Resenhas - The E-Myth Revisited

Renata 28/04/2023

Bom livro, mas não se aplica a mim!
Gostei da leitura, e concordo com com o autor em muitas questões e visões, porém o modelo que ele propõe não se aplica ao meu tipo de negócio, então acabou não servindo muito pra mim!

DanielBrandt 20/03/2020

Cresça e Franquie
Um livro muito bom para empreendedores que querem descobrir-se empreendedores e também entender mais a fundo como funciona o processo de maturidade de um negócio, quais as etapas e como planejar o crescimento de um negócio para tornar-se uma franquia.

site: https://esselivroeuli.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-e-myth-revisited-michael-e-gerber.html

Moitta 09/12/2016

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse,”


The question has often been asked of me, “What do the owners of extraordinary businesses know that the rest don’t?” Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more. The problem with most failing businesses I’ve encountered is not that their owners don’t know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations—they don’t, but those things are easy enough to learn—but that they spend their time and energy defending what they think they know. The greatest businesspeople I’ve met are determined to get it right no matter what the cost.


Yes, the simple truth about the greatest businesspeople I have known is that they have a genuine fascination for the truly astonishing impact little things done exactly right can have on the world. It is to that fascination that this book is dedicated.


Anthony Greenbank, who said in The Book of Survival, “To live through an impossible situation, you don’t need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules, the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do.”


This book is about such an idea—an idea that says your business is nothing more than a distinct reflection of who you are. If your thinking is sloppy, your business will be sloppy. If you are disorganized, your business will be disorganized. If you are greedy, your employees will be greedy, giving you less and less of themselves and always asking for more. If your information about what needs to be done in your business is limited, your business will reflect that limitation. So if your business is to change—as it must continuously to thrive—you must change first. If you are unwilling to change, your business will never be capable of giving you what you want.


Once you fully understand the relationship every owner must have with his or her business if it is to work, I can assure you that your business and your life will take on new vitality and new meaning.


They intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.


That Fatal Assumption is: if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work. And the reason it’s fatal is that it just isn’t true. In fact, it’s the root cause of most small business failures! The technical work of a business and a business that does that technical work are two totally different things!


To the technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure, a business is not a business but a place to go to work.


“Sarah, dear, we have all the time in the world. Baking pies is not about getting done. It’s about baking pies.”


The problem is that everybody who goes into business is actually three-people-in-one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. And the problem is compounded by the fact that while each of these personalities wants to be the boss, none of them wants to have a boss.


The problem is that everybody who goes into business is actually three-people-in-one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. And the problem is compounded by the fact that while each of these personalities wants to be the boss, none of them wants to have a boss. So they start a business together in order to get rid of the boss. And the conflict begins.


It happens to all of us, time and time again. Because we’ve been deluded into thinking we’re really one person. And so when The Skinny Guy decides to change things we actually believe that it’s I who’s making that decision.


It happens to all of us, time and time again. Because we’ve been deluded into thinking we’re really one person. And so when The Skinny Guy decides to change things we actually believe that it’s I who’s making that decision. And when The Fat Guy wakes up and changes it all back again, we think it’s I who’s making that decision too. But it isn’t I. It’s we. The Skinny Guy and The Fat Guy are two totally different personalities, with different needs, different interests, and different lifestyles. That’s why they don’t like each other. They each want totally different things. The problem is that when you’re The Skinny Guy, you’re totally consumed by his needs, his interests, his lifestyle. And then something happens—the scale disappoints you, the weather turns cold, somebody offers you a ham sandwich. At that moment, The Fat Guy, who’s been waiting in the wings all this time, grabs your attention. Grabs control. You’re him again. In other words, when you’re The Skinny Guy you’re always making promises for The Fat Guy to keep. And when you’re The Fat Guy, you’re always making promises for The Skinny Guy to keep. Is it any wonder we have such a tough time keeping our commitments to ourselves?


every small business. But it’s a three-way battle between The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. Unfortunately, it’s a battle no one can win.


