L. Bart Adams

Recently, I attended a meeting where I enjoyed a 4-hour presentation about health and wellness from presenter Dan Miller. He said that stress is the number one reason people fail at achieving optimum health. He also taught that stress is self-imposed. It’s something we do to ourselves. It is a choice. He defined stress as “our reaction to outside stimuli.”

He gave several tips on how to reduce stress in our lives. The most interesting and, so far, most helpful for me has been asking a simple question. When you feel like reacting to some outside stimulus, ask yourself the following question, “Will it kill me?” Pretty simple, right?! Since attending this workshop, I have used this technique many times, and it has helped me tremendously. My family can attest to its effectiveness, as well. I used to get angry and stressed about things like:

• A child’s dirty or unorganized room
• A misplaced toy or clothing in the middle of the living room floor
• Receiving the wrong food on my order at a drive-through restaurant
• Getting the bad news about a piece of broken equipment at the mushroom farm

These are some things that used to send me into an emotional tailspin. Of course, it wasn’t just one isolated incident that would affect me; it was a day full of these events accumulating until I would lose my temper. Resolving each of these issues can all be taken care of more quickly with a calmer head.

This simple technique has worked well for me because 99% of things that happen to or around me will not kill me, and that is excellent news!

I read once that W. Clement Stone, a businessman, philanthropist, and self-help guru, when faced with a crisis or obstacle, would say, “that’s good.” Not the typical response that most of us have in those types of situations. Why was this his response? He was looking for the opportunity in the crisis.

Get Out The Marshmallows

Earlier this year, we had a fire start on one of our compost turners while it was operating. The fire decimated the piece of equipment, which was critical to our operations. Thankfully, no one was injured, and I struggled to see where the opportunity was in this crisis.

It took several months for the investigation to conclude and to process the insurance claim. Finally, our insurance company ruled it a total loss, and we collected the insurance money and went to work rebuilding the compost turner. It turned out that we could repair the turner in-house for much less than we received for the claim.

Our Opportunity

The result of the fire presented us with an opportunity. We had some funds left over from the repairs, and we could have a new roof installed over our administration offices and packing warehouse. But wait, there’s more!  We were also able to have some more damaged areas repaired on the remainder of the roof.

The compost turner has been running for several months without any significant issues, and our new roof is holding up to the summer rainstorms. Of course, this is not an ideal opportunity born of most crises. However, I feel fortunate we were able to take advantage of this possibility when it presented itself.

I’ve learned that although it can be challenging to see the good in every crisis, it’s still essential to have a positive attitude and say to yourself, “that’s good.”

My Responsibility

When I first took over the farm, one of the first responsibilities I assumed from my father was paying the bills. This process was something he had been doing for years. He had absorbed the Controller responsibilities when his prior employer had a difficult time finding a qualified candidate. So, he became the General Manager and Controller. I knew when I took over, one of my first hires would be a Controller, and one of the first delegations would be turning over the bill paying. Still, I was reluctant to turn over this responsibility and hesitated for several months after hiring our Controller.

It turns out I derive no energy from this activity. It took a long time to learn how to do this task, and it did not come naturally. In the meantime, I hired a Controller and turned over the majority of the accounting responsibilities, except, of course, paying the bills. I continued to perform this activity as it helped me understand our cash position and monitor our spending weekly. It took me almost one and half years to delegate this responsibility to the Controller. She was excited to have this added responsibility, and it fell in her core competencies. She enjoyed this role, where it was a significant source of stress for me.

How to Remove Bottlenecks

As the owner, I became a bottleneck in our administrative processes by not delegating the bill-paying role. I had so many other things pulling for my attention that spending a lot of time on a necessary task that I did not enjoy decreased our interoffice efficiency. The only way to remove this inefficiency or bottleneck is to delegate. The freedom I felt when trusting this role to the Controller gave me a boost of energy that I could channel in other business areas.

After I had appointed this process, I was left asking myself, "Why did I wait so long?" As I've contemplated this question, I keep coming back to trust. It was hard for me to let this go because I didn't trust that the Controller could do the job as well as I was. This idea was an absurd notion because I wasn't doing the job very well. Steven M. R. Covey said, "Trust is confidence born of two dimensions: character and competence." I certainly didn't question the character of the Controller. I trusted her to complete many other tasks that required high levels of honesty and integrity in dealing with employees' private and sensitive information. I knew she was competent because she completed other accounting responsibilities. So, I didn't question her competence. The bottom line is I had no precedent for not trusting her with this responsibility.

Passing It On

This experience taught me a lot about delegation. As I've matured as a leader, I have improved dramatically with how I delegate roles and responsibilities to all team members. In an ironic twist, the Controller mentioned previously has recently struggled with transferring some of her more time-consuming lower value tasks. I have asked her to train our receptionist on basic data entry and reporting to help increase her time for more high-value activities. Both she and the receptionist have shared the same feelings about this transition. The Controller has said things like, "I don't trust that she'll [the receptionist] will do it right and I'll have to go back and redo it." The receptionist has said, "She (the Controller) doesn't trust me enough to train me." It's my turn to teach this principle to the Controller while refraining from saying, "delegate already!"

