7. Systems – Harnessing The Power Of Consistent Behavior

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:00:00

Why waste time documenting something that we're going to revise, improve? Remove, delete, you know, whatever, whatever it is. And so documentation of systems is useful once you know you really have a useful, effective, proper, um, whatever term you want to put around it, system in place. But people assume that by documenting it, they now have a system. Nope, they had a system long before they put any word to paper.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:00:34

Are you feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or uncertain about how to grow your business without sacrificing what really matters most? Welcome to The Business You Really Want, the show for women ready to build a sustainable, fully aligned business. Aligned with what, you ask? You. Your values. Your life. Seriously. It is possible. I'm Tonya Kubo, and along with business advisor extraordinaire Gwynn Bortner, we're here to show you how. Do you have systems in your business or do your systems have you? If you're me, it's more the latter than the former. Gwen is the queen of systems, by the way, just in case you didn't know that. Uh, so in this episode, I think it's really important to talk about identifying and optimizing the behaviors that shape your business. I'm Tanya Kubo. Uh, I am here with operations expert extraordinaire. I love this as, as the lead host here, I get to say all sorts of ridiculous things about Gwen and she can't stop me cause we're recording. As we are here, Gwen, at the end of our introductory gears series, right? Which we're exploring the five key operational functions that make up the engine of any business. We have come to the last and most certainly not least. We have talked about goals. We've talked about effectiveness, we've talked about accounting, last episode we talked about resources, and today we're talking about what I believe is the most misunderstood business function, which is systems. Now Gwen, you don't know this, but several weeks back, You gave me a definition of systems that absolutely blew my mind. So much so, I scrawled, MUST BLOG THIS, in my notebook. Okay? This is how you know I mean business, right? It's like, scrawled, that's several pages back, cause that was weeks ago. It blew my mind because I am one of those people who has spent years saying, I gotta work on my systems. I need better systems. I don't have any systems. I hired people. The people told me I didn't have systems too, so it's not like I was the only person who thought this, but when you said systems are actually behaviors, I went, Oh, now that you mentioned it, maybe I do have systems and I don't like them because I don't like the behaviors I have. So start us off there. Explain to me how I have systems if I don't know that they're there.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:03:17

Everybody has systems. There, there is, there is nothing that happens without a system. Now, you may not have consistent systems. You may not have documented systems. You may not have systems that are producing the results that you want. Those are very, very different kinds of things. But systems are happening all the time, everywhere, around everything, all. So, when someone says I don't have any systems, that is not true. They have systems. They may not have documented systems, they may not be consistent systems, they may not be the systems that they want, because a system is just a way you do something. It is a behavior. The way you answer the phone, or don't answer the phone, is a system. like, you know, your personal thing, you know. By the way, this can be used for phone calls for those who don't know. Um.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:04:17

Not by me, Gwen. Not by me.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:04:19

know, on very rare occasions, only under duress.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:04:25

I will slack you and you will call me

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:04:30

system, right? All of that's a system, it's a behavior.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:04:34

So if systems are behaviors then, and I don't think I have systems because I don't know their behaviors. Let me see how much more circular logic I can throw into this. How do I know my behaviors? How do I figure that out?

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:04:47

So, that is an observation activity, and this is why most people don't think they have systems, is it's really hard to observe ourselves.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:04:57

Okay. Mm

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:04:59

I use the phrase, uh, you know, you can't read the label from the inside of the jar. That's kind of what the situation is. It's hard to observe yourself. If you're doing it with some level of consciousness, you actually can to say, so what do I do when, you know, I'm going to keep picking like on the phone, right? The phone rings. What do you do? There is a system that we all have. We don't, it's so automatic. We don't even think about it as a system, but I know when the phone rings, the first thing I do and look as I see, is it a number that my phone recognizes? Yay, caller ID. Gosh, you know, we're old enough to have not had caller ID.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:05:34

I know! Remember when the phone rang and it was a mystery?

