the future? What might those changes in the way that I/We do things cause to happen in your life?
There is a saying: If you are in a rut – stop digging!
Anther variation is “If your horse is dead – dismount.” The key to avoiding a Groundhog Business and a Groundhog Life is stop regularly, pull your head up out of the hole you are digging, look around and consider what you have just learned, and how that affects how you will do things next.
What if you and I went out into the world and asked a thousand people “After considering what you learned in your business in 2012, what are you going to do differently, stop doing, do more of or less of – in your business in 2013?”
Some would actually have a great list, a plan to change things for the better based on what they learned about business and about themselves. Fewer would have that list written down clearly with some action steps with deadlines. And a tiny proportion will have added that secret ingredient that will release them from Groundhog Syndrome. (That is where you take a photocopy of your business (or life) for a year, and then just repeat that every year. Year after year.)
And the secret ingredient? Stop digging, put your head up high (eg Helicopeter view) where you can look both forward and backward so you can see what you have done and where you have been, plus where you are currently heading compared to where you want to be heading. And the turbocharger for the secret ingredient?
Turbocharger is the regularity and ritual that you do your review process in. If you do a review just once per year – you get ONE chance per year to adapt, adjust, change course, speed up, slow down. If you do it quarterly – you get 4 goes at adjusting your course. Monthly – is 12 adjustments.
What happens to the amount of time, energy and money that is wasted the longer we travel along the wrong road or in the wrong direction for us? What happens to the waste when we increase the frequency of checking we are still on course – and make corrections?
I have found that when I (and my clients) have a daily ritual (made into a form) – that requires us to stop, debrief, review, then plan and allocate focus to the most important things – then “Change Miracles” happen. This is a DAILY form.
When this form is completed daily for long enough – it crushes your “Groundhog Programs and Habits”. Because as you become the high-powered person who stops, considers lessons, reviews what is important and ideal, then determines the actions and schedules for the next day – it means that you have stood up, taken hold of the rudder of your life and started to steer.
And once you begin to steer your life, you are no longer a victim of the tides, the winds or the sharp, barnacled rocks of life.
You get to show leadership – for yourself, your business and your life. And we can only do this when we look up, around, consider, review and then actively STEER. Steering means taking actions to stay on course. This means making changes. If you are heading for rocks, or around in circles (Groundhogs!) – it might be time to pull your head out of your rut and take ownership of your own ship.
Cheers
James
Ps if you would like a copy of my Daily Planning Form – contact me.
Pps I will be watching Groundhog Day again on Groundhog Day. Approximately February 2nd