I have a lot of systems in place in my practice, but can’t get the staff to follow them.  They continue to do everything their own way, or not follow them at all.  What can I do?

Systems are vital to every business – provided they are the right systems and provided everyone has buy-in.  Your employees need to understand why the systems are there, and what difference having them there will make to them and the way they work.  If systems are imposed rather than being developed consultatively, they can cause resentment and elements of rebelliousness.

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Running a business or practice can be a daily challenge. Everyone else seemingly does it so easily, so why does it sometimes seem like so much hard work?  Business owners don’t always have someone they can turn to for answers to daily frustrations, which is why more and more are looking to find a business coach.  The most common issues revolve around people, money and time, in particular the lack of it.  Here is how I would respond to a common issue…

Our brokerage has four salespeople. Three of us are focused and enjoy what we do. The fourth person – though great when we hired her – is not only not performing, she has a really negative attitude in the office.  We have tried to support her by sending her to a motivation coach but it all seems too hard for her.  We think there’s potential there, but every day gets worse for her.  What can we do?

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Both having a clear picture of where you want the business to go and what it will look like when it is there is the primary pre-requisite. The second is having a plan or a strategy – in fact a strategy for each key area – marketing, sales, operations, financial, staffing, and so on – all of which operate within the context of your bigger picture. We call this strategic work. It is the work you do on the business as opposed to the work you do in the business.

Not doing this work, not dedicating at least one hour a day to it, is negligent and delinquent. Saying you don’t have time to do it is like saying you don’t have time to stop and fill your car with petrol. Like your car, the business will stay in one spot with a lot of people in it who only look like they are going somewhere.

The third step is action. Determine what has to be done and do it.

Start planning the actions you need to take and spend time each day fuelling your business to get where you want it to go. It often helps to create a set of timelines to show when you will tackle and complete each action within the strategy areas.

Let’s face it, it is your business and the fact is you are the only person who can make things change. No-one else in your business is equipped to do it. It’s not that they are not bright, it’s just that they see your business differently. They see it as the source of their income, the entity that provides them with their pay cheque. You, on the other hand, need to see it as something that you want to build in order for it give you a return on your investment in it. You need to build the equity and value of this thing you call your business.

The questions to ask yourself are: what are the ramifications of not implementing the systems you know you need? How long can you live with that? And, what will be the benefits of those systems once they are in place? Would that be preferable?

The problem is not that you are doing too much work – you are simply doing the wrong kind of work.

Do you want to change this picture? Click here to see how business coaching can help become a true captain of your ship of business

What do you want your business to become? How will it behave? What will set it apart from its competition? Decide what your growth goals are and set yourself targets and set some realistic milestones by which you can measure your progress.

These will include your revenue targets, the time frame in which you will achieve this, number of staff and when they will join the business, number of outlets, profitability and so on.

Duncan Lugstein, managing director of Sydney-based Corporate Technical Services (CTS) believes the key is to map out a growth destination that is real, but stretches you and that can be broken down into smaller goals. “Planning growth in your business also needs you to work on developing yourself as a manager and a leader. Be prepared to get out of your comfort zone and grow as a person as your business will be a reflection of you.”

Your next task is to be really objective and honest about the business as it is now. If it has just come out of start-up stage then it is almost certainly still very ‘you-dependent’.

In other words, without you there it would not be able to operate effectively, let alone grow. This is a wake-up moment, and a very valuable realisation, because you are now able to ask yourself key questions about what really needs to be in place for growth to happen!