James Clear says “Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.”
He’s right for individuals. But for businesses, that’s a crappy starting point.
In business, your outcomes are a lagging measure of your PROCESSES.
- Low sales? Don’t blame your salespeople’s “habits” - look at your sales process.
- Not enough leads? Don’t motivate your marketing team harder - fix your lead generation process.
- Drama and gossip in your organization? Your culture building processes need work.
- Constantly hiring and firing? The problem isn’t your team’s work ethic - it’s your hiring process.
Think about this:
The closer you are to a single person, the more you think about habits. The farther away you are, the more you think about systems/processes that person needs to form their habits around.
“Habits” is a personal term. “Process” is the organizational version of this.
When you think in terms of process, you’re building systems that make the right actions easier than the wrong ones. That’s sustainable and scalable.
The individual working within your process can absolutely focus on their personal habits. But the top of the organization needs to focus on the process.
What is the process your organization uses:
- to create sales?
- to generate leads?
- to find good hires?
- for cross-sells and upsells?
When you’re not getting the result you want, you need to look at the process first.
Stop trying to change people’s habits for a broken process. Start fixing the processes they’re working within.
Which process in your business needs fixing first?