“It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.”
– W. Edwards Deming
“Vacation? I haven’t had a vacation in six years. I’m trapped by my business, but every one of my employees takes vacations. One went on a cruise recently, and another one went to Europe. It seems that I go without so they can go. This isn’t what I thought running my own business would be like.” This lament is almost cliché. Some wear it like a badge of honor – others like a symbol of torture. In either case, it’s unnecessary. I encourage these owners to “Manage your business to serve and support you, not so you can serve and support it.” I ask them, “If a top Fortune 500 CEO came to lead your company, would he be overwhelmed with the task? Would he require eighty hours a week? Would he sacrifice vacations? Probably not?” The following insights always seem to help those that find themselves feeling trapped by their businesses.
There are seven vital functions of the leader. They are:
When these seven vital functions aren’t performed by the leader, chaos reigns as employees scramble to fill this void in leadership. As you can see, however, these functions are best treated as proactive, not reactive responsibilities, and only #7 is required on a daily basis. (Unless your company is growing rapidly.) So, if you are a proactive leader, and you have sufficiently performed functions one through six, you can effectively execute number seven whether you’re in your office – or in Hawaii. Numbers one through six might determine how long you can be gone, but number seven determines if you can even go.
In order to effectively control your company’s activities, you must effectively monitor your company’s pulse. Like taking your body’s pulse, which measures a most fundamental component of your body’s health, your company’s pulse should capture the fundamental marketing, operational, financial, and personnel measurements of your company’s health. You want to measure only the fundamentals, not everything that can be measured. When a particular measurement is trending off course, digging into what makes up this fundamental measurement becomes necessary, then all that can be measured is investigated to remedy the trend. Allow me to share my own example with you.
My commercial tree service was sales intensive. Since trees require trimming only once a year at most, and perhaps even less, many accounts were needed. Since my production crews completed large amounts of work each day, my sales force was pressed to keep a healthy backlog on the calendar. New sales, therefore, were a primary driver and weighed heavy on my company’s pulse. The entire pulse was made up of the following daily measurements:
I was intimately aware of what most of these answers should be based on what my budgeted numbers were for that month. The numbers were greater in our peak season and less in our off season.
Items 1 through 3 impacted our calendar. Too short of a backlog created scheduling challenges; too long of a backlog created customer dissatisfaction. Items 3 and 4 told me if the day was profitable. Monitoring this daily never left me surprised at month-end when I received our financial statements. Item 5 told me our cash position and if it was trending up or down. Number 6 was an important marketing concern. Our relationship-oriented service required very little marketing outside of providing excellent and consistent work, and then calling to follow up each client’s level of satisfaction. Number 7 kept me in touch with our employee’s general mood. This measurement, albeit nebulous at a distance, was important for me to know if I was going to return to employees about to mutiny, or if spirits would likely remain high.
Combined, these measurements became the pulse that I could take of my company from my office – or from anywhere in the world. When I was gone, this information could be sent via e-mail, or I could gather it in less than five minutes on the phone.
Through this process, you will become intimately familiar with the pulse of your company over time. You will learn you can’t worry too much when one day’s pulse is very weak, or get too excited when another day’s pulse is very strong. But when a trend is established (possibly a week or more), it allows you to respond decisively and accurately wherever support or balance is needed. I’ve never known an owner who employed such a system that wasn’t completely comfortable leaving on vacation, and who didn’t also feel adequately confident and in control.
And with this new level of control you’ll enjoy, you will also feel confident and comfortable taking a nice, long vacation.
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