This week I experienced two related episodes but in different settings. I was having a chat with a business owner and she made this comment, “I am glad that, after five years, my Business is now past the delicate stage. I was away for the last one week attending to some personal matters and I returned to find my business still on. It did not close down! But I am just not sure I can be away for longer than that. It seems hard to predict what can happen to my Business at any one point in time”
I was among a group of mothers who were in a room waiting to receive our sons who had gone through rites of passage experiences (RROPES) program. After the pastor gave a talk to prepare these ‘mothers of sons’ one mom raised her hand for a comment; “Like all mothers here today I am grateful to God that my son has gone through this stage and I am receiving ‘a man’ who we brought here as ‘a young boy’. We are excited as mothers that this experience has prepared our boys to be strong and courageous, ready for life”. We all nodded in agreement as we clapped.
Business and children have one thing in common; both should grow. However, while we are deliberate about our children growth most often we are not deliberate about our Business growth. I was excited about our son’s transition and did everything possible to see it happen since I knew it is a start of his maturity process. How is it that we expect our children to grow, plan for their maturity and mobilize all the needed resources to ensure they eventually leave the ‘mothers nest’ mature enough to stand on their own yet we have no such plans for our Businesses. Some of us have changed diapers in our Business for years; we can’t be away for one hour because this baby needs ‘diaper change’ every other minute.
These two lessons from Chuck Blakeman can change the way you treat your Business.
1. It is possible to Build a Business that you will love and have a life too. Your Business should give you three things; Time, money and significance. But for some reason we only expect it to give us one: Money. And because we focus on just making money, our Business never gives back time or help us have a significant impact in the world around us. We most often find ourselves too busy making money that we hardly have a life!
2. Every Business, big or small has Two opposing realities; The Tyranny of the urgent vs The Priority of the Important. Urgent things keep us from paying attention to the important things in our Business. They fly at us all day, every day causing us to be reactive and defensive as we hold the business together as best as we can. We jump from one task to another or manage many tasks at once-‘multitask’. They rule over us and like small kids, they scream and yell. We don’t have to find them they find us and we become their loyal subjects. On the other hand important things require us to be proactive because they almost never seem urgent. Thinking about next month/year, Business maturity, customer responses, processes/systems is very important but never seem urgent. You will not make any money today by sitting down to write a plan, or work on your Business processes- this may not seem as important and definitely not as urgent as paying your bills.
However your Business and mine might never mature if we do not strike a balance between these two; Urgent vs Important. Be deliberate to build a Mature Business that you love.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
great