It is the tension between The Entrepreneur’s vision and The Manager’s pragmatism that creates the synthesis from which all great works are born.


most businesses are operated according to what the owner wants as opposed to what the business needs. And what The Technician who runs the company wants is not growth or change but exactly the opposite. He wants a place to go to work, free to do what he wants, when he wants, free from the constraints of work


And you suddenly realize it simply isn’t going to get done. There’s simply no way in the world you can do all that work yourself! In a flash, you realize that your business has become The Boss you thought you left behind. There’s no getting rid of the Boss!


Infancy ends when the owner realizes that the business cannot continue to run the way it has been; that, in order for it to survive, it will have to change.


“To be a great Technician is simply insufficient to the task of building a great small business.


“Because in a business like that what your customers are buying is not your business’s ability to give them what they want but your ability to give them what they want. And that’s what’s wrong with it!


but what if I want to do the technical work in my business? What if I don’t want to do anything else but that?” “Then for God’s sake,” I said as emphatically as I dared, “get rid of your business! And get rid of it as quickly as you can. Because you can’t have it both ways. You can’t ‘have your pie and eat it too.’ You can’t ignore the financial accountabilities, the marketing accountabilities, the sales and administrative accountabilities. You can’t ignore your future employees’ need for leadership, for purpose, for responsible management, for effective communication, for something more than just a job in which their sole purpose is to support you doing your job. Let alone what your business needs from you if it’s to thrive: that you understand the way a business works, that you understand the dynamics of a business—cash flow, growth, customer sensitivity, competitive sensitivity, and so forth.


“You just can’t get there from here! You just can’t play the role of The Technician and ignore the roles of The Entrepreneur and The Manager simply because you’re unprepared to play them. “Because, the moment you chose to start a small business, Sarah, you unwittingly chose to play a significantly larger game than any game you had ever played before. “And to play this new game, called building a small business that actually works, your Entrepreneur needs to be coaxed out, nourished, and given the room she needs to expand, and your Manager needs to be supported as well so she can develop her skill at creating order and translating the entrepreneurial vision into actions that can be efficiently manifested in the real world.


“So, there’s my Comfort Zone,” she said. “What do I do about that?” “Start all over again—but differently this time,” I answered. “It’s the only way out of the trap.”


true trust comes from knowing, not from blind faith. And to know, one must understand. And to understand, one must have an intimate awareness of what conditions are truly present. What people know and what they don’t. What people do and what they don’t. What people want and what they don’t. How people do what they do and how people don’t. Who people are and who they aren’t.


“The true question is not how small a business should be but how big. How big can your business naturally become, with the operative word being naturally? “Because, whatever that size is, any limitation you place on its growth is unnatural, shaped not by the market or by your lack of capital (even though that may play a part) but by your own personal limitations. Your lack of skill, knowledge, and experience, and, most of all, passion, for growing a healthy, functionally dynamic, extraordinary business.


“In short, while you couldn’t have known everything, you could certainly have known more than you do. “And that’s your job, Sarah! The job of the owner. And if you don’t do it, nobody will. “Simply put, your job is to prepare yourself and your business for growth.


The Entrepreneurial Perspective asks the question: “How must the business work?” The Technician’s Perspective asks: “What work has to be done?”


The Entrepreneurial Perspective sees the business as a system for producing outside results—for the customer—resulting in profits. The Technician’s Perspective sees the business as a place in which people work to produce inside results—for The Technician—producing income. • The Entrepreneurial Perspective starts with a picture of a well-defined future, and then comes back to the present with the intention of changing it to match the vision. The Technician’s Perspective starts with the present, and then looks forward to an uncertain future with the hope of keeping it much like the present. • The Entrepreneurial Perspective envisions the business in its entirety, from which is derived its parts. The Technician’s Perspective envisions the business in parts, from which is constructed the whole. • The Entrepreneurial Perspective is an integrated vision of the world. The Technician’s Perspective is a fragmented vision of the world. • To The Entrepreneur, the present-day world is modeled after his vision. To The Technician, the future is modeled after the present-day world.


