5 things to invest your time on your business
Take the 5-minute test
- I often start my day with the sense of being an e-mail manager.
- I spend most of my time reacting to demands.
- My work activities are focused on addressing short term problems.
- I often feel like I am firefighting and doing crisis management.
- I rarely take time to plan for the month, even less so, the quarter or year to come.
If you have answered ‘TRUE’ to any of these questions (which will probably be the case for many of us), congratulations, there is an opportunity to being even more strategic?
Here are 5 things to invest your time on your business (and being strategic)
- Stop. Set time aside with no electronic demands coming your way to think about your business (sounds familiar – see previous blog on that topic): its vision, mission, structure, place in the market, your customers. Is it aligned with what you want to create and where the market is going?
- Learn. From your interpretation of the situation, what can you learn? What are the ‘lessons’ from events, customers’ comments or action, results from your business, etc.?
- Align. A strategic leader must foster open dialogue, build trust, and engage key stakeholders, especially when views diverge. Bring though issues to the surface and discuss, share, explore, navigate the grey, assess risk with your colleagues, team, partners. Create alignment and engagement.
- Make choices. Decide and give yourself and your business (team, division, company) a clear sense of direction. A clear sense of what success looks like and where you are headed. Let it be inspirational and as specific as you can – make it real! And let them work out the how. When the what is clear, the how comes easily.
- Stay the course. As daily operational demands come up, hold your vision and direction front and center to anchor your team and self actions in it. Use images, graphs, etc. This will help you and your team make decisions, decide, say no and more importantly, say yes to what really matters with a clear sense of accomplishment and progression!
Go ahead! Be strategic!
Here is a summary graph to help you identify where and how to invest your time IN & ON your business.
|
OPERATIONAL |
STRATEGIC |
|
Caracteristics |
|
|
Implementation |
Formulation |
|
How |
What, where |
|
Means |
Ends |
|
Plans |
Vision |
|
Efficiency |
Effectiveness |
|
Results |
Risk |
|
Shorter view |
Longer view |
|
Daily/week |
Quarter/year |
|
Individual |
Handful or staff |
|
High number of decision |
Very few number of decision |
|
Benefits |
|
|
Short term problems are addressed |
Increase probability of sustainable competitive business advantage |
|
Simpler and familiar |
Aligns people with important values |
|
Responsive to local needs |
Attracts investment and top talent |
|
Feels good for people who value activity and tangible results |
|
|
Down side |
|
|
Too many priorities |
Discussion can seem to be abstract and cause frustration: discussions are long, subjective, ambiguous, complex and irrelevant |
|
Firefighting and crisis management |
Allocating time away from operations means saying no to sometimes-urgent problems |
|
Entrenches inefficient process and redundant systems |
Strategic thinking, planning competencies, and self-discipline are required. |
|
Slow to respond to changes in business model |
The status quo may be good enough |
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