Angela Dellar: “Business success in a nutshell”

Angela Dellar

I’ve always loved business, understanding why some businesses achieve great success and others don’t to the same degree, and distilling my learning into simple, practical tools which I share with clients to help them succeed.

In a nutshell, business success is the ability to generate enough money, in particular cash. A strong business is like a three-legged stool with the legs being:

1. Business know-how or business IQ: (i) what you do, for whom and why, (ii) how that generates enough money and (iii) where you are going now and in the future.
2. People know-how or emotional intelligence (EQ): who you are being (i) individually, (ii) as a team and (iii) culturally as a business to grow positive, long-term relationships.
3. Action! Regular, focussed action towards strategic goals: how you get there.

Simple but not easy.

Business IQ: What you do

Business IQ ensures that what you are doing and where you are going has the ability to generate enough money. The key ingredients include:

• doing what you are really good at
• having enough customers willing to buy and able to pay
• positioning the business to be different so that customers come to you rather than the competition
• consistently delivering that difference to customers to meet their needs around time, cost and quality
• sound management information (financial and non-financial) to give factual validation
• having external perspective, identifying and taking advantage of potential opportunities
• ensuring that risks are managed

When a business grows to a certain level – typically £750,000 turnover or five employees – it needs the MD to shift into a higher gear in order to grow further. Rather than being consumed by the day-to-day delivery, the MD must lead the change by giving the team the capability and the confidence to run the day-today whilst maintaining and growing what has made the business successful to date – its key core values and culture.

The business’s processes also need to change gear, becoming streamlined, standardised and automated to enable consistent customer service.

Finally, management information also needs to shift up a gear enabling the MD to keep a ‘finger on the pulse’, having confidence that customers and the team are happy and the business performance is healthy, without having a ‘finger in the pie’ of the day-to-day operations.

Business EQ: Who you are being

Being conscious of your thinking, the emotions and behaviours it provokes, and being able to regulate them, is called emotional intelligence or EQ. In short, EQ enables you to behave in a way that maximises you chances of success and enables others to do likewise.

People working in a business where there is strong EQ support and collaborate with each other and the atmosphere is one of open and frank conversations, clear expectations and mutual trust and respect. It’s a bit like the atmospheric conditions in a greenhouse where the right conditions attract and retain good people and when it’s not so good, the business and the people in it don’t achieve their fullest potential.

The MD often has the greatest influence on the atmospheric conditions in a business. Where consumed in day-to-day action, solving operational problems, tactically reacting to issues and then frequently changing direction then they are holding the business and people back. The often unconscious thinking that leads to what are essentially defensive behaviours includes:

• the fear of failure
• the struggle to delegate (‘others don’t do it like I do’)
• guilt at not being in the muck and bullets of day-to-day busyness
• fear of being unable to do this new role well
• the worry of ‘What if people don’t like me when I have to be ‘the boss’, not one of the team?’

The MD is not alone in thinking this way. To varying degrees, we all think like this due to our in-built survival instincts of fight, flight or freeze. Business growth is stifled unless the MD and the team understand and regulate these defensive behaviours so that everyone and everything is pulling in the same direction. The good news is that EQ can be grown at any point throughout our lifetime when we become the open-minded observers of our own behavioural movies. More on that later.

Growing EQ creates a productive environment and has distinct financial benefits too. A business generating £1 million on the bottom line is worth approximately £1.5 million when the MD is consumed with day-to-day delivery. That same business, still generating £1 million, is typically worth upwards of £4.5 million (depending on the sector) when it is fully independent of the business owner.

Some people believe that emotions at work are generally a negative and so shun the concept of emotional intelligence. What they fail to realise is that higher emotional intelligence makes the workplace calmer, more productive and more profitable. Negative behaviours such as operational silos, which give rise to both ‘them and us’ issues and a lack of full collaboration across business areas (or within a board), are substantially reduced. What you may view as ‘fluffy emotional stuff’ gives measurable competitive advantage by attracting the right people to your business, and is a commercial necessity if your goal is to maximise the valuation of the business.