The Franchise Prototype is also the place where all assumptions are put to the test to see how well they work before becoming operational in the business. Without it the franchise would be an impossible dream, as chaotic and undisciplined as any business. The Prototype acts as a buffer between hypothesis and action. Putting ideas to the test in the real world rather than the world of competing ideas. The only criterion of value becomes the answer to the ultimate question: “Does it work?”


The system runs the business. The people run the system.


The Franchise Prototype is the answer to the perpetual question: “How do I give my customer what he wants while maintaining control of the business that’s giving it to him?”


It’s been there in the form of a Proprietary Operating System at the heart of every extraordinary business around you, franchised or not. Because, after all, that’s all that any Business Format Franchise really is. It is a proprietary way of doing business that successfully and preferentially differentiates every extraordinary business from every one of its competitors. In this light, every great business in the world is a franchise.


its best, your business is something apart from you, rather than a part of you, with its own rules and its own purposes. An organism, you might say, that will live or die according to how well it performs its sole function: to find and keep customers.


Further, now that you know what the game is—the franchise game—understand that there are rules to follow if you are to win: 1. The model will provide consistent value to your customers, employees, suppliers, and lenders, beyond what they expect. 2. The model will be operated by people with the lowest possible level of skill. 3. The model will stand out as a place of impeccable order. 4. All work in the model will be documented in Operations Manuals. 5. The model will provide a uniformly predictable service to the customer. 6. The model will utilize a uniform color, dress, and facilities code.


How can I create a business whose results are systems-dependent rather than people-dependent? Systems-dependent rather than expert-dependent. How can I create an expert system rather than hire one?


But for ordinary people to do extraordinary things, a system—“a way of doing things”—is absolutely essential in order to compensate for the disparity between the skills your people have and the skills your business needs if it is to produce consistent results.


Because every extraordinary business knows that when you intentionally build your business around the skills of ordinary people, you will be forced to ask the difficult questions about how to produce a result without the extraordinary ones. You will be forced to find a system that leverages your ordinary people to the point where they can produce extraordinary results over and over again. You will be forced to invent innovative system solutions to the people problems that have plagued small businesses (and big businesses as well!) since the beginning of time. You will be forced to build a business that works. You will be forced to do the work of Business Development not as a replacement for people development but as its necessary correlate.


life lacking in comprehensive structure is an aimless wreck. The absence of structure breeds breakdown. Structure provides the relatively fixed points of reference we need.”


for many people, a job is crucial psychologically, over and above the paycheck. By making clear demands on their time and energy, it provides an element of structure around which the rest of their lives can be organized.”2 The operative word here is clear. Documentation provides the clarity structure needs if it is to be meaningful to your people.


The Operations Manual—the repository of the documentation—is therefore best described as a company’s How-to-Do-It Guide. It designates the purpose of the work, specifies the steps needed to be taken while doing that work, and summarizes the standards associated with both the process and the result.


The unpredictability said nothing about the barber, other than that he was constantly—and arbitrarily—changing my experience for me. He was in control of my experience, not I. And he demonstrated little sensitivity to the impact of his behavior on me.


It didn’t matter that I enjoyed the experience of having my hair washed before he set to work and that I actually believed it would improve the quality of the haircut. I would have been embarrassed to ask for these things, let alone to give my reasons for wanting them. They were all so totally emotional, so illogical. How could I have explained them, or justified them, without appearing to be a boob?


Until you accept the undeniable fact that business, even a very small business like yours, is both an art and a science. And, like art and science, to successfully develop a serious business you need specific information. Most importantly, to successfully develop a serious business you need a process, a practice, by which to obtain that information and, once obtained, a method with which to put that information to use in your business productively.


the difference between creativity and Innovation is the difference between thinking about getting things done in the world and getting things done.


Where the business is the product, how the business interacts with the consumer is more important than what it sells.


The next time you want somebody to do something for you, touch him softly on the arm as you ask him to do it. You will be amazed to find that more people will respond positively when you touch them than when you don’t.


Because without the numbers you can’t possibly know where you are, let alone where you’re going. With the numbers, your business will take on a totally new meaning. It will come alive with possibilities.


In short, the definition of a franchise is simply your unique way of doing business. And unless your unique way of doing business can be replicated every single time, you don’t own it.


