Lessons from Powerlifting in optimising your business processes
Compound Improvements: 5 steps to strengthen your processes
Yes - I'm going to draw a parallel between training for a powerlifting meet and optimising your business processes. Stick with me. There is a reason.
The crux is this: Careful observation and incremental changes compound over time to drive significant improvements.
For those of you unfamiliar with Powerlifting, it's a competitive sport where the winner is the person who successfully lifts the most total weight across three barbell movements - the Squat, Bench Press, and Deadlift.
In 2017, while juggling a company sale and the impending arrival of twins, I competed for Wales in the Four Nations. Life had been full on, and I got hurt squatting 265kg, which took me out of the sport until 2019. Stepping back onto the platform then was transformative - the buzz of competing returned instantly.
I'd entered the competition to bring some discipline and focus into my training and force myself to prioritise my health in the midst of running a business and juggling four young kids. It's the same drive that pushes people to sign up for a 10k or commit to a Tough Mudder.
Once you've entered something like that, you need a plan to prepare. A set of actions that you believe will improve your performance from your current starting point. In sport this is typically called programming. For consulting firms, I call this an Ops Plan.
Your plan should focus on the process, not the outcome
Crucially, the training programme or Ops Plan is a starting point. It enables you to get going, learn, and then optimise over time.
Mike Tuchscherer, owner of Reactive Training Systems, revolutionised powerlifting programming by treating it as a data problem: predict, test, and refine the optimal training approach for each individual athlete by considering the combination of movements, weight, repetitions, training days, nutrition, sleep, and outside stressors.
There is no one-size fits all solution.
This pretty much goes for everything in life. It's the reason we use Minimum Viable Products and search for Product-Market Fit in a new business venture.
Mike uses all the available data to predict what will work best for an individual, tests the prediction to gather more data, and then refines the approach for the next iteration. Over time, this incremental approach leads to extraordinary outcomes - such as professional lifters hitting lifetime personal bests in their 50s. You are not too old to be stronger than you've ever been before (which is pretty cool!).
This approach is focused on optimising the process for improvement, not on pushing towards a pre-determined and often arbitrary target.
That bears repeating.
💡The goal is to optimise the process.
That will get you to the best possible outcomes.
And you'll have a repeatable model, from observing what works and what doesn't.
There are 5 steps to this:
Identify the metrics you want to improve
Predict which actions will lead to improvement
Test your prediction & gather useful data
Review, adjust, and repeat
Maintain a long-term perspective
Let's explore those a bit further.
Step 1: Identify the metrics you want to improve
In powerlifting, this is clear. The goal of a meet is to successfully lift the highest total weight across the Squat, Bench Press, and Deadlift, in accordance with the rules of the meet. The goal of the training process is therefore to improve this total, typically by improving some or all of the individual lifts.
In your business, the metrics for a specific process are often harder to pin down, but this step is nonetheless crucial. In your invoicing process, it might be invoice value (e.g. accurately capturing all rechargeable expenses), invoice timeliness (e.g. making sure you submit as soon as you can), and invoice accuracy (e.g. minimising the time sink of responding to invoice queries from your clients).
For recruitment it could be offer win rate, or application-to-offer days. In skill development, perhaps training programme completion rates, course NPS ratings, or performance ratings.
This is about identifying the metrics to improve, not setting goals for those metrics. We are focusing on optimising the process that drives improvement.
Step 2: Predict which actions will lead to improvement
In powerlifting, this requires drawing on all the available data - your training log, experiences of other lifters, the latest research - to predict the right combination of training variables that you believe will yield the optimum rate of improvement.
In a consulting business, predicting the right design for your process demands exactly the same mindset. You should consider all the available data - your personal experience, the experience of your team, lessons from similar businesses, and the latest thinking published by experts.
With that, come up with a small number of actions that you want to test.
Crucially, the actions you identify must be things that can be consistently delivered in the short-term AND set you up for a long-term solution. This is particularly important if the process in question impacts your clients, and the commitments you're making to them. To grow your business, you must keep your promises.
Step 3: Test your prediction & gather useful data
In powerlifting, we call this running a training block. During a training block, I pay attention to my strength levels, but also to lots of additional data - how hard the sets are, my bodyweight, my subjective sensations of fatigue, how well I'm sleeping, my tolerance for my kids or work stresses, any signs of emerging joint pain etc. All this helps me to determine how effectively the process is working.
In a consulting business, the same mindset applies. Once you've determined, to the best of your available knowledge, a process you believe will work then it's time to test. Run it exactly as designed and monitor what happens. Gather all the data you can - the key metrics, but also how much time it's taking, feedback from clients or suppliers who are impacted, the stress levels of your team. Keep running it as long as your target metrics are improving. When your key metrics are no longer improving, or have started to go backwards, it's time for Step 4.
Step 4: Review, adjust, and repeat
Once you're no longer seeing improvement, review what worked and what didn't. What have you learned? What is worthy of testing now?
Consider all the data you've just gathered and dig down deep to identify the underlying causes of any inefficiencies you can find. Find 1-2 adjustments you believe will improve the process. Any more will cloud your data. You don't need to solve everything at once.
Maybe you can add a reminder notification in a different channel or build a Zapier automation to save 15 mins from a manual process. Maybe build a simple no-code webapp. Implement those changes, and then give them time to have impact. Once the metrics stop improving again… well, you know what to do.
Step 5: Maintain a long-term perspective
This approach only works if you can be in it for the long-term. If I wanted to squat 300kg this year I might be able to, but I'd have to gain so much bodyweight, sleep so much, and be so ineffective as a father, husband, and business owner that it would cause lasting damage. Worse than that, there'd be a high chance I'd get hurt and end up weaker than I started. I'd much rather consistently and predictably build my squat up over years, rather than take a high-risk approach that has a decent chance of leaving me worse off.
With your business, a long-term perspective is also critical. The definition of long-term will vary depending on your specific circumstances and goals. Judging how much to change, and how fast, can be difficult, particularly if there are issues that are causing significant pain. The point is, trying to fix too much too fast is likely to backfire.
Trust the process and the results will follow
Commit to incremental improvement over the long-term and, in a year or two's time, you'll barely recognise your starting point. Your processes will be streamlined, your metrics improved, and your clients delighted.
One final parallel that is useful to consider. The most successful athletes in the world - and not just in powerlifting - rely on guidance from coaches with deep expertise, an objective eye, and the tools to gather and analyse the myriad data points that can be useful. In business, working with a mentor, coach, or other expert advisor can help short-cut these 5 steps and deliver more improvement, faster, than you can achieve by yourself.
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