Tag: funeral home consulting

Most of us know that success requires that we spend, at least, some time working “on” our business instead of “in” our business. Yet, in practice, we find this piece of essential wisdom to be nothing more than a tired cliche’.

Having spent the bulk of my career studying funeral practitioners and all of my life studying myself, I think I know why. Spending time working “on” our business is less familiar than working “in” our business. In other words, we know how to work in our business better than we know how to work on our business. It’s easier to fall back into life long patterns. Quite frankly, being too busy provides a false sense of security and even progress. So, we fool ourselves into thinking we are making progress. But that uneasy feeling in our gut tells us differently.

I have found, at least for myself, that there are three ways to break this pattern and begin doing the increasingly necessary work of the business itself.

Commit to NOT being THERE: This means that you schedule a time in advance to being offsite with no phones or text or email. Actually, you can have all of those but your staff is under strict orders not to call you unless the building is on fire. Sometimes, I just go to the library or some other quiet place.

Don’t make it up: Working on your business means planning and planning means structure. Most of us don’t really know where to start working on our business. We tend to gravitate toward the things that worry us or irritate us. I truly believe that the reason we don’t work “on” our businesses is because we don’t know how and we have no model to emulate. I read a lot and, frankly, have been disappointed in most of the literature on this subject. Recently, however, I encountered a book that is the most practical blueprint for working on your business. It covers all of the critical elements but it goes beyond ideas by providing very strong processes and systems for moving your company forward. Get “Traction” by Gino Wickman

Don’t do it alone: The one thing I anticipate Funeral Directors resisting in Wickman’s book “Traction” is that he is all about accountability. And for those who need to work “on” their business accountability is the single most important element. That’s why I say “Too Busy To Succeed”. It is so easy to be pulled back into the whirlwind of the funeral business. Wickman’s system makes everyone accountable to everyone else. But I believe the leader needs to be accountable to peers. That means assembling a group of people who care enough to be tough with you and hold you accountable to focus and deadlines.

Short Term Study Group

If you feel it’s time you break the cycle of start and stop ideas, non – cooperative staff, endless unfinished projects and always feeling you might be behind the curve, I am organizing a SHORT-TERM study group to help my clients break through and gain the advantage of focused, disciplined strategies that hold people accountable.

I am a big fan of study groups. But, all too often, they degenerate into “clubs”. People forget what you committed to last time and there is no real accountability.

This study group will be short – term (3 – 5 years) because it will be focused on achieving the goals each member identifies. We will, as a group, implement the “Traction” processes and systems. We will meet electronically once a month to update each other, discuss issues and hold each other accountable. If you fall back into the “working in your business” pattern we will lift you up. If you stay there I will politely ask you to withdraw.

The reason it is short – term is that it is goal – specific. Once goals are realized it is time to disband. That does not mean that the group or individuals in the group can’t repurpose and establish new goals. But, if I am involved, it will not become a club.

If you really want to break out and think this might be a good pattern for you contact me at

alan@alancreedy.org

Many years ago I fell prey to a “woe-is-me” episode. A friend made an offhand comment that changed my life direction and I want to share it with you.

But, first, let me say that his comment really offended me. That’s a true friend…someone who tells you what you NEED to hear regardless of how it makes you feel. Anyway, I was literally furious for several weeks.

But I couldn’t shed the comment and slowly realized its truth and that caused me to grow, take courage and DO SOMETHING about the situation. His comment:

“YOU ARE WHERE YOU ARE BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE YOU WANT TO BE”

Oh, it was so much easier to believe I was the victim. But being a victim allows you to avoid blame and put the responsibility somewhere else. And you can only truly change your circumstances when you take responsibility for your circumstances.

I realized I was angry because his comment meant I was responsible. My poor choices and judgment had resulted in the problem. How I responded to the path of options that had led to my circumstances was my responsibility alone.

I realized that I was addicted to avoiding rejection, conflict and blame… both just and unjust. That avoidance behavior caused me to “go along” with others just to “get along”. I realized that my need for acceptance and approval was driving me to continually “chase other people’s rainbows.”

Taking responsibility meant taking risks, potential disapproval, and accepting blame. But chasing one’s own rainbow means you get where YOU need to be. It means operating on the assumption that you deserve better.