The need for Orchestration is based on the absolutely quantifiable certainty that people will do only one thing predictably—be unpredictable. But for your business to be predictable, your people must be. Then what? Then the system must provide the vehicle to facilitate predictability. To do what? To give your customer what he wants every single time. Why? Because unless your customer gets everything he wants every single time, he’ll go someplace else to get it! Orchestration is the glue that holds you fast to your customers’ perceptions. Orchestration is the certainty that is absent from every other human experience. It is the order and the logic behind the human craving for reason.


In other words, once you’ve innovated, quantified, and orchestrated something in your business, you must continue to innovate, quantify, and orchestrate it. The Business Development Process is dynamic, simply because the world, moving as it does, will not tolerate a stationary object.


In short, Innovation, Quantification, and Orchestration are the backbone of every extraordinary business. They are the essence of your Business Development Process.


Because that’s all that Orchestration really is, Sarah: a habit. A way of doing something habitually.


“What truths are your curtain hiding from you? What misunderstanding keeps you where you are, in the past, in the dark, shrouded in your limited beliefs, shrinking from the world, from the light on the other side of the curtain? “Until you lift the curtain, Sarah, until you dare to pull the mask off the world’s face, until you move beyond your Comfort Zone, you will never know what it is you were missing out there. “It’s you, Sarah. It’s you that’s waiting out there for you to find on the other side of the curtain.


Your Strategic Objective is a very clear statement of what your business has to ultimately do for you to achieve your Primary Aim.


The commodity is the thing your customer actually walks out with in his hand. The product is what your customer feels as he walks out of your business. What he feels about your business, not what he feels about the commodity. Understanding the difference between the two is what creating a great business is all about.


What’s your product? What feeling will your customer walk away with? Peace of mind? Order? Power? Love? What is he really buying when he buys from you? The truth is, nobody’s interested in the commodity. People buy feelings. And as the world becomes more and more complex, and the commodities more varied, the feelings we want become more urgent, less rational, more unconscious. How your business anticipates those feelings and satisfies them is your product.


Every business has a Central Demographic Model. That is, a most probable customer. And that customer has a whole set of characteristics through which you can define him—age, sex, income, family status, education, profession, and so forth. Demographics is the science of marketplace reality. It tells you who your customer is. Your Central Demographic Model customer buys for very particular reasons, none of which are rational or even explicable! Yet he buys, or doesn’t. The motivations that propel him in either direction constitute your Central Psychographic Model. Psychographics is the science of perceived marketplace reality. It tells you why your customer buys. So when you ask, “Is this business an Opportunity Worth Pursuing?” the only way to tell is to determine how many selling opportunities you have (your customers’ demographics) and how successfully you can satisfy the emotional or perceived needs lurking there (your customers’ psychographics).


What standards are you going to insist upon regarding reporting, cleanliness, clothing, management, hiring, firing, training, and so forth?


one of the problems we have in our lives is that we don’t express our caring deeply or often enough.


So when we cut the apples, we need to remember that, and hold them just right, and slice into them with just the appropriate force, not too much, not too little.’ She would say, ‘Hold my hand while I cut the apple. Do you feel what I mean? Not too much, and not too little. Too much and you are taken away by the task. Too little and the apple doesn’t get cut.’ “Anyway, in my business I want to express ‘not too much and not too little.’ I want the business to be an expression of ‘our caring deeply and often enough.’ I want the business, All About Pies, to be all about caring, not about pies.


Accountability literally means “stand up and be counted.” Therefore, the Position Contract is the document that identifies who’s to stand up and what they’re being counted on to produce.


“What would best serve our customer here? How could I most easily give the customer what he wants while also maximizing profits for the company? And at the same time, how could I give the person responsible for that work the best possible experience?”


Before long, the Sales Operations Manual contains the exact scripts for handling incoming calls, outgoing calls, meeting the customer at the door. The exact responses to customer inquiries, complaints, concerns. The system by which an order is entered, returns are transacted, new product requests are acted upon, inventory is secured. Only when the Sales Operations Manual is complete does Murray run an ad for a salesperson. But not for someone with sales experience. Not a Master Technician. But a novice. A beginner. An Apprentice. Someone eager to learn how to do it right. Someone willing to learn what Murray has spent so much time and energy discovering. Someone for whom questions haven’t become answers.


