Three Basics an Entrepreneur must not Forget

There may be very many areas that an entrepreneur must excel at. In my assignments with Founders/ CEOs/ Professionals , across India & Overseas as an Entrepreneur & Business Coach, I have observed a distinct noticeable approach which makes them stand out, successful or puts them on the path to success. This approach or rather approaches are in three areas. These have been termed by me as basics. I believe that an entrepreneur must work and build these basics consciously in to his way of doing business.

1. Successful entrepreneurs understand that making money and profits are functions of business. They focus instead on identifying the purpose of business. Essentially they create a vision for their business organization.

The purpose of business is to create & keep a customer- Peter F Drucker

An entrepreneur in Hyderabad managing a successful services Business engaged me as his coach. After 12 months of coaching, having achieved his business and personal goals signed up again for coaching recently. He had shared that coaching has transformed his thinking and encouraged him to think differently. Energized and motivated to achieve, he signed up for the third time and in the first session on creating goals, he defined his vision as “Creating 100 entrepreneurs in 3 years”. This was remarkably different from the goals he had set out in previous assignments. Another client in a start-up mode ( manufacturing) co-created the purpose of his business with his founding members. The energy during the course of creating the purpose and the plan over next 5 years was contagious. The founding members could establish linkage of their aspirations and feelings manifested in the defined purpose. Such co-creation and shared understanding manifests itself in focus & commitment to achieving the “dream with a plan”.

Jack Welch said “Good Business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision & relentlessly drive it to completion.

Research has shown that people work with you and stay with you longer when they understand your purpose and fully buy into the vision. Imagine the motivation of the person who works with my client when he realizes that his principal / employer is interested in the success of others. It creates a sense of transformational trust among the stakeholders including shareholders, clients, and vendors in addition to employees. Purpose of business allows for relatively faster and quick decision making as each member of team now is completely bought in & it is observed commitment grows.

“What is the core purpose of my business?” Each Entrepreneur who grows and achieves success has clearly a defined purpose and if one has not achieved desired level and quality of success, perhaps need to ponder on whether the purpose was defined well, shared and lived.

Making money / profits is the function of business & not the purpose. Revenue & Profits would accrue when we engage in any value generating activity. It cannot be the purpose though. Walmart established their purpose in 60s to be “To bring down the cost of living for an average American”. Even today their journey and actions stay on course and the money & profits keep flowing in. 

2. Entrepreneurs need to answer a question “How much salary will you pay to a person who does the role I am doing in my business”. If the answer suggests an amount which is lower than what you earn and take home, there are very high chances that you are an employee in your own business. You have a “job in your business”.

Successful entrepreneurs by any standards are always working "on their business" and not in their business. Working on the business allows the entrepreneur to start building new businesses too.

Business guru Michael Gerber says that chief executives should spend 90% of their time on strategic issues versus 10% of their time on tactical issues.

There are some things that only the business owner can do. Other things can be done just as well (if not even better) by a manager or an administrative employee.

In my coaching assignments with Entrepreneurs, I have observed it consistently. Entrepreneurs take on too much operational responsibility and tend to spend hours doing activities which either do not generate value or do not contribute to growth of business. With a defined purpose of business & awareness on “working on the business” entrepreneurs have scaled their business, expanded the footprint and built new businesses / verticals. Any role which has Strategy & Operations as key responsibilities would be drawn towards operational issues as they are mostly of urgent & important nature . Entrepreneurs may therefore struggle to scale their business as most of time and priorities are just around sustaining current business.

A question to ask is “How much time I am spending in “Growing” the business as against time spent on managing the business need of today?

Some solutions applied by entrepreneurs include hiring someone to take on operational responsibility to training existing team to take on additional tasks. Working longer probably is not the first solution an entrepreneur must look at. Breaking down bigger tasks in to small steps would let you allow others to do most of it , while you may retain the key parts. Training the people, mentoring and coaching them would also help you Grow your business.

