Ep. 18 The Family Placemat

Business Growth Simplified.

I think it's best in life to create and control systems, not people. Because at the end of the day, it's impossible to control people. "Simple and clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior while complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior." That quote is from Dee Hock who founded Visa in 1968. Let me give you an example of what I mean by this. My wife and I more than 10 years ago now created a family placement, which many of you know about. The family placement sits on a table when we eat dinner and we have family dinner every night. And on that family placement are our simple rules for being in our family. Our values, our family crest, what the crest means, how we run our family, our wedding vows are there, the six components to happiness, our favorite quotes, what happens at our family meetings, it's all there. And we set it in our mind, at the time we created it, that this was permanent. So by having our children see that every day, it allows them to operate with a very clear set of rules. It's very simple and it's clear. And the quote says that when things are simple and clear, it gives rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Voltaire also said this, he said, "When the rules are clearly defined, then and only then can true creativity flourish." So let's go back to where we started, controlling behavior versus controlling a system. When my wife and I sat down to create the family placement, we created a system and it's up to us as parents to make sure that our kids understand that system. When controlling people, oftentimes if the world doesn't go their way, they lose their mind. They've got to figure out a way to control people and situations. Oftentimes those people are the exact opposite. They have no system. They have no defined values that they operate from. They have no permanence. And so I would argue that if you look in areas or your life on the job, in your business, in your family, in the structures around you, where you don't have clear, well thought out principles and structure, there will be chaos and there will be people trying to control that situation. And during periods of which they're trying to control, they're losing their mind because they're not operating from a playbook, a pre-established set of rules and principles from which they are enrolling people in. I believe that all the work to create a system, whether it's a family structure, whether it's a nonprofit or a company, all the work should happen at the beginning, before you start. That's when you think about the business frame. That's when you think about the values that you aspire and all the rules and how things are going to unfold and you do that work at the beginning. So then when you hit go, you can then execute on those principles. If people opted into that system, they knew what the rules were. Just like when my kids opted in to accepting my wife and I as their parents, they're opting into following a system. And it's the leadership in that entity that controls the system, not the people. But ideally what happens is in a business, especially when the clarity of purpose, clarity of catalyzing statement, clarity of values, clarity of objectives, et cetera, are there for everybody to see, the right people over time will opt in and the wrong people opt out. And so, you don't need these controlling people. Just like the employees who own stock in Southwest Airlines saw, that everybody working in concert on the same sheets of music, like a symphony, produces far more results than everybody singing and operating from their own sheet of music. For a template to make your own Family Placemat, visit www.FamilyPlacemat.com. Happy Thanksgiving, Rick Sapio Founder, Business Finishing School