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:05:37

it was a mystery. It was a total mystery. So the first thing I looked is, is it anybody I know, right? That's part of my

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:05:44

Mm hmm.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:05:46

if it's someone I know, then I evaluate, um, can I answer it now? Or should I answer it now based on anything else that's going on? Like if you and I are recording like right now and the phone rang, um, I'd be upset that I haven't turned it silent, which I haven't. Um, but I would look and see is, is it one of only a person or two that I might answer the phone because it's actually potentially urgent right now, I'm not expecting anybody to have any urgent issues. So I wouldn't

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:06:14

Mm hmm.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:06:15

in Necall. That's part of my system right now. Now, if it was, we weren't recording, maybe you and I were just chatting, um, depending on who it was, I would say, Hey, this is so and so. Let me, let me find out if this is important. Um, other people would be like, yeah, no, they can wait. And I would send them off to voicemail, right? But I, if it was a number I didn't recognize, I'd immediately send it off to voicemail. All of that's a system. Now, most people don't think about it that consciously that they're just doing those things, right? This is just, but that's why it's also a behavior, right? That's your behavior of how you answer the phone. But that. Behavior is in fact the system.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:06:58

Okay. So, I know I can find out my behaviors by observing them. We tend to be terrible at that, so I can probably do, like, a task study or a time study.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:07:11

Yeah, and part of

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:07:11

to do it

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:07:12

part of it's being aware, like, I hadn't prepped that whole conversation that we just had, um, but because I'm good at observing, I was able to say, oh yeah, so what would happen? Well, if the phone rang right now, there, here are the first two questions my mind would do. And, and if you start paying attention, you can say, oh yeah, I know that if a number that doesn't recognize come up, I always put, you know, send it to voicemail. I know, you know, you, you can start paying attention to your own things and saying, Oh yeah, what am I doing here? Why am I doing that? And that's really the question. Like, Why am I making this choice? Why am I making this decision? Um, what, what is the trigger for the decision or why am I doing it? Right? I'm not going to answer the phone. The phone doesn't ring. That's the first thing. It

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:07:54

That's a good point. Okay, so the phone ringing is the trigger.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:07:58

Yeah.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:08:00

So then, how do I know, so okay, so I've observed my behaviors. How do I know when it's time to document them? Because one thing that you and me have talked about a lot of times is, a lot of times people think system equals SOP, or Standard Operating Procedure, when in reality, The SOP is just cementing or standardizing the behaviors that we've been doing all along.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:08:23

So, so often when people First talk to me about potentially working with me. One of the first things they say is, Oh, so you're going to document my systems? And the first thing is, I'm not going to do anything like that because that's not part of what I do.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:08:36

This ain't that.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:08:38

not that. And I'm not going to encourage you to do have anyone else do that either, which always shocks people. What do you mean? Well, because we don't know that those are the most effective systems that you have. Why waste time documenting something that we're going to revise, improve? Remove, delete, you know, whatever, whatever it is. And so documentation of systems is useful once you know you really have a useful, effective, proper, um, whatever term you want to put around it, system in place. But people assume that by documenting it, they now have a system. Nope, they had a system long before they put any word to paper. But if we're going to put word to paper or computer, um, then let's make sure we're actually documenting what we want to continue to do for at least some extended period of time. It may not be forever. You know, that's also part of it is these things will change over time. Um, but let's make sure we're documenting what we actually want to do. Not necessarily what we're doing.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:09:52

Got it. Okay. So we want to make sure that whatever we do document is productive. in some way. It's the best way we know how to do the thing in this given period of

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:10:04

Yep. No,

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:10:06

document a system? Um, you know, I'm a big fan of a Google Doc, but I know some people like spreadsheets. Other people like task management systems.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:10:17

No, there are multiple right answers to this. And within any organization, there's also multiple right answers to this. Um, back to getting consistent about how you're answering that question really becomes important. the important piece of

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:10:37

Mm hmm.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:10:38

Um, and so one of my things is the fewer places that you have to change something when something changes, the better. So I'm not a fan of having, um, you know, a whole set of like a project plan or a whole set of tasks in a, you know, a system like, you know, ClickUp or Asana or, you know, any,

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:10:59

Mm hmm.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:11:00

and then also duplicating that in some sort of spreadsheet or Google doc or any other place. Because now you have to change it two places

