During the holidays one morning, I leaned over and watched a video my wife had on her tablet about how to make chocolatey peanut butter abominations called Buckeyes. (If you’re not familiar, go YouTube a recipe video.)
My lovely bride had attempted several times to make these things before. They were delicious, of course — how could you go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter? — but they just weren’t very pretty.
This time she was determined to try again for my relatives. As she watched the video, she got to the part where you dip the peanut butter balls into melted chocolate and said out loud:
Welllll, shoot!
(Only, she didn’t actually say shoot)
I leaned in closer and saw the chef using a toothpick to dip them. Suddenly it all clicked: my wife’s previous attempts had not incorporated a toothpick. I began to giggle, picturing her fishing soggy peanut butter globs out of melted chocolate with spatulas, spoons, forks… or fingers.
That’s when I had a realization: while process may be one of my fluent business languages, it isn’t everyone’s.
I’m a process guy. But not everyone thinks that way. Some people are creatives, marketers, numbers people, or emotional-intelligence types — and they may not spend much time thinking about how to do something. Just like my wife might argue that I don’t spend enough time working on my emotional intelligence.
One of my clients, for example, is a gifted marketing mind — but “process” just isn’t his thing. He’s been winging it for years. He probably has that nagging sense there must be a better way, but he’s too caught up in the daily pressures of the business to step back and rethink.
It took me about ten seconds looking at one of his “backed into” processes to see why his business was draining him. He was simply too close to it. Sometimes it takes an outsider with fresh eyes to spot the obvious.
In another case, I noticed a couple of steps in his process that felt unnecessary. I suspected they’d been added to avoid upsetting a sacred cow. Sure enough, after asking some pointed questions, he realized the “sacred” step was actually costing him margin on every sale and wasting time. The end customer never saw it and would never miss it if it disappeared.
Now — sometimes the cow really is sacred, depending on strategy. But you can’t know that until you step back and question it.
So here’s the takeaway: know your strengths, and know where you might need help. Everybody can use fresh eyes — or at least a toothpick.
If you’ve got a nagging sense one of your processes is too complex (or too vague, with your team just winging it), let’s talk. Email me at bob@highlandross.com.