I was speaking with my neighbor the other day about the OpsAnalitica Platform. He owns a few different businesses including about 1000 storage units. He has on several occasions has asked me to use OpsAnalitica to help him manage his storage unit team.
He saw me and he was like “I know, I know, I owe you those checklists. As a matter of fact, I’m so busy doing exactly what your software would take off my plate, I haven’t had time to get you what you need to help me.”
That scenario happens to independent operators, like my neighbor, and it happens in big companies as well. It’s a classic working IN your business vs. working ON your business scenario. All too often as business owners and managers we allow ourselves to be pulled from working ON our businesses, focusing on: strategy, marketing, sales, acquisitions, growth; into daily operations of running the business.
Make no mistake, this is the fault of the manager/leader who hasn’t laid the systems and team foundations needed to provide them a buffer. We’ve all been there, something happens or someone leaves and because we are busy, we push it off a little while, just to get something done. Those decisions always have a way of sneaking back up on us.
For a lot of businesses where the owner or managers job is to grow the company, then is a huge issue. Growth is a full time job, more importantly, it is a momentum position. When you lose momentum it can affect your business for a long time.
It’s the responsibility of the growth focused owner or manager to put in place the systems and the team so that they can grow. When they don’t do that very well, and they don’t focus on their role within the business, they take their eyes off the ball, then things go bad and now they are working IN the business vs. managing the business.
That is a big deal because time flies when you are working IN the business. All of a sudden six months can pass and you haven’t had a chance to work on what you are supposed to be doing, where your skills have real value. It happens so quick and it is really easy to get sucked into the day to day minutia of running the business.
When I was in undergrad I was a huge procrastinator. I would wait and wait and wait until the last possible minute before I would do any assignment. Then I would just rush and work for 30 hours straight to get something done.
I remember back then hearing Tony Robbins’ take on procrastination, to paraphrase, he would say that procrastination happens when your perceived pain of not doing something is less than the perceived pain of doing that activity.
You procrastinate because it is less painful to not do the task. Then at some point, like the day before the test, magically, it is more painful not studying than it is to study and you get moving.
I view Working ON your business vs. IN your business in a similar light. You may be in a period where you have been pulled back and you are working IN your business. You have to prioritize getting the people or systems in place to get you out of that roles as quickly as possible, you cannot procrastinate, it can become less painful to just keep working IN the business vs. pulling the bandaid right off and getting back to working ON your business.
Sometimes, I know this sounds crazy, but sometimes you have to let your business suffer a little in the short term to set-it up for success in the long-term. These are some scenarios that you may have to accept.
- Maybe you have to accept that customer satisfaction is going to go down for a couple of weeks while you hire your replacement.
- Maybe you will delegate more responsibility or promote sooner than you would like.
- Maybe you will have to slow down sales until you can get properly staffed.
Trust me, time and momentum are finite resources and if you don’t have the guts to pull off the bandaid and get back to working ON your business ASAP. Then you are going to blow through your goals and waste a lot of time.
