Over the past few weeks, through my work with the 321GoProject, I've been fortunate enough to share many conversations with CrossFit Affiliate owners who are struggling. We try to help them turn things around, and most of the time we can help.
Many of these Affiliates have common complaints: they're working long hours, they're very passionate about CrossFit, they love coaching people...but they're not making ends meet. They're taking secondary jobs to buy their groceries. Staff and members "don't get it" and wander in and out of the program frequently.
Two years ago, our CrossFit Box started to investigate the brain on a fulltime basis. We brought in Tyler Belanger (and others since) to figure out a way to combine CrossFit with education and brain rehabilitation. That program has exploded into the Ignite! Academy, which provides Tutoring, 1-on-1 training for autism and brain injury, and Enrichment programs for kids - all within our CrossFit Box. It's also created a new understanding that can benefit the CrossFit Affiliate owner.
While attempting to discover the real mechanisms behind attention, focus, and adherence, we've found that many current business and marketing practices simply don't parallel the ways in which our brain actually stores, recalls, and prioritizes information. We can also draw parallels between the way our brain functions best, and the ways in which our business can run most efficiently.
First, a model of the brain's two hemispheres, the left side and the right:
Left Side Right Side
Organizing Creative
Structured Flowing
Critical Empathetic
Translator Dreamer
Individualizer Group-builder
Coordinator Conceptualizer
Worker Player
Dispassionate Emotional
Loves predictability Loves novelty
This is an oversimplification, of course, but you may also visualize the left hemisphere as a giant spreadsheet, and the right side as an artist's canvas. They can (and must) work well together all the time, but one side can easily begin to dominate the other. For example, many innovators and scientists are right-hemisphere dominant, while technicians and managers are best served through the left hemisphere.
Many CrossFit Affiliate owners are right-hemispheric. They start their own Box out of passion and empathy: they LOVE the community, and want to share it with others. They have great programming ideas, and are open to new ones. They love being part of a movement; they love the sense of 'flow' granted by the tough workouts.
They are NOT structured.
While they may collaborate to plan their Box's programming months in advance, they love the apparent randomness of it all, and don't share that big-picture plan with their members.
When a member quits, the Coach is shocked. They're not sure why the member is leaving; they liken it to a 'breakup'; and they appeal to the member either on an emotional basis (they take it personally) or not at all, because they're scared to have their feelings hurt.
When members chat while she is describing the split jerk, the Coach become upset; why aren't they paying attention? She may not have a system for processing interruptions in their brain, and so the resulting cognitive dissonance causes them to overreact, singling out the member in front of the group and embarrassing them:
"When Bill's done talking, we'll continue."
When Bob doesn't put his bar away, the Coach "loses it!" They comment on facebook, or harbour a grudge until the next time Bob comes in, and then hand them a ridiculous burpee penalty in front of others. When Jane pays her monthly membership at a different time each month, she creates a cash flow problem...but the owner doesn't know how to address the issue; hates asking for money; and starts to act differently around Jane than the other clients.
Sal is always a bit scared that his Coaches won't show up on time, and finds himself hovering around his Box at all hours, just to "make sure." When a Coach rolls in with his hair matted and teeth unbrushed, Sal "rips into him," because he "should know better." He doesn't....because Sal hasn't told him.
What do these reactions have in common? They're emotional, and they exist ONLY because expectations and systems have not been implemented to take care of the "left-hemisphere" tasks. When clear standards have been set for members and staff, the "left" side of the business runs efficiently and automatically.
The left side of your brain LOVES efficiency and THRIVES on automation. By creating business systems, teaching your staff and clients what the standard for behaviour is at your Box, and removing those emotional triggers, the right hemisphere is free to act. The right brain can remove the chain of stress that's limiting its power to be creative, and finally do its job: making you feel joy.
Want to read more about the brain in the workplace? Try Your Brain At Work, by David Rock (here's the audiobook version.)
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