Business Barnacle Busting

Last week and this week were my big "figure things out" weeks that I do on a quarterly basis to make sure I'm happy and focused on what I'm doing as a business owner and a human. Here's what my quarterly review entails:

• I relive the past three months by looking at the goals I set three months earlier and reviewing my calendar and planner
• I calculate the metrics associated with my goals
• I clean up my finances
• I ask myself, "Do I want to keep running my own business and why?"

It's a fair bit of work, but it's also what's delivered continuous incremental success for me over several years. I also get to crack open a new quarterly planner at the end of it and boy that new planner smell is DELICIOUS.

Unfortunately, I don't see many business owners apply this kind of reflective rigor to their own business. When I come in for executive coaching or a workshop, I pretty quickly discover layers of problems.

Business Barnacles. That's a good word for it.

These are the kinds of business barnacles I come across as an external consultant:

• Ineffective strategies stay in place longer than they should
• Low-performing or toxic team members remain on the payroll
• Resentment of other team members remain bottled up and fester
• Financial burn rate is higher than expected
• Destructive rituals become part of the culture ("This is how we've done this for a while")

Ultimately, by not stepping away from the day-to-day and asking, "Is this good?" then little bits of bad become the new normal.

There are a few options to prevent and scrape off business barnacles:

1. Run Quarterly Offsites

Stepping away from the day-to-day is critical to see those business barnacles. You can't see the underside of a boat while fishing: same idea. Bringing your business into a dry-dock doesn't have to be expensive or time-consuming, but it does need to be intentional and solutions oriented.

An offsite is a place to assess performance, share lessons learned, realign on strategic goals, and set new objectives. Plus, it's a team sport: a well-run offsite can tighten team bonds and reignite motivation.

To help guide your next offsite, I've written 12 articles on offsites plus created an Offsite in a Box guide.

2. Hire a Coach

Yeah, you can hire me to help you with your barnacles, but honestly any coach worth their salt will help you reflect and identify business barnacles. Through conversation, thought exercises, and regular meetings, you'll start to see and scrape off problems. A coach can help you find high-value issues faster and more effectively than doing it by yourself. They'll also help you normalize your barnacles by providing a different perspective, "Yes, when Tim doesn't do his job, he IS failing to perform. Stop making excuses for him."

Good coaches will also show you how to scrape them off, i.e. how to go about making tough decisions or starting tough conversations.

The best coaches I've had help me identify the deeply personal flaws I hide from myself, connect self-destructive behaviors to those deep dark fears, and show the long-term impact of leaving it unaddressed (shiny object syndrome, anyone?).

3. Do a Guided Reflection (With Accountabilibuddies)

I'm a weirdo: I get my jollies from embracing failure. For most people, reflecting involves going on a date with your mistakes. Not many people swipe right and seek out that experience.

It's a lot easier to follow a pre-established guide to reflection and let the process gradually bring you face-to-face with the problems you hide from yourself. However, if you don't have strong self-reflection muscles, I strongly recommend bringing in a fellow entrepreneur or Accountabilibuddy to get more juice out of each question.

Here's a 30-Day Question Challenge that I made with my Accountabilibuddy to help you with your next guided reflection.

Relish What You See In Your Reflection

Whether you engage in self-reflection, do a guided reflection with a coach or guide, or bring your team together to reflect as a group, the start of Q3 is a great excuse to take action in making things better. Pour some wine, break open that new planner, and give yourself permission to clean your boat.

It's your boat- love it, barnacles and all- but that doesn't mean it can't get clean.

A TL;DR from the CRO

I'm not into boat metaphors: I like to think of regular reflections as a good trip to the groomer.

-Roman Noodles, Chief Ruff Officer

What I didn't mention above was that I also pre-plan my reward for my goals on a quarterly basis. Achieve X, get Y as reward.

For Q2, I had three rewards:

• Really enjoy my Nova Scotia trip (last TL;DR I wrote about relishing frivolous mastodons)
• Get a massage (I love these but rarely give myself permission to get one)
• Spend $300 frivolously (see above: I'm pretty bad at spending money on me)

I actually achieved all my goals in Q2, so I'm kinda on the hook to spend $300 on something I would never spend on myself.

What should I do with $300 earmarked for me? Accepting suggestions and I'll share out next TL;DR what it goes to.

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Trying to buy happiness,

Dan from Learn to Scale​

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​PS. All the words and music you need to figure out who you are on the inside.​