The goal of business owners who work on their businesses rather than working in their businesses is to make more money in less time with fewer headaches and more harmony in the family. Think about it: the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life; it should not be the purpose of your life to serve your business. Ask yourself this challenging question: are you working in your business or are you working on your business? 

3. Entrepreneurs need to develop a balance between wok & life. They are chasing things all the time. They are making things happen. Let us face it, there is always the issue of work life balance an entrepreneur is challenged with. The defined purpose of business and working on business is the key to achieve a work life balance for an entrepreneur. In one of my coaching session with a Founder of IT solutions company in Hyderabad on “time mastery”, I asked “what is value of one hour in rupee terms”. He thought, calculated and stated a magnanimous amount.

Then I asked him “What all do you do in a day which fetches a value substantially lower than the amount you mentioned”. He smiled and understood but what he said later was interesting. He shared that by stopping doing those activities, he could easily save 2 hours each day. This time could either be put to “working on business” or pursuing some interests like walking in mornings, reading and learning to play musical instruments.

This client did few simple things; Hired a secretary – This saved him tons of time as the secretary would screen and redirect unconnected calls to other employees, saved him time in managing logistics of travel.

Peter Drucker says “We all tell leaders to start doing new things or doing it differently but we never tell them to stop doing certain things”

The trick is to understand value creation out of our time and if it does not, it must be stopped or at best delegated. These things will help you save at least 1-2 hours each day, could be more. Imagine value of this time.

Your greatest resource is your time – Brain Tracy

Go out now & begin .........2015 truly & create a vision ,  revisit the purpose of business, evaluate time spent “working on business” and achieving a work life balance.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note : Professional Coaching standards does not allow coaches to share the details / names of client’s coached unless expressly approved by client themselves. Hence the author has not mentioned the same.

Are you a Manager attitudinising in a Leader’s clothing?

I was presently surprised meeting a smart professional in Mid 30s at a Hotel reception. Memories flashed back to almost a decade back when I recruited this young man in an individual contributor role. His current role and organization validated my assessment about him way back. During the interview and thereafter in his stint with me, he always surprised me with his thinking and actions. I had always felt that he would make a great leader in future and there he was standing before me, having truly reached the leadership level.

My assessment about him, a decade back, was not theoretical. It was based on my observations “of people in leadership roles”. Please note that I have not used “observations of leaders” rather used “people in leadership roles”. People in leadership role are not necessarily leaders.

Spilled over three days at the hotel our discussions over tea, coffee & meals somehow veered towards this area. It was quite endearing that he took me through his own trials & tribulations of how each of his promotion made him question himself on his journey and progress from being a manager to a leader. His learning's and insights made me revisit some of my own observations that I would make to determine leadership potential.

So what were my observations? I call them 5 signs that you are a manager in leader’s role.

Liked Vs Respected

You are a manager in leader’s role if you want to be liked more than respected.

Leaders recognize that they have to make people do, even if they might not want to do it, to achieve the goal. Effective leaders are respected more than loved. They listen to everybody's request, they weigh the situation, they talk, get inputs and then make tough decisions. Leaders know being cordial is necessary, but that they do sometimes have to sacrifice short-term likability in favour of long-term respect.

Long Term Vs Short Term Goals:

You are manager in a leader’s role if you focus only on the short-term.

A manager spends most energy on the daily operational issues and may denounce his people for not achieving short-term goals, regardless of their long-term importance. They are found mostly focusing on things that are urgent, rather thanimportant. A Leader focus is important and he would go to any length to ensure important things get done too even if urgent issues take most of the time. A leaders focus is driven by a vision of what can be and how to make that happen.

Pride Vs Insecurity:

You are a manager in leader’s role if your team member’s achievements give you insecurity or you feel threatened.

Managers feel insecure sometimes hiring someone whom they perceive to be better than them or could outshine them. Leaders hire people who are better , who complement & supplement them and the team its with an aim to create more leaders.

Transparency Vs Secrecy :

You are a manager in leader’s role if you hold back information and share on need to know basis.

