I met a guy once, who had me over for dinner at his house. After dinner he was showing me around his house, and while showing me his kitchen he opened up one of the cupboard doors. Taped to the inside was a picture of the inside of that cupboard. I instantly stopped him and asked what was up with the picture, and he said this was one of the biggest breakthroughs he’d had in a long time to make his life easier.
He went on to explain that he had a baby sitter come over to watch their kids in the evening on a regular basis. After the kids went to bed, the baby sitter had offered to do the dishes and unload the dishwasher for him. Obviously this seemed like a great idea to him, so he instantly encouraged the baby sitter to proceed. However, he quickly found that she wasn’t aware where all of the dishes went, and it frequently happened that when he went to grab a pan, or a spatula it wasn’t where it should be and he’d spend a few minutes scrounging around the kitchen looking for it.
Realizing that the baby sitter wanted to help, but wasn’t able to remember where everything in his kitchen went, he took the time to take a picture of the inside of every drawer and cupboard in his kitchen. He then taped the picture to the inside of the door so when the sitter had a question about where to put an item, she could search the pictures for the item she was trying to put away and know exactly where it should go.
One of the biggest frustrations I come across with business owners is they know how they want something done, and they believe their way is the best way to do it. But, when their employees don’t do it the “right way” they get frustrated. Often times, this results in the business owner taking that responsibility back from the employee and loading it back onto their already overloaded schedule. While this results in temporary comfort because the job is now being done right, it causes long term problems because the owner has just stifled the opportunity for future growth in the business by not letting the business grow beyond the owner’s ability.
Out of this frustration I’ve heard more than a few business owners tell me, “It would be great if they could just read my mind and know exactly what I want them to do.” While I understand their desire, it’s obvious to both of us that no one can read another person’s mind. Trust me, I’ve been trying for over two decades with my wife, and haven’t succeeded yet. Fortunately she still loves me despite this shortcoming.
It does seem logical however, that to be a successful business you have to create staff members who are psychic, and can read your mind.
In my experience the easiest, and most often overlooked solution, short of tracking down the X-Men, to create psychic employees capable of reading your mind, is to write your mind. Think about it for a moment. If you want someone to read an email, it starts with you writing an email. You never say to someone, “Have you read the email I haven’t written yet?”. But how often do we say something along the lines of, “Why haven’t you read my mind that I haven’t written yet?”.
Yes, it’s an investment of time for you to sit down and begin documenting the specific ways you want something done, the attention to detail you want paid, and the attitude you want it done with. However, think about the ROI you’ll be getting back from this. A few returns that come to mind are: greater capacity, higher revenues, increased employee satisfaction, increased value of your business if you ever plan on selling it, and perhaps most importantly, more time for you to do whatever it is you like to do when you’re not working. Remember what that used to be like?
Start writing your mind. You can do it. Then, get everyone else in your company to write their minds too, and it will be a tremendous, psychic culture where everyone knows what everyone else is thinking about how to treat the customer the right way, how to save the company money, and how to make your business more optimized than you can imagine.
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