“But, when you live by your own rules, when you ‘walk your talk,’ when you live as you think, then your business will become a thing to behold.”


The system knows what I like and makes certain that I get it, in exactly the same way, at exactly the same time. What exactly had the System provided? A match, a mint, a cup of coffee, and a newspaper! But it wasn’t the match, the mint, the cup of coffee, or the newspaper that did it. It was that somebody had heard me. And they heard me every single time!


I hadn’t said a word, and yet they had heard me.


How do I get my people to do what I want?” This is the one question I hear most often from small business owners. And the answer I invariably give them is, “You can’t! You can’t get your people to do anything. “If you want it done,” I tell them, “you’re going to have to create an environment in which ‘doing it’ is more important to your people than not doing it. Where ‘doing it’ well becomes a way of life for them.”


“I guess that’s why he took me seriously. It established a level of communication between us that made it possible for me to listen to what he believed in and how the hotel expressed those beliefs on a day-to-day basis.


“He seemed to be saying that what we were going to talk about was the most important thing on his agenda that day, that discussing my job was more important to him than doing the work that was going on at the time. “He wasn’t hiring me to work; he was hiring me to do something much more important than that.”


clear to me why I have so much respect for this place. It’s because I have so much respect for the Boss. To me, the place is him. If I didn’t respect him, I don’t think I would be as good at what I do here as I am.


‘The work we do is a reflection of who we are. If we’re sloppy at it, it’s because we’re sloppy inside. If we’re late at it, it’s because we’re late inside. If we’re bored by it, it’s because we’re bored inside, with ourselves, not with the work. The most menial work can be a piece of art when done by an artist. So the job here is not outside of ourselves, but inside of ourselves. How we do our work becomes a mirror of how we are inside.’”


“There is no such thing as undesirable work,” he continued. “There are only people who see certain kinds of work as undesirable


“The idea the Boss expressed to me was broken down into three parts: “The first says that the customer is not always right, but whether he is or not, it is our job to make him feel that way. “The second says that everyone who works here is expected to work toward being the best he can possibly be at the tasks he’s accountable for. When he can’t do that, he should act like he is until he gets around to it. And if he’s unwilling to act like it, he should leave. “The third says that the business is a place where everything we know how to do is tested by what we don’t know how to do, and that the conflict between the two is what creates growth, what creates meaning.


I came to understand that the hotel was the least important thing in our relationship. What was important was how seriously I took to playing the game he had created here.


What the Manager was telling me, and what the Boss had told him, was that people—your people—do not simply want to work for exciting people. They want to work for people who have created a clearly defined structure for acting in the world. A structure through which they can test themselves and be tested. Such a structure is called a game. And there is nothing more exciting than a well-conceived game. That is what the very best businesses represent to the people who create them: a game to be played in which the rules symbolize the idea you, the owner, have about the world.


In this context, the degree to which your people “do what you want” is the degree to which they buy into your game. And the degree to which they buy into your game doesn’t depend on them but on how well you communicate the game to them—at the outset of your relationship, not after it’s begun. Your People Strategy is the way you communicate this idea. It starts with your Primary Aim and your Strategic Objective, and continues through your Organizational Strategy (your Organization Chart and the Position Contracts for all of the positions in it) and the Operations Manuals that define the work your people do.


The game can’t be created as a device to enroll your people. It can’t become cynical if it’s to provide your people with what they need in order to come alive while playing it. The game has to be real. You have to mean it. The game is a measure of you.