Have you found that one idea that has dramatically changed your life, either professionally or personally? About three years ago, I found one idea that significantly improved the communication at the farm, team huddles. The increased and improved communication has eliminated many mistakes and increased accountability on my team. Looking back, I’m not sure how we made any progress before implementing this practice.

Team Huddles

At our facility, we have daily huddles with all managers and supervisors at the farm. The format is simple, and the meetings never exceed our 15-minute threshold. When things are clicking, we can be done in 5 minutes. Since its implementation, we have modified the agenda to best suit our needs. In our current format, we cover the following three topics:

1. Positive Focus – We start the meeting with good news either personally or at the farm. This practice sets the tone for the meeting.
2. Critical Numbers – We look at the metrics vital to our operations and help us make management decisions. Currently, we review Customer Fulfillment, Yield (pounds grown per square foot), and Picking Estimates.
3. Hurdles – What are the issues of the day? With what do team members need assistance? Is there an event or problem coming up that we should all be anticipating?

That’s it.  It’s important to understand that we don’t solve the hurdles in this meeting. If help is needed, resources and time are set aside to address the issue further. A simple example of a hurdle is if an employee quit the day before and we need to post the job in-house. The HR department can get the job posting up in a timely fashion. Other departments may have an employee that might like to transfer to the new job opening. And so on.

The Origin of the Idea

As I look back at how I found the one idea, it came from the book “Mastering The Rockefeller Habits” by Verne Harnish. It all started with a conversation with our health insurance agent, Dave Anderson, over lunch in 2009. He asked me if I had heard of Jim Rohn, a personal development guru. He shared a few of Mr. Rohn’s ideas with me, which inspired me to research online, which led me to Success Magazine. This monthly magazine focuses on individuals to exhibit success principles.  I subscribed.  Part of the subscription includes a bonus CD that includes interviews with some of the magazine’s subjects.  In one of those CD’s, I heard a message from Dan Sullivan about how to entrepreneurs manage their time with the Entrepreneurial Time System (ETS). This idea was part of the curriculum of Mr. Sullivan’s business coaching program called Strategic Coach. I was in the process of purchasing the farm at the time, and I promised myself that the first thing I would do after I closed on the farm was to enroll in this coaching program. I settled on the farm in November of 2012 and attended my first session in January 2013. In this program, the first fellow business owner I met was Troy Royster, a commercial cleaning business based in Connecticut.  After several sessions, Troy shared some ideas with me that he had been using from another program called Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Our discussion prompted me to purchase the book, and that’s how I found the one idea.

It is an exciting exercise to dig deep about where the big ideas come from or, more precisely, that one idea.  I’ve learned that my network, along with my interest in continuous improvement through coaching programs and reading good books, has led to this idea.  And it only takes one idea to make a breakthrough.

The Curse of Knowledge is a communication problem when someone has vast experience and knowledge on a particular subject. They unknowingly assume everyone around them understands what they are referencing.  They expect people to read their minds because the subject matter and ideas are so obvious to them.

This curse is most evident in the workplace with new hires. It is easy for their immediate supervisors (often with years of experience) to overlook “simple” concepts during the training process.

Years ago, while conducting an orientation with a new front-line employee in our conference room, I offered the employee a cup of coffee, to which he obliged. The next day during his morning break, he came to the meeting room and got a cup of coffee, and sat down at the conference table with the entire management team. This room is where the management team met each morning for their morning break to discuss any issues related to the farm. After a short awkward silence and some confused glances from the managers, I had to politely escort him out of the room and direct him to the relevant break area. It was my fault. The “Curse of Knowledge” had set in, as I had assumed he would find the break room. Up to this point, it was not part of our orientation to show new hires the break area. I promptly added this to our orientation procedure.

How do you break the curse?

In a boiling cauldron, add two frog eyes, a tongue of a newt, and wild boar urine. In the previous example, there was confusion on such a simple issue. Imagine the most severe consequences that could occur if you cannot break the curse—for instance, overlooking a critical safety measure that could lead to an injury. Here are a few ideas that I have used or encouraged with my team to help with breaking the curse.

1. Over-communication – You can never get into trouble with over-communicating. There is a paradox to over-communicating; because you are so familiar with the subject, it feels like you are over-communicating, while the recipient is simply getting “new” information.
2. Checklists – Using a list is a great way to make sure you train on all relevant topics and that no stone gets left unturned. I recently read an excellent book about this concept, The Checklist Manifesto. I highly recommend reading this for more ideas.
3. Repetition – Repeat training programs at least annually or more frequently, depending on the nature of the work. For example, during a monthly safety meeting to review significant safety concerns, it may be a good time to refresh your employees on an HR policy. This process helps increase understanding and clarifies policies and procedures with staff.

Each of these ideas is a tool for more efficient communication.  A corollary that applies to each of these tools is to answer the “why” for those you are communicating with, even if they don’t ask.  Answering the “why” gives clarity and purpose to the knowledge you’re trying to convey. As a leader, I’ve learned that I must consistently and continuously improve my communication skills, but I assumed you already knew that?!