EP 356: Creating A System Of Care
b'Systems have a reputation.\\n\\n\\n\\nIf you\\u2019ve ever thought to yourself, as I have, \\u201cOh, I\\u2019m just not a systems person,\\u201d you might know what I mean.\\n\\n\\n\\nOften, the way we talk about systems is tangled up in talk about software, procedures, rules, and a sort of legalistic structure for \\u201cthis is how we do things here.\\u201d\\n\\n\\n\\nWhen you say, \\u201cI\\u2019m not a systems person,\\u201d you\\u2019re likely expressing the kind of claustrophobic feeling that comes from being confined to a set of rules\\u2014even if they\\u2019re rules you yourself created!\\n\\n\\n\\nWhen you say, \\u201cI am a systems person,\\u201d you might very well be expressing the relief that having clear instructions and a solid expectation of how a goal is accomplished can deliver. Systems are a way of easing anxiety for you.\\n\\n\\n\\nI can easily find myself in both camps.\\n\\n\\n\\nI might identify as a \\u201csystems person\\u201d in the morning and \\u201cnot a systems person\\u201d by the afternoon.\\n\\n\\n\\nAnd I\\u2019ve noticed that, for me, there\\u2019s a moral component to how I\\u2019m feeling about systems at any given time.\\n\\n\\n\\nWhen I\\u2019m feeling like a systems person, I get the moral high ground of being someone who follows the rules and does things \\u201cthe right way.\\u201d When I\\u2019m feeling like I\\u2019m NOT a systems person, I get the moral high ground of being a creative, think-outside-the-box kind of person.\\n\\n\\n\\nOf course, it\\u2019s just as easy to get down on myself about either side of the moral equation too. When I\\u2019m feeling especially systems-oriented, I often feel I\\u2019m not as creative as I should be. When I\\u2019m feeling creative, I often beat myself up for not following the rules.\\n\\n\\n\\nI have no idea if my moralizing about my waffling identity around systems is normal or not. But I suspect that I\\u2019m not alone.\\n\\n\\n\\nI bring all this up because I think it\\u2019s easy get caught up in moralizing about the way we run our businesses. It\\u2019s easy to translate \\u201cthis is how we do things\\u201d to \\u201cthis is the right way\\u201d to \\u201cI\\u2019m good because I do things the right way\\u201d or \\u201cI\\u2019m bad because I don\\u2019t do things the right way.\\u201d\\n\\n\\n\\nMorality, suffice to say, is also a system\\u2014it\\u2019s a cultural system for understanding what is good and what is bad, as well as what makes someone a good person and what makes someone a bad person. And like every paternalistic either/or system I can think of, moralizing tends to do more harm than good.\\n\\n\\n\\nMaybe you don\\u2019t see your identity around systems and your business as a moral issue. I might be way off in left field here!\\n\\n\\n\\nBut, I gotta tell you, I hear a lot of confessions from business owners.\\n\\n\\n\\nThey confess that they have procedures but don\\u2019t follow them. They confess that they don\\u2019t have a marketing system. They confess that they\\u2019re so tied to their procedures that they can\\u2019t think strategically about whether what they\\u2019re doing is actually creating the results they want. They confess that they\\u2019re stuck in analysis paralysis because they\\u2019re looking for the best system for achieving their goal.\\n\\n\\n\\nIn other words, I hear confessions of perceived sins on either side of systems as a moral issue.'