Never create a game for your people you’re unwilling to play yourself. They’ll find you out and never let you forget it. 3. Make sure there are specific ways of winning the game without ending it. The game can never end because the end will take the life right out of your business. But unless there are victories in the process, your people will grow weary. Hence, the value of victories now and then. They keep people in the game and make the game appealing, even when it’s not. 4. Change the game from time to time—the tactics, not the strategy. The strategy is its ethic, the moral underpinning of your game’s logic. This must remain sacrosanct, for it is the foundation of you and your people’s commitment to each other. But change is necessary. For any game can become ordinary, no matter how exhilarating it may be at the beginning. To know when change is called for, watch your people. Their results will tell you when the game’s all but over. The trick is to anticipate the end before anyone else does and to change it by executive action. You’ll know if you’ve pulled it off by watching how everyone responds to the change. Not at first, however. You can expect some resistance at first. But persist. Your persistence will move them through their resistance into your new and more enlivening game. 5. Never expect the game to be self-sustaining. People need to be reminded of it constantly. At least once a week, create a special meeting about the game. At least once a day, make some kind of issue about an exception to the way the game has been played—and make certain that everyone knows about it. Remember, in and of itself the game doesn’t exist. It is alive to the degree that people make it so. But people have the unerring ability to forget everything they start and to be distracted by trivia. Most great games are lost that way. To make certain yours isn’t, don’t expect your people to be something they’re not. Remind them, time after time, of the game they’re playing with you. You can’t remind them too often. 6. The game has to make sense. An illogical game will abort before it ever gets going. The best games are built on universally verifiable truths.


But remember, you can have the best reasons in the world for your game and still end up with a loser if the logic is not supported by a strong emotional commitment. All the logic does is give your people the rational armament to support their emotional commitment. If their commitment wanes, it means that they—and most likely, you—have forgotten the logic.


The game needs to be fun from time to time. Note that I said, from time to time. No game needs to be fun all the time. In fact, a game is often no fun at all.


But make certain that the fun you plan is fun. Fun needs to be defined by your people.


If you can’t think of a good game, steal one. Anyone’s ideas are as good as your own.


In short, the medium of communication became as important as the idea it was designed to communicate. And the hotel’s hiring process became the first and most essential medium for communicating the Boss’s idea.


“Because your managers don’t simply manage people; your managers manage the System by which your business, All About Pies, achieves its objectives. “The System produces the results; your people manage the system. “And there is a Hierarchy of Systems in your business. “This Hierarchy is composed of four distinct components: “The first is, How We Do It Here. “The second is, How We Recruit, Hire, and Train People to Do It Here. “The Third is, How We Manage It Here. “The Fourth is, How We Change It Here. “And the ‘It’ I’m referring to is the stated purpose of your business. At Federal Express it’s ‘When You Absolutely, Positively Have to Get It There Overnight!’ “The ‘It’ of your business, Sarah, is Caring. “How do you express Caring when you answer the telephone? “How do you express Caring when you take a pie out of the oven? “How do you express Caring when you take the money from a customer?


Every bit of which is documented in your Operations Manuals. Every bit of which is taught at your school. Every bit of which is managed to, and improved upon, and discussed among you and your people for as long as you’re in business! That’s what ‘It’ is. ‘It’ is your Best Way


In a television commercial, we’re told, the sale is made or lost in the first three or four seconds. In a print ad, tests have shown, 75 percent of the buying decisions are made at the headline alone. In a sales presentation, data have shown us, the sale is made or lost in the first three minutes.


In a television commercial, we’re told, the sale is made or lost in the first three or four seconds. In a print ad, tests have shown, 75 percent of the buying decisions are made at the headline alone. In a sales presentation, data have shown us, the sale is made or lost in the first three minutes. And all that happens after that psychographic moment of truth, after the buying decision is made, is that the Unconscious Mind sends its answer up to the Conscious Mind, which then goes back out into the world to assemble the rational armament it needs to support its already determined emotional commitment. And that’s how buying decisions are made. Irrationally!


So when your customer says, “I want to think about it,” don’t you believe him. He’s not going to think about it. He doesn’t know how. He’s already done all the “thinking” he’s going to do—he either wants it or not. What your customer is really saying is one of two things: he is either emotionally incapable of saying no for fear of how you might react if he told you the truth, or you haven’t provided him with the “food” his Unconscious Mind craves.


