For a few years, I’ve been a part of a Men’s Leadership and Support group in my town.
From the outside, it’s a community of like-minded people who want to grow and serve their communities.
From the inside, it’s bonding, leadership coaching, and a lot of what I can only call group therapy.
A large part of each biweekly meeting is for something known as “inspections.”
You can think of inspections as very direct, brutally honest, 1:1 coaching sessions. The gloves come off. In only 10-15 minutes, people make some incredible breakthroughs.
The results are remarkable.
One of the key tenets that creates these results is the following question: “Where else is that behavior showing up?”.
You’ve seen this idea everywhere when it comes to business:
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- If a prospective hire is late for the interview, it’s a safe bet they will probably be late for work.
- If a team member is slow to get back to you on communication, they are probably slow to reply to clients as well.
- If someone’s personal life is unorganized and chaotic, you can hazard a guess their work life is as well, so it’s no surprise you’re hesitant to give them extra responsibility.
In my experience, the answer to “Where else is that behavior showing up?” is almost always “Everywhere”.
Everyone is their own worst enemy.
Like an inspection in Men’s Group, it’s crystal clear when you are looking at someone else. But it’s borderline impossible when you are holding up the mirror for yourself.
You can see it in your clients. Your team. Your kids. Even your spouse (but we both know to keep our mouths shut about that haha).
And when you forget to reply to a client email, miss a deadline for your business, or are slow to follow up with a lead, you probably think:
“Oh, that’s weird”
“That’s unlike me.”
“I don’t do that.”
Doubtful.
It probably happens all the time – this is just a rare occasion where you caught it.
Your team is picking up on all this. And it’s no surprise that when you are missing some deadlines in your business, it’s telling them it’s okay for them to miss deadlines too.
You get frustrated at the lack of operational efficiency, and your business suffers because that perfectly timed marketing promotion is now a few weeks late and needs another week to re-tweak the messaging.
Your leads suffer, and your margin suffers.
It’s understandable when you look at your business you think “if only we could get a few more leads each week, then we’d be set.”
I want to encourage you to look deeper.
Hold up the mirror and ask yourself “Where else is that behavior showing up?”.
Start with the root cause, as uncomfortable as it may be.
Your business will thank you.
Ben
PS: Here are four ways to get more BFU in your life:
- Learn more about our coaching group The Unicorn Society HERE.
- Subscribe to our Business for Unicorns podcast HERE.
- Subscribe to Mark’s YouTube channel HERE.
- Pick up a copy of Mark’s book HERE.
PPS: Speaking of “more BFU,” have you checked out Mark’s YouTube channel lately?
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