🎯 Work Smart Wednesday - April 24, 2024

How I ensure problems don’t reoccur, Overcoming burnout: a real coaching session recording, and a quote on going deeper

Work Smart Wednesday

👋 Hey there!

Here is your weekly dose of Work Smart Wednesday

In these emails I will share with you 3 things to help you work smarter in 3 minutes or less. That leaves you with 10,077 more minutes to conquer your goals this week

1. 🌳 How I ensure problems don’t reoccur

We often get so caught up considering what is in front of us that we cannot see what is behind it, we struggle to see the root causes of things ourselves. We fail to see the wood for the trees.

Last week, in one of my client calls, a client was explaining to me how he was frustrated that he is working long hours because his client created issues in his project by hiring an adjacent team without telling him.

My client believed that the issue was a lack of communication. It wasn’t.

When we delved into it, it was clear that everybody had communicated reasonably clearly. 

The issue was trust - his client didn’t believe he could meet the deadline, so hired help. But it doesn’t end there.

When we looked into that trust issue further, it turned out to be caused by a perceived lack of control. His client didn’t trust him because he seemed busy. We took it a step further, and found that my client had a common limiting belief that it is better to be (and to look) busy. This belief was the root cause.

If we had taken things at face value, we would have settled on having a stern word with the client and implementing improved communications policies.

After looking at things in depth, we did something completely different. We discussed what it looks like to be in control, and what we can do to improve both our reality of control and our outward appearance of control.

We don’t want to fix a problem, we want to prevent a problem from ever occurring. As I have shared before, “a clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it”. Improving communications policy would mean that next time a client wants to undermine us they would actually tell us about it. However, improving our sense and appearance of control means that we stop a client from ever feeling that they need to undermine us in the first place.

The client isn’t a bad client. We want to tackle the root cause to prevent them becoming a bad client - bad clients are often our fault as we train our clients with every interaction - and to prevent future issues. 

Five lessons from this:

1. Don’t try to look busy.

2. The real issue is often hidden.

3. Your sense of control over your business is critically important.

4. Analyse why something went wrong. Keep asking why until you find the root.

5. Get an external perspective. It really helps.

Iceberg model for system thinking: My client had stopped analysing at the “Events” stage, he identified that an issue was caused by lack of communication. When we looked deeper, we discovered that my client had a common limiting belief that it is better to be (and to look) busy. This belief was the root cause of this - and other - issues. By helping him identify this, I am able to create an action plan with the client to tackle the root issue which has unlocked highly leveraged growth.

👋 Want to work together?

When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

🔍 Clarity Call - we will discuss your situation and create a step-by-step action plan together so you know exactly what you need to do next for maximum impact

👓 StartSmart - Achieve a 6 figure income within 6 months, whether you only have an idea or you have already started your business

🧘 Overload to Optimal - reduce your workweek to 20 hours or less within 90 days while running your 6/7 figure business

2. 🕯️ Overcoming burnout: a real coaching session recording

Are you currently experiencing burnout?

Alternatively, are you interested in hiring a coach but you have no idea if or how it really works?

This podcast episode is for you.

This is one of my favourite podcasts for both coaches and potential coachees to listen to. In every episode you listen to a real coaching call, with occasional pauses as the coach interjects with her interpretation of what is happening (and why!) to help you understand the situation more deeply.

Podcast name: Coaching Real Leaders

Episode title: On the Brink of Burnout

This particular episode is about an employee (a manager), but the lesson is very applicable to entrepreneurs.

Counterintuitive advice raised: Saying no to more stuff isn't necessarily the answer. Often the root cause is deeper.

Logo of the Harvard Business Review (HBR) Coaching Real Leaders podcast

3. 💡 Quote I'm pondering

"“Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.

Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.” - David Lynch

Dive deep into the root cause. It is hard at first, but it is a skill you can improve in. Seek quality external perspectives.

That's it! I can't wait to hear what you think. What did you find most useful? What do you want more or less of? Reply to this email now and let me know

Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I want to know about it😊

Have a great week,
John


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