Synopsis and Quotes

Synopsis

Getting What You Want Via a Simple Mindset “Tweak”

by Sam Carpenter
January 11, 2012
Puenta Viejo, Costa Rica

Website visitor: Thanks for taking the time to go deeper into the Work the System methodology. Here, I’ll give you the nutshell version of what it’s about.

Section: Stress-Reducing Action Items

Most business success books suggest that the reader do certain physical things – follow the recommended tips – and life will be swell. The Work the System methodology takes a simpler yet deeper approach, one that requires a simple “tweak” in the individual’s perspective of how the world mechanically functions.  Once that mind-shift occurs, subsequent necessary actions come naturally. The Work the System method does not negate the brilliant thoughts of top motivators and philosophers such as Steven Covey, Anthony Robbins, Jim Collins, Michael Gerber or Dale Carnegie. The method gets underneath these valid and proven methodologies and makes them even more potent.

However,  with the new perspective, blatantly inefficient methodologies are easy to detect.

In my small business I worked 80-100 hours a week for 15 years, with an income just barely enough to support my two kids and me. When the new vision came to me  twelve years ago, I immediately turned things around. I now work 2 hours a week while my personal income is more than twenty times what it was just a few years ago. My business, Centratel, a telephone answering service with approximately 2,000 competitors nationwide, is #1 in the industry and shows a net profit of over 40%. Also note, that at the end of that 15 year nightmare stretch I was a physical and mental wreck, and I had no friends. I turned all that around, too (the details of the story are in my book.

Work the System addresses the following reality: Many corporate managers and entrepreneurs/small business owners see their businesses and the world as a complex mass of sights, sounds, and events. And because of this misperception,  too many times the leader is working long, stressed hours killing fires and performing recurring tasks… and there are usually concurrent cash flow problems. There is no time or money to do R&D, coddle customers, or otherwise do the creative tasks necessary for growth. Typically, personal/family life is a struggle, too. Add to this, health problems. Entire lives are spent this way.

What is the foundational reason for business mediocrity and failure? The leader isn’t seeing the mechanisms that are producing the bad results. If a leader is blind to the mechanics, he or she won’t be able to adjust the machinery that creates the results . But this is important: The leader’s hectic fire-killing methodology is NOT the foundational problem: It’s only a SYMPTOM of the leader’s lack of understanding of real-world functioning.

The Work the System methodology goes “one layer deeper,” requiring a simple yet profound change in mindset – an “outside and slightly elevated” vantage point – a view that sees clearly how the separate systems of the world actually operate. Once one “gets” the new perspective, subsequent correct actions are obvious. The WTS mindset is simple, absurdly logical, and self-evident as it leads naturally to incredible efficiency at work and in personal life. The added bonus is a relaxed, positive state of mind due to the newfound control over events and outcomes. Life is under control. The WTS methodology is not hocus-pocus, mystical, esoteric, or faith-based. It’s simple, believable real-world mechanics. There is no need for a list of tips or for motivational-gimmicks although Work the System offers a thorough compendium of guidelines for once the “get-it” flash occurs. There is no need to change occupations or upset the family. It’s a personal thing that will benefit everyone in the picture. Once the vision is acquired – the moment-to-moment ability to perceive the myriad of separate systems in one’s world – different actions will naturally be taken and things will fall into place as confusion diminishes. (The first third of my book is geared to help the reader “get” the new mindset.)

The heart of the mindset: Our individual lives are not inherently chaotic and at the mercy outside influences. And despite the media’s never ending dooms-day diatribes, the world itself is not going to Hell. Your personal world is a collection of individual linear systems, most of which operate at 99.9% efficiency, and each of which ultimately produces some kind of a result. Every result and situation in our lives is the end-product of an underlying system and most systems work just fine! In fact, most systems WANT to work as they are designed. Consider the complexities of a tree, cat, car, house, or human body. All of these “primary systems” are in existence due to a myriad of sub-systems that work together to form that particular entity. For example, the human body is an incredibly complex arrangement of billions of cells and trillions of electrical signals. Subsystems include neuromuscular, structural; cardiovascular, etc. It all works flawlessly as systems interact, adjust, and maintain themselves.