Manager exercise their power by holding back information thus undermines the performance of juniors. Leaders share it for reason of empowering the team.

Results Vs Process:

You are a manager in leader’s role if your focus is results and not process.

Process ensures longevity of outcomes, consistency & stability. Managers tend to focus on results & not worry much about process discipline or adherence. Leaders are equally focused on both and in fact educate teams of linkages of process to results desired.

Where Do You Fit in? Take a pause and think.

Are you a leader – a person with a vision of where and what the company can be ?

Are you the person who can share and win support for your vision and continue to hold the vision before your employees until the vision becomes reality?

Or, are you simply a manager in a leader’s clothes?

One reason some companies find themselves stuck on a plateau or spiralling downward into a deep gorge is that may be somewhere a manager is attitudinising as a leader, without the ability to envision the future at the end of the current business trajectory.

Get the clarity and lead yourself to your Success.

I've started , so I will Finish

One thing we all have in common is that when we manage to start something we’re more inclined to finish it. Once we begin a job or a task, only in rare circumstances do we abandon it. Most of us do agree with this but many readers may think otherwise. It is because sometimes we don't quite start to begin with. It happens to the best of us. You’ve got a huge project and a looming deadline staring you in the face, and you have no idea how to even take the first step. And here is where procrastination bites worst, with a large task in front and we try to avoid starting.

Here I would like to share the “Zeigarnik effect.” All procrastinators lend me your ears please.

A young Russian in 1920s having tea at a café observed a phenomenon which she professed could be used to beat procrastination. The waiters at the café would remember very distinctly table wise orders and servings done by them. The uniquely different observation was if the same waiters were asked to recall the orders after they have settled the bill with the customer, they could not recollect the order/ serving. It seemed that the act of payment of the bill brought a closure to a job in their mind and hence they could not recall correctly.

To validate this curious phenomenon, Zeigarnik went to her lab. She assigned simple tasks to a group of people (stacking toys in a box in some sequence) and some of them she abruptly stopped midway while others were allowed to complete. At the end of experiment participants were asked to recall the actions / tasks. All those who were stopped midway could clearly recall as against those who had completed it.

Professor Richard Wiseman extends this research finding as a technique to beat procrastination. Procrastinators tend to put off certain things because they are overwhelmed by the size or nature of job ahead of them. If somehow procrastinators can be persuaded or persuade themselves to work on an activity for few minutes, they are more likely to overcome the procrastination and complete the job.

Keen to validate this research, I went ahead with a plan to beat my own procrastination. I wanted to write blogs & articles on my learnings in various forums and on my own blog, regularly. However I was finding it very challenging to get down to writing. Even when I did write, I would stop after a month of writing 2-3 blogs. I therefore used a technique to persuade myself. This helped me to be regular and giving me that push to write every week. So here is what I did !

Reflecting at end of each day, thinking about topics to write on, I would write these on a small piece of paper and next morning put it in the front pocket of my shirt and stuck one on my workstation. I would go on with my day of discussions & coaching sessions. This kept my mind anxious as whenever I would, at least 2-3 times in a day, put my hand in my pocket, I would be reminded of an unfinished task. So experiencing these intrusive thoughts about incomplete tasks bring us back to complete them.

I started writing “ sticky notes” on my desktop and every time I would see it , which was virtually , every 2-3 hours, It felt like an unfinished job , even though I did not even begin it. I started allocating time. Rather it was a matter of squeezing in time to write the subject or opening of the article. That’s when magic started happening. Rarely would my article or blog writing and completion go beyond a day.

Sometimes all we need is to get started, because humans have this instinctive drive to finish a task once they have begun it. It’s precisely what happens when we become engaged in a story in a compelling book, movie or a TV show - “we want to see how it ends.” It may sound like a cliché, but the first step really is the hardest. As writer Ernest Hemingway said about writing a novel, “it is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.”

Try this out, it worked for me. It can for you too. Your way of developing steps to be in it “a few minutes” would be unique to you.