It’s a known fact, you get campers and then you get those who’ll do anything else but go camping. I find my self in the latter group and have never been a fan but with a youngster around, these ideals may have to change. Biznews contributor Tanye ver Loren van Themaat is in the former group and she has a love for camping and the outdoors. Having recently returned from a trip, Tanye looks at the parallels with business. It’s an interesting tale of cold showers and desolate landscapes, the things entrepreneurs come up against on a daily basis. A fun read. – Stuart Lowman
By Tanye ver loren van Themaat*
I love camping and I love business. I went camping recently and realised that business and camping have a lot in common – both have the potential to go horribly wrong. I learned a lot about the value of planning, systems and processes in business from camping as a child. Here are three elements where lack of planning can ruin both; and later in the article, I suggest how to resolve them.
- The destination
- The preparation
- The journey
The destination – what experience do we want?
Have you ever planned a camping trip, only to arrive and it was completely different from what you expected? The beautiful dam turns out to be a pond, there is some loud music blaring from across the campsite and you practically live on top of your neighbour.
We all have different reasons for going camping:
- We camp at music festivals
- We camp because it is a cheap holiday option
- We camp because it allows us to get in touch with nature
- We camp because sometimes the places we want to see are so isolated and don’t have other accommodation
The big difference is the camping experience. Nature lovers would go camping to see zebras and leopards. Festival goers are only interested in nature if the name of the band is Zebra & Giraffe, Cat Stevens or Def Leopard.
I go camping to experience nature, and to get away from the busy-ness of the city. I recently convinced a friend to go camping with us. The only other camping she had done was glamping at festivals. She believed she was a camper. Imagine her disappointment when only a desolate landscape and cold showers awaited her.
The lesson is to first figure out why you want to go camping. Then you can ask the right questions about the campsite.
The same goes for business. It is important to spend time on the reason why your business exists. What is driving your business?  Once you understand why you are in business you can communicate this vision with your employees so that they are aligned with what you want to achieve. Make sure they don’t think you are glamping at a festival instead of camping in rugged nature. Then you can start planning what it should look like from there.
The preparation – what will you need to make the experience positive and efficient?
There are people who would love to camp, but it is just too much effort and frustration. Packing can be a schlepp. Then when you finally arrive, what you need first is packed the deepest and you can’t find anything, and you realise you are not prepared. By this time, you are more frustrated than having spent two hours in Sandton traffic.
Many entrepreneurs run their business like they run a camping trip. They wing it. They approach each task as a completely new task, starting everything from scratch, with nothing planned. The sad truth is that most entrepreneurs don’t even have the time to go camping, because their business can’t function without them.
When I was young my family camped a lot, for long periods. One holiday we spent three weeks travelling 8,000km all the way to Tanzania. My two sisters and I could set up a camp in 30 minutes. Â My father built boxes for the car where even the smallest spoon had a place. Most importantly, we had a system – we would arrive, spend a couple of minutes getting to know they lay of the land, decide where to put what, and then unpack.
My youngest sister would get on the roof to start untying ropes, while I unloaded chairs and tables. My middle sister would pull the tent from the car, and then we’d put it up together. Afterwards, my youngest sister inflated the mattresses and I unloaded our bags from the car while someone got a fire going. We each had tasks, and it was efficient. My dad helped with the heavy lifting, my mom organised the campsite.
The more we did it, the better we got, and the quicker we could appreciate our new environment, and start playing.
I learned a lot about the value of planning, systems and processes from camping with my family.
Many people think that processes, checklists and systems will increase bureaucracy. Badly designed systems will. Good systems will increase freedom, reduce mistakes and improve consistency. If we didn’t have our camping system, we would have spent two hours packing, two hours unpacking and setting up, and another two hours packing up after the stop. This would have reduced the time we could have enjoyed our new environment, and led to more frustrations and family squabbles. We would have moaned non-stop. But we were part of something bigger, and we knew what we needed to do.
The journey – how do we get there?
Imagine your seven-year-old daughter walks into the garage and asks if she can help you pack. You sigh, because you know that you can do the packing 10 x faster and better than her. Since you are a good parent, you let her help, micromanaging her. You have to make her feel like she is contributing. It is a family activity after all.
Each time you go camping it is the same stress. There is no plan, or it is in your head. Your family doesn’t know how to help you, because you badly communicate what you want. You end up trying to control their input, and things go wrong.
Some entrepreneurs treat their employees like their seven-year-old, not giving them something of real value to do, or worse – micromanaging them. How exhausting. Their business is an extension of them, and they know how to do everything better than anyone else. If you are the only person who can complete key activities in your business, it will only happen if you do it. That is where the big issue comes in: if you hold on too tightly, your business can’t grow, because you, as an individual can only do so much. Currently you are working IN your business not ON your business. You are your biggest bottleneck.
Next time you plan a camping trip, spend time putting processes and system into place. Make sure that everyone is aligned on what type of experience you want, and what they each need to do to get there and set up. Organise what you need in advance:
- Find bags and boxes that fit into your car. Fill these boxes with specific camping equipment, cutlery, food, sleeping bags, etc. and make sure everything has a place.
- Plan where everything will fit in your car and what you will need to camp, essentially drawing up a system. This system will include short manuals and checklists. Manuals will show where everything needs to go to ensure it fits. Checklists will include what to buy and what to pack.
- Assign specific tasks to your family. Your seven-year-old can be responsible for packing the cutlery box according to the checklist. You just made your life easier, and she adds value.
- Apply these lessons to your business. Just as in camping, creating repeatable systems and processes is at the heart of creating a successful business.
A good system lets you delegate certain tasks to your employees, which will free you up to do strategic work. You design the systems, the systems run the business and your employees run the systems. Build a great system and then train your employees how to use it.
Try the systematic approach to camping and see for yourself.
- Tanye is the founder of Thundamental, a company that helps businesses innovate and re-ignite their business models and then put effective systems and processes in place. Tanye has an Industrial Engineering Masters from Stellenbosch University on Business Model Innovation and Growth. She strives for efficiency and excellence, as it allows more time for what is important, may that be family, building a business or going for a cycle.
