Case Study

Intro

Hidden Decision Drivers

Tom has been building his plumbing contractor business for the past four years. In the beginning, like most new businesses, he jumped all the hurdles and persevered through the ups and downs. Now, as Tom is entering his fifth year, he begins to realize there seems to be a roadblock in his ability to move to another level.

Tom is a proponent of constant learning and he invests in books, seminars and attending trade shows for his industry. Tom was in his office looking at his book shelves and noticed he had a tremendous amount of business and self improvement books that he had consumed. He also started to wonder why, after obtaining all of that knowledge, not much has changed in his business.

He had just learned about Hidden Decision Drivers in his Sharpen the Spear coaching program. His first takeaway was “Governing Shoulds” and as he looked at all the books and thought about the seminars he’s attended he understood the trap he created for himself. Experts gave him new knowledge and said he should do it, and he agreed he should do it, but never did it. 

For example, he learned that time management and organization was a key element to success. Tom wants to be successful and he invested in books and courses to improve his time management and organization. The problem was he never found time to implement all the strategies he learned. Nonetheless he developed a strong belief that time management and organization were keys to success. 

Tom’s next take away regarding Hidden Decision Drivers was “If knowledge alone would work, it would have worked already.” That was an ego gut punch to Tom, especially as he looked at the wall full of “Knowledge” he had consumed. 

Fortunately, his coach didn’t leave him standing in despair, instead he told Tom he needed leverage. Leverage comes from slowing down and controlling your time, which made Tom laugh, since that was one of his “knowledge” attempts to improve his success. Tom also knows how hard he works everyday to deliver the perfect experience for his clients and expects the same attention to detail from his staff. This tends to turn Tom into a micro manager, taking even more time from his day.

Being encouraged to just slow down a little, eased Tom’s anxiety. This also enabled him to embrace his next takeaway that “Most decision drivers are fear based.” These are things like greed, guilt and insecurities. Tom connected the high speed at which he operated to reasons these Hidden Decision Drivers remained operational. He made it impossible to self examine why he was doing what he was doing.

Tom admitted this was a difficult step because it was uncovering and acknowledging his weaknesses as not only a business owner but as a man too. On the other hand, he was now able to correct these shortcomings by putting them into one of three categories. Those three categories are 1. Governing Shoulds 2. Wants 3. True desires.

The books and seminars were telling him what he “Should” do. The outcomes; time management, organization and success are the “Wants” the “Governing Shoulds” are supposed to produce. The problem is the only thing “Governing Shoulds” produce is guilt. As Tom thought about this, again looking at his cluttered bookshelves, that feeling of guilt was out in the open and salt was being poured on that wound. The final blow was seeing that the “Wants” are basically a deceptive illusion that satisfaction comes from obtaining them. 

Tom immediately thought about when he bought his second truck for his first employee to work solo and how that was going to solve his problem of overwhelm. Needless to say, that turned out to be a lie and actually increased the overwhelm.

The saving grace to this depressing downhill spiral was learning about the third category, “True Desires.” It made Tom go back to the very beginning when he started his business. The dreams and big vision for what he was going to create made him jump out of bed every morning to build his business. As time went by and the daily grind of operations increased, that vision was relegated to the back of the line for importance. 

Tom learned that True Desires are actually pieces of our identity or our true, harmonic, centered, balanced, fully active self. For Tom, this was like getting the green light to dream again. To refocus on the vision for his company that once fueled him every day. It gave him clarity on its importance and even though he didn’t have a complete understanding of how to get there yet, he knew the path existed and Sharpen the Spear was going to get him there.