Whether it be about business or about your life, no matter what your vision, dream, goal or desired outcome is, which is your 1st most important issue we’d discuss in coaching, the 2nd most important area we focus on alongside that is, getting honest with your current situation, also referred to as your reality. These two areas aren’t skimmed over, they are a wealth of all the information we need, to take you from challenge to results.
Every six weeks my own results coach and I used to draw up a Wheel of Business or Wheel of Life or Wheel of Stress/Frustration, there are all kinds of wheels on your life bus or on your biz bus, that can get out of alignment from time to time.
You know that feeling of ‘what do we focus on next’, or ‘something isn’t right’, or ‘I can’t put my finger on what’s out of kilter’, or ‘look at that shiny sparkly object/butterfly’ and off you go down a new rabbit hole of distraction, indecisiveness or procrastination.
Talking just in terms of the Wheel of Business for the moment, it’s a perfect 1-page tool you can print out, or draw on a napkin, sketch out real big to fill an entire whiteboard, and as if it were a pie, break it into 8 sections. Then you label each section to score where you are right now in relation to your dream or ideal for how each part of your business is operating.
I’m creative, an individualist and vision-focused, that’s been confirmed in all kinds of personal and professional assessment tools, so as a vision-inspired business coach, no one could expect to sit down with me and score yourself around a Wheel of anything with dull, unimaginative titles for each segment. Bring me juicy visions and let’s make them happen!
I’m going to let you in on my kind of wheel of business, that only my clients or strategic review attendees have had the pleasure of scoring themselves against until now.
Please download a copy and I’ll give you a few tips to help this be a worthwhile mission of owning or being excited too about where you are in all the areas of your business right now.
YOUR WHEEL OF BUSINESS INSTRUCTIONS (can be completed individually or as a team workshop). Note these italicised instructions are also printed on the downloadable copy.
Look at your Wheel of Business and notice that it’s divided up into different sections corresponding to some of the typical areas in business (note: segments are titles based on my strategic retreat prep session)
- The middle of the circle corresponds to “0” (non-existent/very dissatisfied) and the outside ring of the circle corresponds to “10” (10 meaning you excel in that area of your business, also known as “we freakin’ rock that …!)
- Now, taking one area at a time, grade yourself as a solo exercise or as a team exercise, on a scale of “0 to 10” of where you are today vs where you really want to be. You might even want to grade it first alone; then as a team. For example, you might rate yourself at a “7” for marketing clarity, an “8” for strategy in action, a “5” for empowered team, a “3” for team experience in conversational sales; for CANI (constant and never-ending improvement) what would you score your team’s resourcefulness and your leadership team’s openness to innovative spirit as being?
IMPORTANT: Use the FIRST number (score) that pops into your head, not the number you think it should be! If there’s disagreement on the rating within a team, maybe choose an average score between you all, you’ll know what’s best for the moment – especially if your team say 1 and you say 9 – let’s go with, what, make it a 4 for now.
Simple draw a line across each section that represents the number you currently rate yourself at in that section, for every section. If one means nothing to you, rate it a “10” as it means it needs no gap filled.
- Now, once you’ve drawn the line across each section rating yourself on a scale of 0-10, use your pen to colour in each section from the centre out to your new line, to get a true picture of where you really are in each area.
The new perimeter of the circle represents your “NOW” Wheel of Business.
Question to ask yourself or the team: If this wheel was one wheel on our biz bus, would it be a bumpy ride?
What’s next?
To me, I always do this mindful of the 3 Mandates of Leadership.
Look at the scores and ‘See It As It Is, Not Worse Than It Is’.
- What’s the first thought that comes to mind when reviewing your Wheel now?
- What are the lowest scoring areas? Any surprises?
- Would they be your first priority to work on?
- Did you think another area of your business was higher or lower than what was scored (by the team)?
- What area should get your attention?
- What area would you prefer to give your attention to?
- What area excites you to work on first?
Close the Gap
The point of this exercise, is to apply that honest non-judgmental scoring, and now you have a baseline to use for discussion with your team.
In coaching sessions I usually run through a really powerful 5-Step Action Process with my clients at this stage and would be only too happy to take you through that as short 1-2 Zoom session package – be it with you alone or facilitate the conversation between you and your team on screen, whatever you choose. Book a Discovery Call if that’s something you’d find helpful. It does give you actions straight away that are worth taking.
