I don’t have enough time in my day. Someone always needs something. I’m constantly interrupted. There’s never time to work on the things I want to get to. It’s so frustrating.
Shifting from doing to managing is one of the biggest challenges most business owners face. According to the SBA, poor management is also one of the top 7 reasons that businesses fail. Most business owners get into the game because they are passionate about the work they do. In order to succeed long term, they also have to become skilled at stepping back so they can run the business.
Being overwhelmed is a sign that things are out of balance. This owner is probably spending too many hours of the day worrying about day to day activities and pitching in wherever needed. It’s time to change the job description.
The need to be “on-call” comes from any number of sources. By pitching in, the owner only gets in the way of solving the real problem. This owner has to get resources in place and get freed up to work on the business.
Customers think you’re indispensable? Tell them how much better your staff is than you. Show customers the advantage of having other people trained to service them, so that when you’re unavailable they get the same high level of support.
Not enough people? Whether in the office, in the field, or on contract, for many companies it’s time to hire. Plan workloads going forward, and keep in mind that it’s cheaper to hire additional staff instead of over-extending everyone to the point that they make big mistakes or can’t get the work out on time. If you have to, raise prices, so you can afford to add personnel.
Think you have enough people, but they’re not efficient enough? Training time. Systems time. Do plan for down time as people learn how best to do any new job. Implement systems and processes that increase efficiencies. As owner, focus your time on training, and building systems, not doing.
Staff is in place, and trained, and it’s still falling to you to get involved? Time to get out of the way. Ask people to own their jobs and be accountable for results. If people make mistakes, tell them to fix the problem and learn from the experience.
Teach people that it’s okay to make a mistake. In fact, if the people in the organization aren’t making mistakes 15% – 20% of the time, they’re probably not pushing themselves hard enough. What’s not okay is blindly repeating mistakes. Expect people to learn from each breakdown and figure out how to do better the next time.
One great way to let people around you practice owning their jobs is to step away from the business. Take a day off every week. Take a week off every month. Find out what parts of the business sail through with flying colors in your absence, and which areas still need work.
As you learn to step out of the day-to-day of the business, remember that an owner’s job is to work on the future of the business. This includes researching and planning where the business is going. Write a plan down on paper, where you can examine it, debate it, and refine it. Give yourself assignments related to developing the future, that pull you away from the day-to-day.
Set aside working-on-the-business time weekly. Get to a quiet location. Make sure everyone knows not to interrupt you. Hand your cell phone over to the receptionist. Shut off email. Focus on your job – planning the future. Let everyone else learn to operate without you.
If you can’t focus at work, go to the library, stay at home, meet at a vendor’s office, ask friends if you can use their offices. Get to a place where you have nothing else to do but work on the business. Make yourself unavailable, and leave the people who work for you little choice but to figure out the day-to-day things for themselves.