Action!  Regular, focussed action towards strategic goals

The third essential ingredient for strong and sustainable business growth centres on taking regular, focussed action towards strategic goals, measuring the outcome of that action and refining it in light of events. Great strategies that never make it off the page are about as useful as an unused gym membership in getting you fit. 90 minutes each day is all it takes, and if you think you haven’t got time, read on.

Having asked every MD interviewed to share their personal learning that has had the most profound impact on their business success, it’s only right that I share two of my own which directly relate to two of the three legs of strong business described above.

My first lesson: The daily 90 minute strategic session

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is therefore a habit.” – Aristotle

The habit of 90 minutes per day of uninterrupted focus on actioning strategic goals is the most common attribute of high performing business leaders. I first learned about it from a book by Nigel Botterill who learned it from Martin Howey who probably learned it from someone else!

The science bit is that just as our sleep has different flows, so does our energy during the day. These are called Ultradian Performance Rhythms. Our body’s natural energy cycle flows in 90-120 minute waves of peak performance, each followed by 20 minutes of rest. Performers and athletes train to this cycle. There will be one point in the day where you are absolutely at your peak. Mine is around 7:30am. If I exercise, shower and eat before I start, my productivity during those 90 minutes and throughout the day nearly doubles.

Work out when your best time of day is. Use it for focussed action and guard it fiercely.

Before I start those 90 minutes:

• I begin with the end in mind. What do I want to get out of my 90 minutes? Why is that important? How does it move me towards my larger goals?
• I work backwards and break my 90 minutes into four 20 minute chunks with 10 minutes at the end. I prioritise each chunk, ensuring that it’s work that only I can do and delegating the rest.
• The unbreakable rule is that these 90 minutes CANNOT be interrupted. I need solitude, quiet and no clutter so I turn off the phone (mobile and landline) and emails so that I can completely focus.

During:

• I set a timer (not on my phone, otherwise I’m distracted by texts, messages and mail) and work for 20 minutes. At the end of that session I evaluate progress before moving ahead with my next 20 minute goal. Having a deadline really helps me focus and avoid perfecting.
• What can go wrong will go wrong. I have to roll with the unexpected interruptions and carry on.
• Stick to the plan.

After:

• Take stock of what I’ve achieved and write it down. Take two minutes to reflect. What am I proud of? What strengths did I use? What made it possible to do that? How can I use that more? This releases endorphins so grows the mental association between my 90 minutes and the feel good factor, makes me more conscious of what works for me, and motivates me to keep up the good work.
• Plan the next day’s 90 minutes. Look at it before signing off for the day so that my subconscious brain will work on it overnight.
• Take 20 minutes to rest and recuperate.

After my 90 minutes I feel really good about what I’ve achieved and it gives me more energy for the rest of the day.

You can use the same technique at other points in the day for routine day-to-day work too.

I use the urgent/important grid developed by Stephen Covey to prioritise what I need to do. Vital to moving the business forward is the top-right corner – important but not urgent projects. Those valuable things you need to do but otherwise will never get around to. I aim to include these in my daily 90 minute slot.

It’s important to build consistency:

• Know why you’re doing it and keep that in the front of your mind.
• Stay proactive. Don’t slip into reactive things, such as emails.
• Avoid time wasters – people who drain your energy and your time (energy vampires), or comfort tasks such as clearing the email inbox or getting involved in the doing.
• Have fun and recognise your achievements.

My second lesson: How to grow business emotional intelligence (EQ)

A simple tool that helps to grow EQ is learning to respond rather than react. In the traditional chain of events, something happens, you react and that reaction can lead to an unintended outcome. Your reaction is completely spontaneous and happens before you know it.

A significant personal learning for me was that there’s a magical six seconds in between that event happening and your reaction that follows. Those six seconds, the time that a pedestrian crossing beeps for, provide an opportunity to develop your pause button.

Learning to press the pause button gives you the ability to freeze-frame the situation and gain a higher perspective. In the space of a breath you can look down and ask yourself, ‘What’s the most important outcome here?’

Consciously moving the outcome from the end of the chain to the middle gives a powerful opportunity.  It’s the opportunity to decide how best to respond with consciously chosen behaviour that takes you towards your goals.

