Are You Working 'In' or 'On' Your Business?


As I have been expanding my business to work with smaller clients, many of them have responded favorably about their need to work ‘on’ their business in addition to their daily work ‘in’ their business. While this issue presents differently in larger businesses, it's true there too.

Working ‘In’ The Business

Today we all deal with the tyranny of the urgent. Whether it is important or not, the person on the phone, the email that just arrived, the ‘ding’ of your instant messenger, your boss in your doorway, or the demanding customer all shout ‘take care of me now’!

At issue is our ability to balance the overwhelming workload of taking care of the day-to-day business with the need to step back and take a look at where we are now headed, and where we actually want our business or team to go. With today’s technology helping us work ‘in’ the business 24x7, it’s a growing concern.

Resolving to Work ‘On’ the Business

We need to go beyond being reactive and work to prevent the short term issues that take all of our time. We must define and fix the root cause of the issues that create this squeaky-wheel work environment rather than continue to just fix the symptoms that they create.

Better yet we need a vision of where we want to be in a year. Nothing complicated or full of wild-eyed numbers. Just five or eight short statements on where we want to be.

The Important Becomes Urgent

Some people believe that they effectively take care of the future by focusing on the day to day. Unfortunately, somewhere there is a new business that will become your competitor and it’s a good bet that they have a vision. Since they probably know about your products, their vision may exceed yours, especially if you are spending all your time working ‘in’ your business.

Take a Step

First find a friend, a partner, or a coach to help you get focused on moving away from the tyrannical pressure of your daily work. Use them to help you clarify issues and to drag you to the table to talk about these issues when you don’t feel like it.

The first step is to take two hours to focus on the root causes of today’s issues. Then pick just one solvable problem to fix in the next month.

After that one is done, revisit the list you made in your first two hours and solve another one. Just one.

With two under your belt, spend two more hours with your muse and repeat the process. Resist the temptation to take on many issues. There are still a lot of fires out there that you have to tend, and you can’t let them burn.

Who is at the Door?

The urgent work of dealing with a giant bear pounding at your door every day needs to be balanced against the important work of ridding the nearby woods of bears. It’s not easy to rid the woods of bears, but a life where the bear is always pounding on the door is not that great either.
 

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