Your business may not be a brick-and-mortar based business, but each brick you use to build your company is incredibly important. Choose your bricks carefully, and make sure you choose the right type of brick for each location inside the building and its purpose. Choose the wrong brick for the wrong application, and your entire building will collapse when turbulence happens.
Your business may not be a brick-and-mortar based business, but each brick you use to build your company is incredibly important. Choose your bricks carefully, and make sure you choose the right type of brick for each location inside the building and its purpose. Choose the wrong type of brick for the wrong application, and your entire building will collapse when turbulence happens.
That single idea is the foundation of everything else in this essay: quality is never abstract. It is always contextual. A brick that is perfect for a load-bearing wall is wrong for a decorative facade, and a system that is perfect for one part of your organization can be entirely wrong for another. The work of leadership is knowing the difference, and having the discipline to choose correctly even when the wrong choice looks cheaper or easier in the moment.
The question you have to ask about your systems is a complicated one that cannot be solved by a single tool, and cannot be explained by a single conversation. In much the same way that I could explain why my personal sound system, which I spent about $10,000 on, actually sounds better than the system in the auditorium I was in last week — a system that cost more than $500,000.
It's a question of value combined with use and execution, not cost. Which part of the system is breaking down, and why, is a question of heart more than money or skill. There are literally millions of people in the world with my skills, who understand the same languages and technologies. The difference between average and excellence in the outcome of your systems is one of personal heart, conviction, and passion.
Does each person in the chain of systems involved care about why their piece of the system is important? And at the very top of the chain of command — does the person driving the team care about the end result, and about how each component is performing all the way down the chain of command?
What makes us, as Christians, fairly decent at accepting this outlook on life and job responsibilities is our service to God through the lens of Jesus Christ. While He holds the entire universe in the palm of His hand, He still somehow finds it within Himself to care about our insignificant lives — not just the main arc or impact of our lives, but all the little details that make us who we are.
Acts 17:24 says that He made a conscious decision to plan the exact place and time that we might find Him. Romans 8 says that the entire universe is groaning in expectation of our appearance as representatives on the stage of our lives.
So God cares equally about the big, overarching picture, and equally about each and every little detail. And just to make sure that we accept His advice on this — He built the pattern into creation itself, down to the smallest brick.
All that to say — it isn't necessarily the tools, at least that's not the only problem. It's the people responsible for those tools, and the empowerment that comes through the inspired vision of leadership. If the person at the top of the chain of authority is inspired with a plan, clearly articulates that plan, and provides the resources necessary to carry it out, then any resulting frustration is only there to enlighten leadership as to where the weaknesses actually are.
As each part in the path through your business is executed, it affects the final result. If that result is not as good as it could or should be, then something along the path is not performing at its best — and there is a human being responsible for that piece of the environment. If you care about the whole picture, you cannot afford to only care about the parts you personally touch.
There are five main components to a sound system: microphone, wire connections, mixing console, speakers, and room acoustics. Each piece of that system can be categorized by level of quality — low, mid, or high — and by purpose: instrument, voice, amplification, live, or studio.
For example, a microphone can cost $99, $299, $499, $999, or up to $7,999 and beyond, and the quality is a combination of features that balance its use against its components. Just because I spent $7,999 on a microphone doesn't mean the singer will sound better, if the microphone's main purpose doesn't match the application. A recording-studio microphone that costs $7,999 will record all the fine details of the human voice, from a whisper to an opera tenor or soprano and every vocal range in between — but that same precision can be entirely wasted, or even harmful, in the wrong room, on the wrong voice, for the wrong purpose.
The bottom line is that an entire system can only be as good as the quality of the team, and it starts at the very top of the chain of authority. It becomes better or worse based on the vision and conviction of that person, and on the quality of the relationships all the way down the chain of command. The value of the resources provided to carry out that vision will match the quality of the vision itself.
This is why the story of Bezalel in Exodus is so important to me. The community gladly provided more resources than there was even a use for, in terms of finances — because the vision was so inspired and so well-articulated by the leadership of the community. When people believe the vision, they overfund it. When they doubt it, no amount of persuasion will loosen their hands.
So what is the vision in your environment, and how is the relationship with those you are putting in positions of authority? If you feel underfunded, then the community does not yet trust your vision, and you need to go back and figure out why. If you are funded but lack the vision to get from idea to finished product, then find the talent to fill in that void — and make sure they understand your passion, share it, and understand the value of finding the right tool for each piece of the puzzle.
Remember: it's not always about money, but about understanding how and when each tool does the job it's being asked to do. A misallocated budget and a misplaced brick fail for the exact same reason — the right resource was pointed at the wrong purpose.
Is your vision driven by money, by education, or by a genuine improvement in quality of life through better understanding? The distinction is important, because the “why” question drives each person on the team by giving them a reason for why they got out of bed this morning.
Every brick in your organization — every hire, every tool, every system, every process — is either aligned to that why, or quietly working against it. The essay that began with a question about masonry ends, fittingly, with a question about purpose. Get the why right, articulate it clearly, fund it honestly, and staff it with people who care about their piece of the chain — and the building will hold, no matter how much turbulence comes.