Business Boundaries Failing You? How To Stop It.
Boundaries are king when it comes to getting things done and keeping your energy high. It’s how we can easily carve out time in our workday to work on the business.
It stops boundary breaking time wasters from chewing up hours of our time and getting nowhere or no real progress by the end of the day.
By having strong business boundaries, you become efficient and effective as a business owner with growing profits to boot.
However, if we are not doing boundaries in business correctly, it can cost you dearly.
Here’s where I used to screw boundaries up…
I used to talk a big game about how dare anyone cross my line. Did they not know who I was? I will eat them alive!
…sounds impressive and aggressive doesn’t it?
…it was all bark and no bite. I knew what my boundaries were, but they were failing me.
I would get to work and the team would run me over.
Every. Single. Day.
I would put signs on my door not to disturb or session in progress….they would still knock, text and email that they needed to talk to me right now. It was either a not really needed to ask question or something about their personal life. Mostly about their personal lives.
I set office business hours where they could come in and ask their questions. Didn’t work.
I did weekly individual team meetings called PDM’s. Nope. They would show up with nothing and then the following day be banging down my door with questions that were not emergency related.
I would come in early to get work done, they would show up early and bang on the front door, phone the clinic and TRUE STORY bang on the outside wall of the building to let them in. It was never an emergency.
Instead of people respecting my time and energy so that I could move the company forward, it was the completely opposite. I was at their beck and call x 20 people. I couldn’t get anything done during my work day.
So I started working at home after hours until 1-2 in the morning after my kids went to bed.
Then I would come into work like a bear so that my energy put off to them “talk to me and die”.
I was becoming a monster and I was exhausted.
The problem was – I didn’t have a boundary system.
I decided I had boundaries and what they were. But I didn’t have a system for enforcing them. And therein laid the problem.
Whenever we are putting new boundaries in place, we will get push back. People don’t want you to change; they want you to be there for them. But you can’t be there for them if you are not there for yourself. You can’t offer them a great place to work, if you never work on the business.
Putting out every single little fire is not working on the business or creating a great work environment….it’s babysitting.
And we all know that kids don’t know any boundaries or what personal space is (at least mine didn’t).
I built a team where I was the go to person for every single question, bump, hiccup or fart they had. Why google? Ask Tracy.
I DID THAT. I CREATED THAT.
Boundaries in your business also create empowerment for your team….because they have to figure it out themselves instead of you answering every single question.
So the bigger question is how do we shift, change and transform that so that our business boundaries work?
Questions on business boundaries!!
Asking questions allows you to take stock of what is going on in your business from an awareness standpoint versus irritation.
So let me walk you through the ones I use.
Q#1: Who are you currently tolerating at work that is breaking business boundaries?
This can be an employee, a contractor, a joint venture partner, a supplier, a customer that drives you bananas. It’s okay. Be honest and whoever jumps to mind first, work with that…not everyone.
Now I say “not everyone” because it can become overwhelming. When we haven’t had boundaries that work for us in a long time, our “toleration list” can be huge. So we are going to take it one baby step at a time.
In the beginning, I did this exercise once a week and then when things shifted, I moved it to once a month. And I still do this once a month.
So who is it? Write it down.
Q#2 What are they doing/not doing?
Now this is not the time to get nit-picky. If they are doing something that others are doing, but because they are irritating you, you can’t really call it out here. Make a separate note that you have a bigger team issue and deal with it there. This is only what they are doing or not doing that others are not.
Example – I had a customer care gal who only worked one evening and every second Saturday. She was extremely friendly with the customers and the team and never got her work done in the scheduled hours. Everyone else did, but she didn’t. She was charging me anywhere from an extra hour to 1.5 hours extra every time she worked a shift. It was driving me bonkers.
One of my boundaries is that you show up on time and do the work without me having to chase you. This takes time out of my day, away from building the business and sometimes away from my family if I have to chase you to do your job. Continually “talking to you” about performance is a time stealer. In other words, this is a time boundary. Plus she was costing me extra money that was coming directly from the net profit column because there were no sales going on after the clinic closed when she decided to step up and get her work done.
So after I did some investigation, I discovered that she was sitting in the reception area drinking tea with clients and then would stand and visit with the therapists after hours. She was not working and was billing me the time.
That encompassed what she was doing – visiting. And what she wasn’t doing – her job during her paid hours.
Q#3 What is this preventing or delaying you from implementing?
If someone is continually breaking your boundaries, the time for you to handle it has to come from somewhere. So what is it slowing down in your company? Or is it costing you opportunities? Is it costing you from implementing something because you are dealing with the boundary break instead? We all have 24 hours in a day. How much is this boundary break taking from you so that you can’t get something done?
Q#4 What is it costing you?
Is this business boundary break costing you time? Costing you money due to missed opportunities? Is it costing you clients? Overall is it costing you joy?
Example: I had a couple of coaching clients who believed that I was available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even though it is stated that I am fully available these days during these hours right up front. And sometimes in email form as a reminder. And it is on my email signature line.
They would text, email, facebook message. Literally chase to get an answer. It was disrupting my family time, vacation time, sleep, exercise. You name it because it was happening at all hours.
Now you might think – just don’t answer. I tried that. They would keep it up until they had a response. Which was “I am fully available to you during XXXX”. That seemed to set off a myriad of extra messages of sorry, etc.
So now the boundary is – I will not answer until my hours, if you consistently pursue me, then we talk about cancellation of contract….and I have cancelled contracts.
If I don’t be firm, this costs me my joy. It costs me my regeneration time, my self-care. Then I am not at my best and you are getting a broken, exhausted coach, versus a fired up “let’s crush this” coach.
Q#5 What is your first action step to improving your business boundaries and when are you going to take it?
This is where your boundaries start supporting you in your business.
Is this a conversation that needs to occur? What does it look like? Is there a system required? Possibly a full company meeting? Or a consequence that needs to be implemented? Maybe training required for that specific person OR the department? Is this something that needs to be added to policies and procedures? Or something else altogether?
This is how to build out your boundary system. Once you implement these steps you will find that having strong boundaries become easier and easier.
It is important for you to follow through on your action steps or nothing will change. The people involved in your business will learn that if they keep pushing you will cave….and that as you know will just not do.
So get in there, ask those questions about your business boundaries and start to implement on person at a time.
I look forward to hearing how it goes for you!
See you in the next blog!
Xo,
Tracy
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