So last Friday was the final day of our new 3 day challenge, designed to help business owners and leaders get some clarity around their business whilst ensuring both themselves, and their teams, are on track to get to their destination.
I love the energy that comes from these groups and sessions, and it always brings a sense of satisfaction when we help teams and individuals to get their heads out of the business for an hour and check they are all going in the same direction, even when that direction is ‘ever changing’ at the moment !
As part of the process, we spend time looking at where our time is spent, versus the destination, a simple process that focuses us on ensuring that what we do every day should drive us towards our goal or destination, and when we get stuck or we lose our way, gives us a process to get us back on track, Simple ! What amazes me though is that so often these 2 aren’t aligned!
Talking through some of the challenges across the 3 days, what struck me was 2 things
- Why do we try and manage everything themselves?
- Why are we as business owners, so reluctant to ask for help?
I’ve been thinking about this over the last few days (as well as my own experiences) and it feels like it falls into the following areas:
The fear of getting it wrong
We feel like we’re supposed to be able to get everything right, meant to know all the answers and then for fear of getting it wrong we spend TIME trying to learn it or we stall or procrastinate and do nothing, both of which at the detriment of the business. I have seen fear stop business in their tracks and stifle growth and I’ve seen a lot of cases recently where business, for fear of getting it wrong when it comes to communicating and managing teams (ie the messaging of bad news) have got into more trouble than if they had asked for help in the first place.
Its ok to not know the answer, or what to do, as in one of my earlier blogs, we are in an uncertain world, and most of us don’t know what we’re doing BUT if you do nothing for fear of the consequences of getting it wrong it won’t help you or your business.
Moral of the story – if you don’t know, don’t sit on it and let it fester, #ASKanexpert.
Embarrassment
Alongside the fear, comes embarrassment, aren’t we supposed to know everything, we are business owners after all. I’m expected to be the expert, and everyone is looking to me for advice.
Firstly, they’re not all looking to you for advice, they’re simply looking for an answer, to signpost them to an expert is the right thing to do and saving yourself the time of having to go research, find and check the answer is not a good use of your time.
We need to learn to create an environment where we build teams or “nodes” of expertise and then let them do their job.
Embarrassment caused as a result of you thinking you have to have the answer all the time – Bad for business, embarrassment through admitting you don’t know the answer but you do know someone who will and refer them – Smart move !
You’ll be judged more for doing nothing than you ever will for recruiting #experts, AND it allows you to get on with running the business rather than “doing” the business.
Lack of direction
Both personally and business wise, if you don’t know where you are going, how the hell do you expect to take
So here is an admission, I’m royally [*&!$. ( feel free to add in a word of your choice) at IT, anything computer related – rubbish, but over the last 4 months in response to the market, I have spent an enormous amount of time, moving my services on line, there’s the scripting, the videoing, the posting, the promotion, the recordings, all of which need to be right and honestly, trying to link all these up nearly broke me.
It left me feeling frustrated, inefficient and at times embarrassed, as well as being incredibly time consuming, after trying to do it all myself I was sadly left feeling like a failure.
So, on reflection, I became a victim of my own teachings!
Having realised that I have neither the time or the knowledge to move this part of my business forward, and that its time to hire an expert, actually gives me a feeling of calm and increased confidence that I can move forward with the work I excel at and enjoy, helping business owners and leaders, to get stronger and better at managing people to get results.
So, the 3-day challenged hopefully not only helped those who attended it also helped me get some focus and the lesson learnt ? #ASK
Don’t wait, do it now, in our recent survey across our clients and networks, quite unsurprisingly it showed that business owners and leaders are currently
- Overworked
- Overwhelmed
- Understaffed
- Trying to manage everything themselves
At a time when we are all focused on keeping our businesses afloat don’t waste time and energy trying to do everything, use your time wisely and if necessary and it saves you time and the headache, get some help !
And finally, if you need help with managing the people side of your business why not check out our FREE Ebook on The Benefit of using an HR provider. We’re not meant to know all the answers; we’re meant to refer to experts who train to be experts for a reason.