Systems of Freedom

We hear about systems of oppression all the time, but it’s possible and necessary to reclaim systems as a structure that can create freedom. 

Systems can create frameworks that generate freedom in more than just your business. These are mindset shifts that can support how you parent, how you navigate your life, and how you acknowledge what you want and what you need from life.

Adrienne Dorison joins Erica for a conversation about the Run Like Clockwork framework and how systems can create and support freedom and why she’s so passionate about bringing simple, efficient systems to businesses.

Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:

• How systems prevent burnout and support freedom in your life and your business

• How transparency about your workload and capacity benefits you and your team

• Why leaders need to commit to embodying their values to shift toxic workplace paradigms

Efficient Business, Simplified

Adrienne Dorison is the Co-Founder of Run Like Clockwork™ alongside her business partner, Mike Michalowicz, where she equips CEOs to design a business and a team that can run like clockwork.

Adrienne has spent the past 10+ years in the field of operational efficiency, and has since created the most simplified approach to making your business ultra-efficient.
She's personally passionate about baking generosity into business models and believes when we earn more money, we can give more away.

Systems Support Us

On the Pause on the Play® podcast, Adrienne Dorison says that while for many people, using systems and structure may seem counterintuitive, “systems have always helped me create more freedom.”

She says that many entrepreneurs start their businesses with more freedom in mind, but without solid systems in place, they can end up with the exact opposite.

“We have to look at it from the perspective of actually we need the systems there so that we can be supported and have the things that we’re really desiring.”

Erica adds that lack of systems can lead to environments that create constant burnout when you are sacrificing freedom in your life to support the freedom you want to have in your business.

Adrienne agrees and says “If we are the one that everything revolves around within the business, then our businesses become all-consuming because we’re needed in order for everything to move forward…And if we’re constantly needed for all of these things, then it’s not allowing us to live our life that we really want to have.”

She continues that it’s an issue she continually sees in her clients who can’t ever pull away from the business. 

She says if the business is providing livelihood and security for you and your team, support and results or products for your clients, “and those things can’t happen without us, then, to me, it’s a huge liability, which is the opposite of freedom.”

It’s a mindset that can get ingrained from early on in a business when you may think it’s just the growth phase or this is the time you need to hustle. The problem, Adrienne says, is getting out of that mindset once it’s taken hold and your business becomes a huge source of resentment and stress, especially when situations and complications come up in your life.

Erica compares it to codependency in relationships and says that too many people equate their worth to the business to being needed in the business at all times.

“I actually think it says more [about you] to have something that you’ve built that can operate without you.”

Adrienne agrees and says that while it can be a temporary blow to the ego, in her business, realizing that she was able to go on maternity leave and her clients barely noticed she was gone, “actually made me feel so good about what we’ve created. It made it feel so much more sustainable and repeatable and credible, all of these things we want for our organizations.”

Shifting Toxic Paradigms

Erica says that when the expectation is that the business is your baby, people who have life circumstances that also require their commitment and attention–like parents and caretakers–can easily get shut out of the business landscape.

She asks Adrienne how systems of freedom in your business also promote equity.

Adrienne says, “as entrepreneurs, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to work towards creating non-toxic, more equitable workspaces and environments.”

That work, she says, has to start with leadership. As the embodiment of the company culture, how leaders treat themselves and their teams and what they prioritize will inevitably impact team members.

It’s often not a conscious process when the culture has so few models for how to run a business with equity as a core principle. Changing the paradigm starts with awareness of how we’re replicating the inequitable and toxic environments we’re familiar with, then continuing to ask what else we’re doing that may be perpetuating harmful systems.

“If [freedom is] a value for you, then what are we doing to make that possible within your business,” not just for you, but for your whole team?

Erica says putting values into practice requires recognizing that “there’s more than one person in this dynamic the needs to be considered when we’re talking about what the wants and the needs are and what the desired outcomes are and how we’re going to get there.”

Without recognizing those relationships and considering the needs of your team, “you can’t figure out what freedom is. You can’t figure out what any of your values are and how they show up in practice. And you definitely can’t figure out how that intersects with the way that people want to be able to exist in their lives.”

Adrienne agrees and says that this is an issue that is being highlighted by the current challenges companies are facing with hiring and retention. “If we as business owners are willing to see the people on our team not as worker bees, but as humans, then we’re going to have better hiring practices, we’re going to have better retention.” 

She continues that if you want to have a business where your team cares about the business like you do and that you can trust, “job number one for you is to care about them as humans...To have a more equitable and inclusive workplace, an environment that feels safe for people to operate within, an environment that people feel like they can commit to: You have to care about them as human beings.”

Transparency and Autonomy

When it comes to systems that support Adrienne in creating freedom in her business she says that project management software that allows the whole team to see what is on everyone else's to-do list, including Adrienne’s. 

“And they have full permission and ownership and responsibility to look at my list of things and pull something off of there and do it themselves.”

She says her team has the autonomy to do this even for tasks they can only do a portion of or that they’ve never done before, and it has been a system of support for her as they’ve gone through busy seasons or when life circumstances have changed.

“Part of that comes from the transparency of being able to see what’s on everyone else’s plates…as well as the permission from me that I’m not attached to any of these tasks…and even if you don’t nail it, it’s better than me having to start from scratch.”

Adrienne says that she did have some anxiety at first about having her to-do list available to her whole team, but that normalizing breaks, off time, and self-care are important to her and to her team. 

“If I want that to be normal and true for them, then I have to show them that it's okay.”

Erica adds that transparency is also important when it comes to learning to delegate tasks and being held accountable for delegation.

Adrienne notes that having her to-do list open to her team has also helped her get to know them better, as team members have taken on tasks she hadn’t realized they were interested in.

In her personal life, both Adrienne and her husband work from home and they created a formal schedule for trading off childcare of their two-year-old to ensure that they both had time to work and got downtime alone.

“I think sometimes having more structure around those things can actually be helpful and can make you feel less resentful because you're getting the time that you need…that structure creates a lot of freedom for both of us.” 

Start with Tracking Your Time

Erica asks Adrienne what actions we should take when we’re trying to create systems that support freedom.

Adrienne suggests starting with time tracking.

She says if you’re not sure what structures or systems you even need to put in place, time tracking will help you gather data about where your time is currently going, so you can use that information to build the systems and boundaries you need.

The team at Run Like Clockwork does time tracking once a quarter and she asks her clients to do it as well. She suggests taking two to three days to track where the time in your day actually goes.

“When you really have a tangible…list of all the activities I’m doing throughout a normal day and how long I’m spending on those activities, it can be a really good starting point for starting to build some systems or for starting to delegate or transfer things.”

She says that while it can be a bit painful to review the data you collect, “I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t thankful that they did it at the end.”

Connect with Adrienne Dorison:

• Run Like Clockwork

• Instagram: @RLClockwork

Ready to Dive Deeper?

In order to create systems that support your freedom, you have to get clear on what matters to you. Leading through your values means being explicit about what you support and how your actions are aligned with that.
Join us for the From Implicit To Explicit Masterclass where we help you lead through your values, get explicit about what you support, and align your actions with your values and goals as you shape your company culture.