THE BUSINESS WE MEANT TO BUILD

How good businesses lose their way

Chapter 4 – The Discipline of Boring

I have attended enough business conferences over the years to recognise many of the people walking towards the stage before their names are announced. Sometimes it is because they have built something remarkable, and their experience deserves to be heard. Sometimes it is because I saw them on another stage six months earlier, listening to somebody else explain how success was meant to be achieved. There is nothing wrong with sharing an achievement, but I have often wondered whether the moment being celebrated represents the sustainable journey or merely a particularly flattering photograph taken somewhere along the way.

Business success appears to require stage lighting these days. There should preferably be theme music, a dramatic backstory and a limited-time offer available only to those prepared to rush to the back of the room before common sense catches up with them. The ordinary work of running a business receives considerably less attention because debtor collection does not stir an audience, and reviewing margins is unlikely to result in a standing ovation. Apparently, nobody has yet found an exciting way to announce that the bank reconciliation balances.

That does not make the ordinary work unimportant. Business fundamentals rarely arrive carrying banners, but they remain after the banners have been packed away and the next speaker has moved on to another room. They involve checking cash flow, controlling costs, understanding customers, maintaining records, reviewing prices, collecting money and doing what was promised. None of that sounds particularly revolutionary, although experience has taught me that doing those things properly and consistently may place a business well ahead of competitors still searching for their next revolution.

The noise surrounding business suggests that success requires a breakthrough. There is always another technology, system, marketing method, funding model, artificial intelligence application or growth strategy promising to change everything. Some of these developments are genuinely useful, and refusing to examine them would be every bit as foolish as adopting them without examination. The concern begins when innovation becomes a substitute for understanding the business rather than a tool used to improve it.

Perhaps the better question is whether the business is searching for innovation because its fundamentals are already strong, or because those fundamentals are being avoided. A new system may improve invoicing, but it cannot compensate for an owner who remains reluctant to issue the invoices. A marketing campaign may bring more customers, but it may also expose the fact that the business loses money each time it makes a sale. Technology can make a poor process operate faster, although speed is not always the improvement its promoters suggest.

This is where the Discipline of Boring becomes important. Boring does not mean unimaginative, unsuccessful or resistant to change. It means accepting that some parts of business require attention whether or not they excite us, impress our friends or produce something worthy of a social-media post. It means recognising that the dream is supported by a collection of ordinary disciplines that are rarely noticed until one of them is neglected.

When Banks Consultancy promised that we would drag clients kicking and screaming to compliance, there was always more humour in the wording than physical intent. Most business owners did not establish their businesses because they had a lifelong ambition to lodge forms, reconcile accounts and provide for tax liabilities. They wanted to build something, support their families, gain independence or prove that an idea could become something real. Compliance felt like an interruption to that journey, particularly when it arrived in a language designed by people who seemed to have forgotten that ordinary human beings might eventually need to understand it.

Over time, however, I came to see compliance less as an obligation imposed upon the dream and more as one of the disciplines protecting it. Accurate records allow the owner to see where the business is going, while timely lodgements preserve choices that tend to disappear when ignored. Providing for tax may not feel like progress, but spending money that belongs to the Australian Taxation Office creates a form of progress that generally heads in the wrong direction. The strongest business owners do not need to be dragged anywhere once they understand that these disciplines serve their own interests.

That does not mean becoming an old fuddy-duddy who rejects every new idea while guarding a filing cabinet filled with carbon copies. It means applying research and revision before allowing a short-term opportunity to redirect a long-term journey. The question is not whether something is new, but whether it moves the owner closer to the destination they have chosen. A detour may be worthwhile, although it should probably be recognised as a detour before everyone becomes excited by the scenery.

I have seen business owners become so busy pursuing goals that they have lost sight of the dream those goals were meant to support. The distinction can be subtle because goals appear respectable, measurable and productive. Revenue increases, staff numbers grow, another location opens and the owner receives more invitations to explain how well everything is going. Yet the business may also be consuming more time, producing less cash, increasing risk and moving the owner further away from the life they once hoped it would create.

Success measured at a particular point in time may tell us very little about the quality of the journey. A large contract can create an impressive month while weakening margins for the rest of the year. Rapid growth can look magnificent from the stage while placing extraordinary pressure on cash flow, staff, family and health. The person presenting the success may be entirely genuine, but we rarely know what is happening in the areas not included in the presentation.