The outcome? I think at this later stage of life I can look back and say that I have earned greater respect, more solid friendships, greater stability and confidence. No, I haven’t achieved all that I had hoped but I am sure further along than I was. So, now when I feel the “woe-is-me’s” coming on I ask my self two questions: “Why do I want to be here?” and “What choices did I make that got me here?”

Whose Rainbow are you chasing?

The prevailing culture in funeral service is Passive Aggressive. I have talked about the “ten call man” before and how that person subversively undermines a business. But, unwittingly, owners and staff can undermine themselves.  Here are 5 ways you can commit “self-sabotage.”

1. Never permit short cuts. It’s necessary to establish procedures and rules to avoid mistakes. But too many rules and supervision that is too tight can prevent employees from using personal judgment in situations that demand it. You need to emphasize rules but always describe and encourage achieving the desired outcome of those procedures or rules. For instance: “We always answer the phone before the third ring…BECAUSE we want the public to feel we are organized, competent and ready to care for their needs.”
2. Make committees as large as possible. Many people feel they have to be as inclusive as possible.  But, the bigger the committee the more complicated the decision making. Worse yet, many funeral directors are predisposed to making decisions by consensus and that rarely works. Keep committees as lean as possible.  Again describe the outcome you want. I once created a committee to work on the licensee scheduling. I charged them as follows: We want a schedule that respects the need of people to be able to spend time with their family, serve those we serve with continuity, operates within our economic constraints and gives everyone at least one day off every 7 days…With clear guidelines it took a while and even some experimentation but they got it done.
3. Allowing people to continually reopen and second – guess decisions already made. I am not an authoritarian but I learned as a parent that I had to determine which decisions I was willing to stand behind which didn’t matter. Kids pick it up fast and don’t argue much when they sense determination. When I ran Trust 100 I tried never to change things for our sales people. But when I did I needed to be resolute. Once I realized that after an 18 day grieving period people pretty much got over it I knew that part of my responsibility was to be clear and decisive.
4. Overly advocating caution. Saboteurs seem to have an overly developed sense of what could go wrong. I once pulled in a few favors to help a client redesign a sign in order to attract more attention on a busy boulevard. The facility was located about 1/2 a block in from a busy stop light. The design was so successful that when I presented it one of the employees gasped that, “If we put that up someone is going to have an accident.” In spite of the open admission that the sign would have accomplished its purpose the concept was torpedoed in favor of caution.
5. Sending updates too frequently. This may not be obvious but let’s remember that most people in this world are not good at handling abstracts. Furthermore, most people don’t like change. Premature updates can be distracting, give people too much opportunity to trash an immature plan and can discourage the planners by inappropriate feedback.

The solution:

• Define the result you want
• Keep task groups small
• Give them clear direction in terms of outcome
• Limit premature feedback
• Once a decision is made DO NOT waiver unless YOU see that there might have been a mistake.  You will learn what I learned. Give people an 18 day grieving period and they will move on.

Some years ago a study was conducted. A group of people were divided into “tappers” and “listeners”. The tappers were asked to pick a popular tune and tap it out and the listeners were asked to identify it. The study found that the “tappers” predicted that the listeners got it right at least 50% of the time. Actually the listeners only guessed the tune 3 times during the whole study. The researchers concluded that the reason for the disconnect was that the tappers could “hear” the tune in their head and therefore misled themselves in thinking they had fully communicated with the listeners…when, in reality, they hadn’t.

So what does this have to do with funeral service?

I think the biggest lesson for me is that, as an expert, we know what we know so well that we convince ourselves that others who don’t know what we know will fill in any blanks.

The reality is that they don’t know what you know. They don’t know the options, why’s or wherfore’s of any of it. This explains to me why so many families are so grateful and so easily trust those funeral directors who will take the chance of making sure they understand the options as well as the potential consequences of any decisions they make.

Ultimately, I have always believed we have a moral obligation to explain all the options to ALL the people ALL the time. Those that do so consistently report greater family confidence, greater job satisfaction, and, of course, better revenue. But the best part is the significant improvement in relationships with their customers.

The Lesson:

Stand up for what you believe and tell it like it is.