A quick pit stop confession…
Last week, we accidentally sent out the wrong email address for people wanting a copy of my upcoming book. Let’s just say it was less Ferrari precision & more wheel-nut-not-quite-tight-enough-at-the-pit-stop. Thankfully, no one crashed into a barrier, but it did remind us that even the best teams need good systems.
So, rather than relying on email requests, sticky notes, scribbles, memory, or hoping the right person remembers what was promised, we’ve put a new process in place & created a simple form for book requests.
So, if you’d like a copy of my new book, The Fast Lane: Building a Business That Wins, when it’s released, you’ll find a request form later in this newsletter. Simply complete the form, & we’ll make sure you’re on the list.
Now, speaking of Ferraris, performance, & what it really takes to get the best out of a high-performance machine…
WHAT FORMULA ONE CAN TEACH ENTREPRENEURS
You Can’t Out-System Your Mindset
Are You Ready to Drive the Ferrari?
I was speaking recently with someone who has developed a CEO/Founder Freedom Operating System, & he made a comment that really stayed with me. You can hear more about his work, his thinking, & the system he has created in my podcast interview with him. We’ll include the link so you can listen.
He said that business operating systems absolutely work. They deliver what they say they are going to deliver. If they promise to deliver a Ferrari, they will deliver a Ferrari. The issue is not usually the car. The issue is whether the founder, the leadership team, & the broader team actually know how to drive a Ferrari, maintain a Ferrari, & get the best out of it.
I thought that was such a good analogy, because it is exactly what I see happen in growing businesses.
A strong operating system can give a business rhythm, structure, clarity, accountability, better meetings, better priorities, better visibility, & a practical way to get everyone moving in the same direction. It can help a leadership team stop spinning, stop guessing, & stop running the business from memory, emotion, or whatever fire happens to be burning brightest that week.
In other words, it can absolutely deliver the Ferrari.
But then comes the real question: Is the team ready to drive it?
Because a Ferrari is not a magic carpet. You do not simply climb in, press the accelerator, & hope for the best. You need skill, discipline, confidence, focus, self-awareness, maintenance, & respect for the machine. If you drive it badly, ignore the warning lights, skip the servicing, & treat it like an old ute with a dodgy clutch, you should not be surprised when the experience becomes stressful, expensive, & mildly terrifying.
Business operating systems are much the same.
They are incredibly powerful, but they also reveal what is really going on. They expose the gaps in leadership, the avoidance of hard conversations, the unclear roles, the people issues that have been tolerated for too long, the founder bottlenecks, the lack of trust, & the difference between what the leadership team says it agrees on versus what actually happens after the meeting.
That is not the system failing. That is the system doing its job.
A good operating system does not create the issues in a business, but it does reveal them. This is where many leadership teams start to feel uncomfortable, because the tools begin to expose the conversations they have been avoiding, the roles that have never been properly clarified, & the accountability gaps that everyone has quietly worked around for years.
At the beginning, the system often feels exciting. There is new energy. Meetings improve. Priorities become clearer. People feel more focused. The leadership team starts to see what is possible. The Ferrari is shiny, fast, & impressive.
Then, over time, things can start to slip.
The weekly meetings become inconsistent. The scorecard stops being updated properly. Issues get talked around instead of solved. Accountability softens. Leadership team members drift back into old habits. The founder starts making side deals again. People nod in the room, then do something different afterwards. Eventually someone says, “The system is not working anymore.”
But often, that is not really true.
The system is still perfectly capable of working. What has happened is that the drivers have stopped driving it properly.
This is especially important in family businesses, because you are not just dealing with strategy, structure, & execution. You are also dealing with history, loyalty, identity, legacy, emotion, fear, entitlement, & all the conversations people have been politely stepping around for years. The business has a commercial system, but the family has its own emotional system too, & the two are often more tangled than anyone wants to admit.
That is the inner work of business.
And this is the part many people underestimate. The tools may be practical, but the barriers are often deeply personal. It is not always that people do not understand the system. Sometimes they understand it perfectly well, but their mindset, self-belief, internal limitations, fear of conflict, need for control, or discomfort with accountability gets in the way of using it properly.
A founder may know they need to delegate, but still believe, deep down, that “no one will do it as well as I can”. A next-generation leader may want more responsibility, but secretly wonder whether they have truly earned their seat at the table. A leadership team may agree to be more accountable, but still avoid the honest conversations because they do not want to upset people, challenge old loyalties, or be seen as difficult.
This is why sustainable change is not just about installing a system. It is about becoming the kind of people who can actually use the system.
You can install the best operating system in the world, but if the leadership team has not done the inner work to become more honest, more disciplined, more accountable, & more aligned, the results will not last. The system can give you the road map, the dashboard, the pit-stop rhythm, & the high-performance engine, but it cannot make the driver brave. It cannot make the founder let go. It cannot change someone’s self-belief. It cannot remove the fear of having a hard conversation. It cannot make family members speak honestly. It cannot make the wrong people right. It cannot turn avoidance into accountability by magic.
That part belongs to the humans.
And this is where the real opportunity sits. When the operating system & the inner work come together, the business changes in a much deeper way. The leadership team starts telling the truth faster. The founder becomes less of a bottleneck. The next generation gets clearer about its role. Accountability becomes normal rather than personal. Family members learn to separate ownership conversations from management conversations. People stop confusing harmony with alignment.
That is when the Ferrari starts to perform.
Not because the car suddenly got better, but because the drivers did.
So before blaming the system, it is worth asking a better question: Have we actually learned how to drive it, & have we done the inner work required to stay in the driver’s seat?
Have we built the leadership muscle required? Have we looked honestly at the beliefs that limit us? Have we had the conversations we keep avoiding? Have we clarified who owns what? Have we agreed what good looks like? Have we stopped rescuing people from accountability? Have we separated family patterns from business performance? Have we committed to the discipline required to get the result we say we want?
Because operating systems work. They really do.
But they are not fairy dust. They are performance vehicles. And if you want the results of a Ferrari, you cannot keep behaving like someone who only wants the keys for the photo.
You need to learn how to drive the thing. You need to maintain it. You need to respect the speed, the power, & the discipline it requires. You also need to work on the inner limitations, self-beliefs, & mindset patterns that stop you from using the system consistently when things get uncomfortable.
Most importantly, you need a leadership team willing to become the kind of team that can handle it.
That is where sustainable results come from.
Not from the system alone, but from the system plus the people brave enough to grow into it.
To hear more about the CEO/Founder Freedom Operating System, & the thinking behind this Ferrari analogy, listen to my podcast conversation with him.
And my new book, The Fast Lane: Building a Business That Wins: Stop Firefighting. Build the Machine. Start Winning, will be out soon.
If you’d like to receive a copy hot off the press as soon as it’s published, simply complete the form below, & I’ll make sure a copy gets out to you.
Written by Debra Chantry-Taylor, FBA Accredited Family Business Advisor, Certified EOS Implementer & Founder of Business Action.
Business Action is focused on helping Entrepreneurs lead better lives, through creating a better business. We have a small team of accredited family business advisors, EOS Implementers & Leadership coaches, as well as access to a huge range of advisors through our Trusted Partners Network.