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:11:10

Right,

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:11:11

when something changes. Right. So you can say the project plan for, you know, this launch can be found here in Asana and have it link. And so then, but you know that the tasks themselves are listed out in Asana, and that's the only place that you change it. So that when someone says, yeah, where do I find the project plan for this particular launch? If they go to the Google Docs, like, oh, go here. Oh, here it is. And we assume that that is the most current version. And if anything needs to be changed, it's often changed on the fly as they're, as people are doing. It's like, oh yeah, we're not using that software anymore. We need to use this other software or, you know, whatever the case may be.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:11:53

right. Okay, so, so we've established that systems are really consistent behaviors, um, that you document, but documentation alone does not equal a system. I love that you just pointed out that, you know, systems are not special software, right? There's no right or wrong way. It can, a system can be as easy as a handwritten checklist, it sounds like, can be as complex as some kind of interactive checklist system that you have with really pricey software that I've not heard of. I'm sure if somebody listening or watching knows of this pricey software, they'll tell us about them. That's the one thing I love about having conversations like this in public view is that people can tell us the things that we haven't thought of. You've also talked about the importance of recognizing your behavior patterns, right? What, what it is you do, you know, are you the person who's always going to ignore the phone call that comes from an unrecognized number? Or are you the person who picks up every phone call just because that's your habit of picking up every phone call? So I'm wondering about the unconscious behaviors. What are the, about the behaviors that we have that we don't know we have, that could be either driving our success or maybe sabotaging it? What do you have to say about those? Mm hmm.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:13:13

So this is the place where having someone work with you outside is really, you know, that's an outside observer, really can be beneficial. Um, you know, you and I have had this conversation, I can't even guess how many dozens if not hundreds of times by now, where you will say something and I will say, well, what do you mean? Because For me, it's so natural, it's so subconscious, it's so automatic, I don't understand that it's unusual or that there's a particular nuance to it that is different than what most everybody else in the world sees or hears or does. Um, and so having someone who's able to actually look outside and say, all right, do you recognize that you do this? And for you to be able to say, well, no, why would I? I mean, of course I do that. Right. And because in our mind, that's the thing. It's like, well, of course I do that. Why, how would you not do that? And,

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:14:14

How would you not?

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:14:16

how would you not? I, I know there's several times I've said that to you. What do you mean? How would you not? And you're like, oh no, no, no one, no one else does it that way. And I'm

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:14:23

Nobody else would do that.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:14:26

It seems like craziness. And I am a really good observer of systems and behaviors. And I can't see it about myself either. Sometimes you have to have someone else watching to see what that thing is, to see what that little magic potion, what that little phrasing, whatever, you know, there can be all sorts of little things that really do make a big difference. Um, and you just can't see it for yourself because it's, it's just so natural that it's unidentifiable.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:15:04

Yes. And you know what, this reminds me of a conversation we had recently, uh, might've been last week. Might've been yesterday. Time is a, is a fuzzy thing for me sometimes. Um, so you were talking to somebody about, like, there was, you were talking to a, a business owner and there was a challenge, um, with, with a staff member and what it came, you had pointed out to the business owner, you said, well. Um, you know, your, your staff member can't get started on the project because you haven't given them enough information. And the business owner was like, yeah, I have. I told them this and this. And you're like, yeah, yeah, but that's not enough for them. And you'd said something, which was, I bet you haven't given them that piece of information because you want the freedom to change your mind later. And they went, yeah. And you actually, I mean, you tie it all to Myers Briggs. But, you know, as I was watching that interchange, I was going, Oh, so this is an example of how the business owner, because their desire to keep things fluid so that they can change their mind, they can kind of, you know, bob and weave as needed,

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:16:20

And it's been good for them. That's been part of their success,

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:16:23

right. That's part of the success. But as they are developing team members into higher level positions, it's actually working against them because These individuals can't perform at the level that the business owner expects because they don't have the information that they need. Um, so that's the most concrete example I can think of of how this whole unconscious behavior sort of sabotages success. Can you think of others or do you want to maybe expand upon that one? Mm

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:16:54

Well, let's uh, that's a great example and so let's just expand upon, upon it. Um, when, when we hold all of the cards, when we are the solopreneur, truly the solopreneur, um, you know, we get to do everything our way. Absolutely 100 percent everything our way. Um, but If the fact that I'm left handed means that you now have to do everything left handed, that could become a real problem because now I can only hire left handed people. So where are the things that we actually can do some give on, right? Where, where is there space for, for some give in there? And, Entrepreneurs, particularly solopreneurs as they start, really like the flexibility. That's a lot. I mean, often you say, why did you start your own business? Well, I wanted flexibility. You know, that

