Instead of working on their businesses, most owners
are trapped working in their businesses, slaving away and grinding it
out. Instead of working on tomorrow,
they are preoccupied with working in today.
They end up majoring in minor things.
They worry about office supplies instead of office processes. They focus on accounting details instead of
holding their employees accountable. They worry about the company’s vision plan
instead of planning the company’s vision.
They react with short-term, short-lived fixes instead of proactively
creating long-term solutions. They fixate on their mail, email, or cell phone
calls instead of communicating their expectations to their key managers or
employees. They obsess with doing things
right instead of doing the right things.
They do the wrong type of work really well. They are chasing their tails!
Are you trapped in the body and mind of a doer instead of a
leader? Be honest, do you fall into the
routine of doing the work of an employee or technician instead of the work of
an owner or leader? Do you neglect such
areas as vision creation, strategic planning, establishing priorities and
goals, organizational design, business system development, profit improvement,
team development, employee accountability, etc?
Odds are, you were probably a successful technician that
caught the entrepreneurial bug several years ago and bought, inherited or
started a business related to your technical skills. You are too comfortable with and good at
handling such details. Such expertise,
unfortunately, has a strong tendency to suck you into the nooks and crannies of
the business. For you, the technical
day-to-day guts of the business are addictive and tough to escape. Sadly, a technician’s mindset and mode of
operation are insufficient for running a business. These technical assets can be real
liabilities and traps for an owner trying to be more proactive and
strategic.
For example, maybe you were a gifted house painter that
thought, “I can start a painting business on my own”. From the get go, you probably functioned in a
technical capacity and never grew your leadership capacity or the business
systems. You worried about selling and
performing painting jobs. You probably
didn’t worry about how to design and build a painting business with you as
CEO. Rather, you dove in, got busy being
busy, and started functioning as a painter, chief salesperson, estimator,
bookkeeper, materials supplier, quality control supervisor, etc.
Consequently, you function as a jack-of-all-trades painter
that also happens to own a house painting company. You are more technician than leader. Instead of focusing on the business of
painting, you focus on the technical work of painting. You probably spend far too much time painting
or micromanaging your other painters and not enough time painting your
company’s future. Because of your
technical comfort zone, you are trapped doing the work of a painter, not the
strategic work of a leader.
Here are a few more examples to drive home the point. Being a good computer programmer and running
a successful programming business are two different roles and worlds. Writing code is technical and tactical
work. Just because you know how to do
the daily technical work of programming, for example, doesn’t mean you know how
to design, build and manage a business that does the work of programming. Programming code has not prepared you for the
key functions of a business -- selling, marketing, client service, finance,
leadership, business systems, people management, etc. Technical experience is insufficient
background for running a business.
Similarly, if your background is selling, finance or
production, your bias will get you buried in the selling, financial and
production details of the business. You
must escape your technical conditioning!
Hire others to handle such matters, if necessary.
Business ownership is all about strategic leadership, not
technical doer-ship. Few owners
understand and appreciate such critical distinctions. Tragically, owners mistake a technician’s
orientation for that of an entrepreneur’s.
They mistake busy-being-busy activity for accomplishment. They confuse hard work for intelligent
work. They have a technician’s addiction
to detail work. Sadly, they work and
think like employees instead of owners.
They do the wrong type of work.
They fail to grasp that running a business is strategic,
entrepreneurial, visionary, and requires strong leadership.