The most effective outcome in driving business growth is creating a positive culture with shared values, disseminated control and decisions and people who feel confident and capable in what they are doing.

Everyone can use this simple technique and it makes an incredible difference in all aspects of life, including parenting teenagers (she says from experience!).

I’ve also learned to increase the length of the pause by developing my awareness of the triggers that send me into a spontaneous reaction. Like most business owners, I like control, have high standards and am driven to achieve high levels of performance. I’ve noticed that many of my triggers stem from these preferences which have been fuelled by the sayings of my youth such as ‘don’t care, was made to care’, which I, unconsciously, can take too far.

I now very consciously distinguish between caring about and caring for the outcome or the person. Caring about is a good balance. I care about what we get and this is a partnership where I do half the work and you do half the work. When I move into caring for I go beyond that healthy balance into taking responsibility for the outcome or the person which takes me away from my business goals.

Another saying of my youth is ‘if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well’. I’m driven to do the best I can which can make me a perfectionist at certain times, particularly with the written word. The right balance is good standards and being professional. Perfection is insatiable – impossible to achieve.

When I’m perfecting I draft, edit, rework and edit again, leaving too little time for other essential tasks and so end up working late and under increasing pressure of impending deadlines. When I’m perfecting it’s as if I’m being driven by some external force with the outcome being exhaustion, stress, a lack of fun and procrastination. Moving from reacting to responding has been liberating.

To move forward I have accepted that I am accountable for my behaviours and made small shifts in my thinking giving dramatically different outcomes. Focussing on the higher, more long-term outcome rather than having an immediate, spontaneous reaction such as needing to for something to be the best it can be / the need to win / be heard / have the last word, opens up new options. I’m calmer, no longer frustrated at the same thing happening time and again and I’m driving forward rather than tripping myself and others up.

I don’t always get it right and sometimes I don’t notice when I need to respond rather than react (for example, if I’m tired). When things go astray I give myself time for my emotions to calm and ask myself, however uncomfortable, ‘What could I have done differently to get a different outcome?’ and choose to learn from it.

Leadership coaching has been a powerful way of enabling clients to do likewise. Seeing the small shifts in thinking when they unlock themselves, their team and their business is very rewarding. When more people in the business are able to consciously respond rather than react defensively it puts both their personal and business growth on steroids. It accelerates how they perform together, things become simpler and the results on all levels are outstanding.

On the importance of committing:

“Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s the determination and commitment to unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” Mario Andretti

Commit to 90 minutes and to responding rather than reacting, make them habits and I guarantee you’ll be amazed at the progress you make.

In brief

Business success is the ability to generate enough money – in particular cash – over the long term, based on:

1. business acumen (business IQ)
2. creating the environment to get the best out of yourself and your people (emotional intelligence or EQ)
3. taking 90 minutes of action towards your goals every day

Leaders need to move out of the day-to-day and into the strategic. For a business owner wanting to maximise their business’s valuation, a further gear change is needed to move them into the role of Chairman, delegating responsibility for strategic delivery.

The best systems, processes and business ideas are limited without emotionally intelligent leadership – the ability to bring people on the journey so they want to be a part of the new world.

Master the skill of moving from reacting to responding. Grow your self-awareness to know yourself better. This will allow you to self-regulate your behaviour.

The people in a business with strong EQ feel that they are on the same side and part of something special. They support and collaborate and the atmosphere is one of open and frank conversations, clear expectations and mutual trust and respect.

Strong EQ is the cornerstone of attracting and retaining good people.

The most important action for an MD is to share key values, disseminate control and decisions, grow a positive culture with strong EQ and to make themselves redundant from operational delivery and then, for the business owner MD, strategic delivery.

Be conscious of distinguishing between caring about the outcome or the person, and caring for.

There will be one point in the day where you are absolutely at your peak. Find yours, use it and guard it fiercely.

Perfection is insatiable. It’s something you can never achieve and unless you’re aware, you’ll just keep driving and pushing for it. You will never get there and will burn yourself and any fun out along the way.