The whole world operates in this way! So, inductive reasoning points to the following conclusion: The world as a whole is 99.9% flawless in its operation despite our tendency to focus on the relatively few flaws in our lives and in the world…and this means there isn’t that much to “tweak” in order to get what one wants out of life. ”Getting” this new vision causes a much more efficient perspective of life, a life more in tune with how the world mechanically operates.

If we thoroughly understand how a machine works, we’re better able to fix it and then take it to optimum functionality. It’s that simple, and it’s exactly what I did with every facet of my own life.

At work, how does one fix what is inefficient? It’s breathtakingly simple. Break down the workplace into separate linear systems – how the phone is answered, how the bank deposit is made, how a sales presentation is performed. For each system, in a simple 1-2-3 step format, document the execution of the process. Get the staff to “climb on board” this system-improvement quest. Then, with coworkers, brainstorm and then, again on paper, improve the sequence of steps until they are perfect. Reinsert the perfected system back into the operation. As a matter of policy, everyone in the organization will execute each perfected system in exactly the same sequence every single time – yet everyone understands that if a system can be improved, adjustment will be made instantly. This is “working the system.” The key is this (and here is the heart of the Method): Focus on the systems that create the results, not on the bad results that occur due to unmanaged systems.

This sounds regimented! Some of it is regimented and there is a very good reason for this, but the release valve is in giving your people instant and generous autonomy to “tweak” systems to higher efficiency. It’s a workplace culture centered around system improvement, not in fire-killing. The staff creates and adjusts business systems daily, as needed. Again, managers are “working their systems,” rather than dealing with the bad results of unmanaged systems. Getting everyone to climb on board is a simple matter because once things begin to fall into place, and it won’t take long, you and your people will make more money, and the work environment will be serene…and there will be a powerful sense of pride throughout the organization.

Is there something here for a one-person operation or for a corporate middle manager? Yes! This is about dramatically improving personal efficiency and the more efficient one is, the more one gets what one wants out of life…and that may very well be a fast climb up the corporate ladder.

I read your book. Where can I learn more? My UK business partner, Mike Giles, invested over a year’s time in creating  a multi-media product entitled The Work the System Academy. It’s a 30-90 day course designed to get life in order…business, personal and health. Launch of the product was January 16, 2012. In late 2012 we will release another product, an intensive course that will qualify the student to be a business consultant in the Work the System Method. Yes, this will enable the course graduate to make a living helping other people salvage their problematic businesses.

Want to know more? Download the pdf and the audio of the book for free (you can do so at the Work the System Academy site), or buy the hard copy version of the book either from this site, at Amazon or in book stores. Note also that I periodically conduct boot camps in my hometown of Bend, Oregon. Another good bet is to subscribe to my newsletter and blog. The Third Edition of Work the System was released in October 2011.

Quotes from the book

“Here’s a more general observation: In the past thirty years the lure of instant gratification has gripped a huge chunk of our population. For the hooked-up masses—those who are seriously addicted to smart-phones, Twitter, Facebook and the immediacy/pervasiveness of the entertainment industry—it’s a stretch to go backward to consider the root of things. The gratification of the moment is a distraction from thoughtful contemplation of the reasons why events happen as they do. Today, unlike twenty years ago, a good “now” is available by just turning off and plugging in. For too many of us, slowing down to examine things is not entertaining, and that’s too bad because it is mandatory that we take the time to understand the machinery of our lives if we are to modify that machinery to produce the results we desire.”

“Life is serious business and whether you know it or not—or whether you like it or not—your personal systems are the threads of the fabric of your life. Together, your personal systems add up to you. And if you are like most people,  you negotiate your days without seeing your systems as the singular entities they are, some working well and some not so well.”

“The focus must be on the proactive management of systems, not in coping with random bad results due to unseen and therefore unmanaged systems.”

“Blue-blood, old-school psychologists who see endless dour complexity in the human condition will sniff at the simplicity of the Work the System message. Things are more complicated than that, they’ll say. I thank them in advance for their oblique compliment. This is an elementary, dispassionate, drop-the-load dispatch that describes lives as they really are: cause-and-effect mechanisms that can be logical, predictable, and satisfying. No PhD necessary.”

“Without prodding, nor willing it to happen, I stepped outside my life, rose above it and looked down, never again to settle back into the morass that had been my existence. There was nothing philosophical about this new vantage point. It was mechanical and logical. I saw that the solution to my business problems did not lie in becoming more proficient at whacking moles—the solution was to find a way to eliminate the moles altogether.”