Demographics and psychographics are the two essential pillars supporting a successful marketing program. If you know who your customer is—demographics—you can then determine why he buys—psychographics. And having done so, you can then begin to construct a Prototype to satisfy his unconscious needs, but scientifically rather than arbitrarily.


Reality only exists in someone’s perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, conclusions—whatever you wish to call those positions of the mind from which all expectations arise—and nowhere else.


So the famous dictum that says, “Find a need and fill it,” is inaccurate. It should say, “Find a perceived need and fill it.” Because if your customer doesn’t perceive he needs something, he doesn’t, even if he actually does.


But if you’re asking those questions, you’re well on your way! For the purpose of this book is not to answer those questions but to raise them! Not “how to do it” but “what needs to be done.” Unless you understand what needs to be done, unless you understand the essential importance of marketing to your Prototype, unless you understand that your customer is far less rational in his convictions and expectations than you had ever imagined, unless you understand that your Prototype is your product—all the “how to do it” in the world won’t make a bit of difference to you.


We had one standard that insisted on impeccably clean walls and another standard that made the first one seemingly impossible to uphold (white boards, white walls, blue ink). In short, we had a conflict between what we wanted and what we had. The two necessary components of conflict. The essential conditions for innovation. The conditions that give birth to a system. But a third component was needed to translate the conflict we were experiencing into remedial action: will. We were determined to lick the problem, and would not rest until we had.


And all because of a four-inch Lucite collar! A Hard System for producing a human and totally integrated result. A system solution to a typically people-intensive problem. Without anyone having to pay attention to it.


The Structure of the System is all of the predetermined elements of the Process, and includes exactly what you say, the materials you use when you say it, and what you wear. The Substance of the System is what you—the salesperson—bring to the Process, and includes how you say it, how you use it when you say it, and how you are when you say it.


If your Systems Strategy is the glue that holds your Franchise Prototype together, then information is the glue that holds your Systems Strategy together.


And why it is absolutely essential that you begin to think of your business as a fully integrated system? That to approach any part of your business as though it were separate from all the rest would be lunacy, because everything in your business affects everything else in your business. That your Primary Aim and your Strategic Objective and your Organizational Strategy and your Management Strategy and your People Strategy and your Marketing Strategy and your Systems Strategy—all of them are totally interdependent, rather than independent of one another.


“In fact,” I continued, “every written or verbal communication with anyone who comes into contact with your business is a Soft System. What so few of us understand is the power of those words when they are totally integrated.


Your Comfort Zone has seized you before, Sarah, and it can seize you again, when you’re least prepared for it, because it knows what it means to you. Because it knows how much you want to be comfortable. Because it knows what price you are willing to pay for the comfort of being in control. The ultimate price, your life.


So if the world is going to be changed, we must first change our lives! Unfortunately, we haven’t been taught to think that way. We are an “out there” society, accustomed to thinking in terms of them against us. We want to fix the world so that we can remain the same. And for an “out there” society, coming “inside” is a problem.


And that after all is the “Dream of American Small Business,” the dream that has served as the catalyst for so many entrepreneurial—and not so entrepreneurial—efforts. To create a world of our own. What is this Entrepreneurial Revolution people are talking about today, where millions of us are going into business for ourselves? It’s nothing more than a flight from the world of chaos “out there” into a world of our own. It’s a yearning for structure, for form, for control. And for something else as well. Something more personal. Something less distinct, yet much more intimately connected with who we are as human beings. It’s a yearning for relationship with ourselves and the world in a way impossible to experience in a job. Unfortunately, as we’ve already seen, the “dream” is rarely realized; most small businesses fail. And the reason is obvious. We bring our chaos with us. We don’t change. We try to change “out there.” We try to change the world by starting a small business—but we stay the same!

The lesson to learn from all this is simple: we can’t change our lives by starting “out there.” All we can produce in the process is more chaos!


The lesson to learn from all this is simple: we can’t change our lives by starting “out there.” All we can produce in the process is more chaos! We can only change our lives and create a world of our own if we first understand how such a world is constructed, how it works, and the rules of the game. And that means we have to study the world and how we are in it. And in order to do that we need a world small enough in scope and complexity to study. A small business is just such a world.


==========