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:17:52

Freedom and flexibility,

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:17:54

and flexibility. Oh my

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:17:54

Freedom and flexibility.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:17:56

Um, but the problem is too much freedom and flexibility for anyone, including the owner, means other people can't start making decisions for themselves. Because there's no way to predict what owner answer would be,

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:18:16

Mm.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:18:17

right? Now, if we start standardizing, often the owner creative is like, that means I can't change. Well, no, you always can change, but you can't change without dealing with the consequences. Now, here's the reality that most people don't understand, is They're dealing with those consequences, whether they know they are or not. Every time that they're making that change, that shift, whatever, where before some, they were doing it, they didn't realize all the consequences that they were causing, because they were just causing them to themselves. And so it was just a thing and that's the way it went. And this is the way I work. And, you know, you can justify, you know, pretty much anything if you want, if you try hard enough. But now that there's other people in the equation. That same cost is now showing up in a different way. And so there's this reflection of what's happening with this system, right? And so that flexibility is probably still important, but the question is, how important is the thing that we're trying to remain flexible on? Um, do you really not know? Do you really need time to process? Or are you just wanting. Another two weeks to be absolutely sure that the answer that you thought of four weeks ago is still the answer that you have, um, which I see that a lot with entrepreneurs. And, and so systems start putting these pieces in place and you start finding where am I gumming up the works with me wanting to have all the flexibility. Because we often think that all of this intuition is what's actually driving, um, our, our processes, our systems, our success. Um, usually it's not. There's usually a little bit at the beginning and a little bit at the end, but most of the middle is actually fairly consistent. And the more consistent it is, you actually end up with better results. But everyone thinks they need all sorts of flexibility in all of these spaces. And, and it's, it's not actually helpful. Because it's allowing you to use up way too many cycles trying to process a decision that really you already made.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:20:41

Okay. So, uh, that actually leads into my next question. Uh, sounds like you kind of

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:20:47

when I do that.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:20:48

I like it when you do that, too. That makes my life a lot easier. Less setup on the question, right? Um, which is, you know, how do you create intentional systems that support your goals and values? And it sounds like what you just said is you figure out how much you can standardize. and still feel the freedom that's so important to you, so that you're leaving the flexibility for the things that truly need to be flexible. Do you have an example of that, like something concrete?

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:21:20

Yeah, so I'll, I'll, I'll use, Us and the way that we work. So

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:21:26

I like the yes example because I have some inside knowledge.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:21:32

couple of things that are really important to us is context matters, which means we do not have a predefined process that we're going to take you through step by step by step by step by step, because your outcome and, and, you know, the next client's outcome, even if you have very similar businesses, may be very, very different. And there's all sorts of pieces that play into that. But that doesn't mean we don't have any systems

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:21:57

Mm

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:21:58

around that. Okay. Um, we have some places that we start very consistently because we know that we need to get this set of questions.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:22:08

hmm.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:22:08

that we have an onboarding process that we want you to go through because we've seen over time it works. And so instead of being flexible about all of those things, we're not. There are some places where, you know, we do this, we do this, we do this, we do this. We have some areas that we are very, very consistent about. But there are other areas that we are very open about. When we first start working together, we have three different programs, and depending on which one, you're going to fall into one of those programs. And I'm really not very flexible for the first three to six months. After you've worked with us for a while, this is the place where, you know, the choices become possible, because I now know enough about you and your business to know, is this choice a reasonable choice or not? But I don't let you have too much flexibility because then you're not going to make a decision. You're not going to know what to do. You're not going to have, have direction, right? So we will make adjustments as time goes, as time goes forward, but we don't just let all options available Right out of the, right out of the chute, right? Um, so there is some flexibility in there, but there's also some systems in there. We're going to do this thing for a certain period of time.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:23:24

Got it. So that, that is really this, the structure that goes in there is that we know that there is this thing that we will do for a significant period of time. And then at the end of that time, then we go to the next thing, then the next thing, and that in and of itself is the system. And there are systems within that larger system, right? And I think that's also where we get tripped up, is sometimes we don't realize that there's three file folders in place here. We want to look at it all as one big parent folder. And that's not, uh, oftentimes that's just not how it works.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:24:01

it, it, it's not. And, uh, you know, for instance, we have onboarding processes and there's part of our onboarding process everybody goes through.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:24:10

