CEO Labor

In last week’s edition of Growth, we talked about the evolution from Technician to Manager to Entrepreneur and how many family business owners are regressing from Entrepreneur back to Technician.

Here’s a reminder of the five adverse effects for your family business of this regression

1. The client exposes themselves to risk if you are doing too much of the work yourself.
2. You are not growing if you are not communicating often enough at a higher level.
3. You put financial pressure on the business every time you hop into the rollercoaster of chasing work, finding too much of it, doing all of it, then running out of work again.
4. Your bank is exposed to risk if the business is too centred around you and your involvement.
5. Your team don’t see you as a leader, so might take instructions from you, but not direction and inspiration.

The five reasons I have given you above are motivation enough to have family business owners stop and think about why you are dragging yourself back into the role of the technician. However, it is not the biggest.

The number one reason why you should not do this is that I hear too many family business owners expressing unhappiness as to how their day to day life in business is panning out. They are fed up with the constant phone calls, the poor performing staff, the rushed deadlines, the lack of time to do any form of business planning. Yet, they turn up to their business every day and do the same old thing.

Here’s my message:

Stop it! Stop it right now!

You cannot grow a business that is profitable, valuable and sustainable in the longer term if you, the Entrepreneur, are operating at the Technician level.

If you keep falling back into the Technician’s role, you should seriously stop thinking about growing your business and, instead, lower your expectations as to what you want out of life and how your family business can fund that. You should revert back to being a Man (or Woman) in a Van and have a limited customer base that you focus on.

Now, if lowering your expectations is not on the cards, you need to think about what you need to do to ensure you not only put yourself back in the Entrepreneur’s role, but engage the three point racing harness and stay there.

There is an important element to locking yourself into the role of the Entrepreneur. I am yet to see a family business owner that can do this alone. As a family business owner, you need someone alongside you who:

1. Challenges you.
2. Forces you to think differently.
3. Encourages you when you make progress.
4. Pulls you back on track when you deviate.
5. Supports you in your journey.

As the owner of a family business, you have complete control over the direction of your family business. However, because you are at the top of the tree in your organisation, most people don’t question you, the decisions you make or the direction you take. Which is why at times, the direction is forward, at others it is round and round, and at others still, it is backwards.

Having someone from outside your business perform this role creates:

1. Accountability.
2. A sense of reporting to a higher authority.
3. A measure of progress.
4. A degree of perspective.

Do you have someone in your family business life that is working alongside you so that you stay in the role of the Entrepreneur?

This Week’s Tip

“If you as the Entrepreneur, keep regressing back into the Technician role, your life will only get much, much busier as your business grows. More work for the business means more work for you personally. Which means less time for yourself and your family. What’s your choice?”