That is one of the quieter lessons within Dumbing It Down. We are often encouraged to accept the confident assertion because questioning it may make the room uncomfortable. The speaker appears successful, the audience wants the formula and nobody wishes to be the person asking whether the numbers actually support the story. Intelligence in that situation is not demonstrated by exposing the speaker or proving someone wrong; it may simply involve recognising that another person’s moment does not automatically provide a map for our own journey.

Constant and Never-Ending Improvement, or CANEI, can become confused with constant and never-ending activity. The next shiny thing may look like improvement because it creates movement, meetings and another list of tasks. It may introduce more software, more reporting, more complexity and more people without materially strengthening the business. Improvement should improve something, which sounds embarrassingly obvious until we consider how often the evidence is never requested.

A business can remain the same size and still practise CANEI. It can improve the experience of its customers, strengthen its margins, simplify its systems, reduce mistakes and create a better life for the owner. It can become quieter, steadier and more reliable without becoming stagnant. Growth may form part of the dream, but it should not be substituted for the dream merely because turnover is easier to display than contentment.

There is a Charlie Brown observation suggesting that wetting yourself while wearing dark trousers can give you a warm feeling without anybody else noticing. It is hardly the foundation upon which most business seminars would choose to build their closing address, but there is something rather useful within the thought. Satisfaction does not cease to exist merely because it remains unseen. A quiet achievement can still be an achievement, particularly when it moves the owner towards something that genuinely matters to them.

I have often wondered why we feel required to crow about every card in our hand before we have finished playing it. Perhaps outside recognition provides reassurance that the journey has been worthwhile. Perhaps the applause helps drown out the uncertainty that continues after the lights have been turned off. There is no shame in enjoying recognition, but it may be worth asking whether we are celebrating an achievement that matters to us or seeking validation for a destination chosen by somebody else.

A genuine “silent” partner would probably begin by asking where the business is trying to go. If success is the measure, where are the key performance indicators that define it, and where is the budget against which progress can be assessed? More importantly, do those measures connect with the owner’s dream, or are they merely the conventional figures business people are expected to chase? Without that understanding, an adviser may help the business travel faster while remaining completely unaware that it is heading in the wrong direction.

The numbers should allow us to celebrate achievements that mean something within the owner’s journey. A lower level of debt may matter more than higher turnover. Improved margins may provide more freedom than another year of growth, while better systems may allow the owner to spend time with family without the business collapsing into disorder. Stewardship before extraction means protecting what is being built rather than continually asking what can be taken from it today.

This is also where The Little Blue School Book continues to influence my thinking. Education should help us decide what success means rather than simply teaching us to pursue the definition supplied by somebody else. Mentors, advisers and experienced business people can broaden our understanding, but they should not quietly replace our destination with one of their own. The important question is not whether another person’s advice worked for them, but whether it belongs within the life and business we are attempting to build.

20 Days Too Late approaches the same problem from the direction of timing. Many business decisions can be improved when they are examined before the event, while choices narrow considerably once contracts have been signed, money has been spent or obligations have been ignored. Research and revision do not prevent movement; they help ensure movement remains connected to purpose. An adviser consulted early can ask what the decision is meant to achieve, while an adviser consulted later may only be able to explain what has already occurred.

The Discipline of Boring does not demand that the owner travel slowly. It asks them to maintain focus while travelling at whatever speed the business can responsibly support. It encourages them to review the numbers, question the assumptions and make sure the excitement of a new direction has not hidden the cost of leaving the old one. The fundamentals may not create much noise, but they provide the footing from which worthwhile change becomes possible.

There is nothing wrong with being a quiet achiever. There is nothing wrong with enjoying a win without announcing it to everyone who happens to be watching. The ultimate measure is not whether the journey looked impressive from the stage, but whether it carried the owner towards the destination they had honestly chosen.

It is perfectly acceptable to be boring when boring is getting you where you want to go. The records, margins, budgets, customers, commitments and cash flow may never receive the applause, but they often decide whether the dream survives long enough to be reached. The final question belongs to the owner: is the business doing ordinary things properly in support of the journey, or searching for noise because the quiet work has become uncomfortable?