How the list conversation uncovers the causes, not just the symptoms

The problem you can see isn’t always the one you need to solve. The list conversation helps uncover what’s really causing it.

Some things in a business are quite easy to put your finger on.

Orders are taking too long. Leads aren't being followed up quickly enough. Our staff turnover is too high. A process involves far too many steps.

You can see the issue, even if you don't yet know how to solve it.

Other things are much harder to define.

You might feel that the culture isn't quite right. That the team doesn't work together as well as it could. Decisions take too long and projects either drag on or never get completed.

Perhaps there's nothing obviously wrong at all, but you have a nagging feeling that the business simply isn't running in the way you know it could or realising its full potential.

Those things often find their way onto what I call the “Imagine if…” list.

Imagine if Sales and Marketing worked better together. Imagine if we could make decisions more quickly. Imagine if the business didn't rely quite so heavily on me. Imagine if we had better insight in to how our business made money … and didn't. Imagine if staff turnover wasn't so high. Imagine if we could open up exporting as an opportunity.

The difficulty is knowing what to do with them.

I talk about the List Conversation, and why getting to the cause rather than just treating the symptom matters, in this short video.

The thing you notice isn't always the thing you need to fix first

If orders are taking too long, it's tempting to look at the person processing them or the system they're using.

And perhaps that's where the problem is. But perhaps it isn't.

Maybe information is arriving late from sales. Maybe somebody is entering the same information into three different places. Maybe an approval was introduced years ago, and nobody has ever stopped to ask whether it's still needed, and that's what is holding things up.

The symptom is that orders are slow. The cause could be somewhere completely different.

The same applies to all the things that are harder to put your finger on.

Take culture. It can sound slightly intangible, but in my mind, it is built on real foundations: how people communicate, how people behave, the way the business outlines what good looks like and a shared vision of what could be achieved.

So even something that initially feels quite vague, ethereal and intangible can be worked backwards into something much more tangible with a clear roadmap for optimisation.

That's where the List Conversation comes in: sitting down together, talking through the things on your “Imagine if…” list and asking enough questions to understand what's really sitting underneath them.

The best question to ask is actually the next one

Somebody once told me that, and I have always liked that and lived by it.

Because the first answer somebody gives you is rarely the whole answer.

If you tell me, “We need to improve communication”, my next question is going to be: “Tell me more about what you mean by that?”

Then there'll be another question. And probably another one after that. We might go down a bit of a rabbit hole. But that's rather the point.

I'm not trying to arrive with a checklist, a “proven” system and announce that I have the silver bullet for all ills.

I'm digging to understand what's REALLY happening in your business.

What are you seeing? Why is it happening? Who does it affect? What happens because of it?

And, importantly, are we looking at the real issues. Sometimes we end up somewhere neither of us expected when we started. That's usually when the conversation becomes very useful.

Causes before solutions

Of course, I'm committed to making things happen; moving the needle; making an impact. But there's not much value in moving quickly if you haven't yet got to the real issue.

Understanding the cause rather than simply reacting to the symptom will mean a solution that will stick.

That might mean improving a process. It might mean changing responsibilities, structure, systems or behaviours. Or it might turn out that something you thought was a big problem isn't actually the thing worth tackling first.

That's why, for me, the List Conversation comes before the action plan.

Work out what's really going on. Then we can decide what would make the biggest difference and what we're going to do about it.

Those changes will help the business work better, become more profitable and more resilient and, if growth is where you want to take it, put it in a stronger position to become bigger too, without the same friction.

So, what's on your “Imagine if…” list? And perhaps more importantly, what's really sitting underneath it?