Last month my husband and I saw the exhibit "Bodies" near the South Street Seaport. I can easily understand the controversy it has sparked, and yet, I was never so mesmerized in a museum as I was here for 3 1/2 solid hours. Each physical layer of a person - the vascular, digestive, circulatory, reproductive, nervous, skeletal and more - is a distinct marvel of complexity. At the exhibit, each highly targeted system received its own display space. Yet ultimately, the power of these systems was revealed in their combination, creating the super computing 'human system', identical in each mechanical detail and unique in the final result.
I feel an analogy coming on.....
In fact, with respect to small businesses and their owners, I can immediately come up with 5 analogies regarding respect, care and feeding of individual components and their ability to maximize their combined value with their intended partners. The whole is more powerful than the sum of its parts. Here's how, 5 ways:
1. The appearance of functionality and normalcy that the customer or vendor sees when interacting with your business is the result of thousands of behind-the-scenes policies, decisions and collaborations that have been honed to perfection, each of which is focused on the wanted outcome for that customer or vendor. Like standing up or sitting down, it sure looks simple. Yet take a detailed look at all the cooperation it took to make those actions happen, and you have a far greater respect for how you treat each of those elements - whether it's your knees or your customers' needs, a lot can go wrong with each element that could prevent you from standing up straight or keeping that customer.
2. By creating repeatable and learnable systems, the business owner can shift the responsibility of doing the tasks of the enterprise down the ladder with reliability and consistency, thereby focusing on the big picture and being the visionary each brain can be.
3. Like lungs processing oxygen-rich blood throughout the body, employees are charged with individual assignments of responsibility. Yet, their full value is revealed when aligned with the activities of other individuals in their department and in the whole business. If the lung is damaged (and man, you should see what tar-encrusted lungs look like!) the whole body can begin to break down. If an employee is not responding to her/his job with full focus and enthusiasm, it will travel across and compromise the whole company.
4. A breakdown in internal communications can destroy business production, schedules, deadlines, performance requirements, morale and more, much like a malfunctioning synapse prevents signals from one nerve to another, bringing down movement and response.
5. While all companies share a variety of common elements - concerns for marketing, production, human resources, finance, strategic choices, reputation, cost containment, inventory, product quality and such - they each create distinct personalities or cultures. It's this intangible attribute that often becomes the reputation by which they are known, like each of us.
When our body sends signals to let us know something has gone wrong, we make changes to how we're treating it: nutrition, exercise, sleep, relaxation are some of the key changes we consider. When our business sends a signal something is going wrong, it's the time to review its components to determine how to correct or improve things. Looking to outside forces (like miserable customers, competition, regulation, economy) to blame will provide no relief or improvement. Being in control of your health or that of your company takes a pro-active, appropriately responsive stance. So perhaps it's time for a semi-annual physical?
Got your own analogy of how a business structure, composed of many smaller components, compares to the remarkable human body? Send it to me and I'll publish it in the next issue, with full attribution and you'll get an extra 'thank you' surprise, as well.