Wednesday
Dec052007
The owner’s challenge: Stop working so much.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 10:00AM
I met with a new client yesterday and we talked about one very prevalent challenge that business owners face. Most business owners start out working for someone else. They are good at what they do, are willing to take some risk and eventually go out on their own. The challenge is that running a business is much different from doing the work of the business. In this case the owner, a therapist, was very good at working with clients and as a result had received referrals and encouragement to the point that she eventually decided to start her own business. Now she has employees and subcontractors working for her and a number of issues are starting to surface.
The first two issues are solely a question of time management. Most business owners are not strict enough about segregating their time and deciding how many hours of each week they will dedicate to each activity. Evaluate how much time you need to commit to servicing existing clients, prospecting for new clients, and administrative work. Block that time out on your calendar and be ruthless when it comes to making exceptions. No enduring, successful business owner got that way by allowing others to dictate her time commitments.
The third issue concerns standards, delegation and accountability. As a business owner you must take the time to write out the standards you expect and the procedures that must need to be followed. This is a common theme I discuss with clients all the time. It may take you an extra hour to write out the procedure but unless you do it you'll be stuck doing and redoing your employee's work forever.
Effective delegation is the exercise of making good business decisions. It comes down to who can do this job most profitably and how much risk can I take to expand the knowledge and skill sets of my employees. The fact is that you as the business owner can probably do the job better and faster than your employees. But if you do that all the time your customer base won't grow and your employees won't learn anything new. You must be willing to live with less than 100% perfection in order to delegate effectively. You must be willing to let go a little.
The final element is what allows you to manage a great deal more work than you could possibly do yourself. Accountability is the act of holding people to their word and to the standards they have agreed to work under. More than anything accountability describes a partnership between employee and business owner where the two understand what is expected and they think enough of one another to communicate honestly. This doesn't usually happen by itself. Too many business owners either brandish a bull whip and threaten their employees or avoid confrontation entirely. The fact is that accountability is a two way street and most business owners aren't willing to be held accountable BY their employees so they fail to enforce standards of accountability FOR their employees.
Making the transition from an employee to a business owner is challenging but also incredibly rewarding. Sometimes just taking a step back to understand the challenges and get a few words of encouragement from someone who's been in your shoes makes a big difference.
- Administrative responsibilities such as bookkeeping, payroll, taxes, ordering supplies, etc, all take up time that used to be spent meeting with clients. Business owners can and should hire someone to do these tasks for them when feasible but managing the relationship and maintaining proper oversight still takes time.
- Marketing and finding new accounts can be very time consuming. Business owners are often conflicted, and rightfully so, over the tug-of-war between servicing existing clients and prospecting for new ones.
- Business owners are often perfectionists when it comes to client service while their employees are somewhat less conscientious. This isn't always the case, many employees take pride in their work, but in almost all cases employees won't perform to the same exacting standards that the business owner demands of herself.
The first two issues are solely a question of time management. Most business owners are not strict enough about segregating their time and deciding how many hours of each week they will dedicate to each activity. Evaluate how much time you need to commit to servicing existing clients, prospecting for new clients, and administrative work. Block that time out on your calendar and be ruthless when it comes to making exceptions. No enduring, successful business owner got that way by allowing others to dictate her time commitments.
The third issue concerns standards, delegation and accountability. As a business owner you must take the time to write out the standards you expect and the procedures that must need to be followed. This is a common theme I discuss with clients all the time. It may take you an extra hour to write out the procedure but unless you do it you'll be stuck doing and redoing your employee's work forever.
Effective delegation is the exercise of making good business decisions. It comes down to who can do this job most profitably and how much risk can I take to expand the knowledge and skill sets of my employees. The fact is that you as the business owner can probably do the job better and faster than your employees. But if you do that all the time your customer base won't grow and your employees won't learn anything new. You must be willing to live with less than 100% perfection in order to delegate effectively. You must be willing to let go a little.
The final element is what allows you to manage a great deal more work than you could possibly do yourself. Accountability is the act of holding people to their word and to the standards they have agreed to work under. More than anything accountability describes a partnership between employee and business owner where the two understand what is expected and they think enough of one another to communicate honestly. This doesn't usually happen by itself. Too many business owners either brandish a bull whip and threaten their employees or avoid confrontation entirely. The fact is that accountability is a two way street and most business owners aren't willing to be held accountable BY their employees so they fail to enforce standards of accountability FOR their employees.
Making the transition from an employee to a business owner is challenging but also incredibly rewarding. Sometimes just taking a step back to understand the challenges and get a few words of encouragement from someone who's been in your shoes makes a big difference.
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