Mm hmm.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:24:10

But part of our onboarding process, only certain clients that have, have purchased certain packages and certain, um, you know, consulting advisory services go through. Um, so the system is sort of the same, but there's a point where this one diverges and goes this way, but this, you know, but you're still doing this one too, right? So we all start here and then, and then some people are still doing this and doing this and others are just doing this and that's okay, right? Um, But instead of asking, you know, what do you want to do here? Do you want to do this? Do you want it? No, no, no, no. We're, you know, and that allows my folks to then also be able to know what they have to do. I can't even remember the last time I had to deal with any onboarding issue.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:25:00

right.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:25:01

Because we're doing it in a consistent way.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:25:05

Mm hmm. And what we have seen, just as an aside, is that as we have gotten consistent with how we onboard individuals, it also has streamlined the process of where people are as they start working with us, right? Everybody has a better experience because we have standardized the onboarding. So, okay, so sort of to sum up here, when we're talking about systems, we're really talking about harnessing the power of consistent behavior because everybody has a system. You have systems even when you don't think you do because systems really are consistent behaviors. And so you have helped us to appreciate, well really it's been a mutual conversation I would say, of how you identify your behaviors and it's really paying attention to what you're doing day to day. Asking yourself a question. Why did I do that? What led me to do it now versus later? Um, as it is

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:26:05

doing it? Should I not be doing it? Yeah, it's, it's

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:26:07

Am I the best person to be doing this? I think that was something you said

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:26:10

it? That's a great question to be asking.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:26:12

Right? And then when you're clear that the things that you're doing actually are the right things in the right order to get yourself to the goals that you have set, then you come in and you start writing them down. Because that, those are the things you want to make sure you, you check every box each and every time. And as far as the best way to document them, that's really between you and your own brain and how it's wired. If you're a pen and paper person, yay you. Checklist person, yay you. Project management system, yay you. You know, for your purposes, Gwen, I don't think I've ever heard you tell somebody, you know, to the granular level of Notion versus Trello versus Asana versus whatever. It's like, you do you. Am I right? Am I talking to the school here? Okay. And then

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:26:59

And, and that's a really important piece because often people think the tool will create the system.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:27:08

yes, I cannot tell you how often, how often people have said like, Oh, if you would just use Notion, you wouldn't have that problem. No, cause I'm still me. This is a me problem. It's been a me problem since I could walk. It will continue to be a me problem and they will never invent a tool that will outsmart me because I, I am committed to certain aspects of how I do things. So yes, so it's not Notion, it's not ClickUp, it's not whatever, it's just how I operate.

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:27:40

Yes.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:27:41

And, you know, one of the things that you pointed out is We have to identify and understand our behavior patterns because we need to be really aware of the things we don't realize we're doing that are secretly sabotaging our success. And you know, you pointed out it's that flexibility, that hunger for flexibility and freedom oftentimes can be our worst enemy when it comes to growing our business because that's what gets in the way of us being willing to commit to a written list of this is how we do things here. Have I left anything out?

EPISODE 7 GWEN: 00:28:14

the, yeah. And the real key about that is when you are no longer using your brain power to be making what I'm going to call everyday decisions, now they may not be every day, but they're, recurring decisions. You're actually freeing up your brain power and that choice possibility for really doing the creative work of the business. You can't explain it until someone has experienced it. When all of a sudden they're like, I have so much more time to think about this, or I came up with this great idea that I would have never Yes, that's right, because you were spending way too much time trying to figure out A or B, A or B, A or B, A or B, when you know it's A 95 percent of the time, and when it's B, it's okay if it's A. So just, just standardize on A. A's gonna be fine. Yeah.

EPISODE 7 TONYA: 00:29:09

Yeah. Okay. So, um, now, you know, I want to turn this over to our listeners. Like, I am curious, am I the only person who this perspective on systems, like, am I the only person whose mind's blown by this? Because honestly, I've never heard it discussed this way. And so I'm glad that we were able to have the conversation in public view. Uh, and I'm curious if you're listening, like, what unconscious behaviors Do you now recognize are affecting your business? And I want you to let me know. So email me at tonya, T O N Y A at everydayeffectiveness. com to tell me your story and help inform future episodes of the show. Because that's really, I think what makes this conversation about the business you really want so powerful is the ability to have those real time relevant conversations. So until next time, we will see you soon.