However, if you’d like to take the next steps alone.
I’d go first to the outer rim of one segment that measured low.
I do know that if you score something less than 2 it’s going to be a hard job turning that baby round, but be ok with that for now.
The point is that if you want this wheel to not bounce you right out of your seat(s) on your biz bus, you want to start evening up the scores.
Start on one segment or 2 only, and check-in on ‘what does right look like?’ for this area. What would a 10 look like, sound like, feel like, how would you know you got there?
What does the current score for that segment tell you?
Ask for inputs, you’ll know anyway why you scored it what you did.
The really great news is, with that acceptance of seeing it as it is, not worse than it is, and acknowledgment that change requires action, you can focus on the desired outcome and choose a few small actions you can take today, or this week, towards closing the gap.
I remember doing this exercise at a national strategy meeting with all the heads of the company brands purchased by our new owner in Sydney back in 2016.
We were all well-established top Australian brands in a niche industry, with upward of 10 and as much as 30 years’ experience in making our companies successful.
Under the new ownership, the head office were consolidating costs, taking over budgets and activities, as to be expected, with the head office’s financial, marketing, HR, quality/feedback machinations, understandably confused, and the hard and soft costs of drama would have been extremely high, factoring in the scrambling around that went on day-after-day.
On the 2nd morning of the strategy workshop, I drew a similar circle to this up on the whiteboard and all the heads of each company and higher level management at the new company, rated where we are “NOW”. We very easily, quickly, collectively, could rate that wheel of business. I didn’t try to excite them with very juicy headers, just ones that shook out their thinking of what a 10 might look like, for a company of this size, with so much opportunity to be the no. 1 in our niche market, utilising the collective intelligence and maximising systems, developed from many decades of experience in our industry.
The two areas that stood out as having nearly fallen through the floor since takeover, rating 1 and 2 respectively, where a 10 for the segments meant we have “world-class marketing”; and we are all about “creating raving fans – customers and culture”.
All of the ex-CEOs were relationship-focused, care-driven, beings; word-of-mouth known brands and business builders. The new head office were corporates, numbers and analytics-focused, and the words ‘we’re too busy for your business division’ by their corporate team, especially in terms of marketing activity, were heard regularly. Brand confusion was like you’ve never seen it before! Workplace drama, in all its forms, was rife!
Yet, this simple exercise, led to an easy-to-see reality and an awareness that something needed to change in, at minimum, those two areas of the national company. What actions would make a positive impact? What was the desired outcome, that would be our score of 10, in every segment? Honesty about where we were on that day and time, so what actions would be simple and effective for the year ahead.
Agreed. Simple. So, what’s the first next step to take, and by whom?
Can I just add, don’t read too much into the exercise, especially if it is your first time. Stay curious and open to the idea that this is a baseline score card. Date the sheet. Mark it with whomever is present and contributing to the score. Keep it. Do it again in 6 weeks or 3 months time. You’ll be surprised that your scores will change. Sometimes areas will go upward in score, sometimes your best scores will drop, it’s about measuring and giving you something to work with and to discuss/celebrate/action as a team.
What I loved about doing these activities with my own coach is I knew when I needed to check-in, as we all do but sometimes just ignore that intuitive gut feeling as it arises.
I’d sometimes change the headings of segments for just this time right now because there might have been something new, I knew needed my attention, beyond these segments. I’d go deeper and define what fits within a segment, and even split one small piece of the pie into smaller segments eg. innovation/research might be something that needs adding.
I’d also be very conscious and acknowledge that what my zero was say 2 years ago and what my 10 was 2 years ago had shifted, because my business had stepped forward, had grown, was more successful, and what I saw was zero was coming from a higher base than earlier.
What my vision was for each segment was also new because we’d got to where we wanted to, and constant-and-never-ending improvement and strategic planning being a passion of mine, it let us ask new and better questions, about what we now wanted the business to look like to support our 3, 5 and lifetime plans.
I’d love to hear how you go with this if you do choose to do it alone.
Send me a copy of your marked up Wheel of “NOW” via email to susan@susandunlop.com.au if you wish, and I promise you I will keep it so you have your scores, safe and sound, someplace to check in on at a later time.
If I can support you and your team as an unbiased, non-judgmental and trusted confidante championing you towards your vision, let’s talk.