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How Entrepreneurs Will Succeed by Doing Less
Michael Gerber wrote a very popular book entitled The E-Myth Revisited about the myths of entrepreneurship. He explained that entrepreneurs must have three skills to win. Gerber claimed that entrepreneurs must possess and execute the technical, the managerial, and the visionary skills to succeed as an entrepreneur by creating a successful business.
I believe that Gerber was only partially correct. He leaves readers with the impression that the entrepreneur (alone) must consistently possess and exercise all three of these skills for the business to succeed, and for the entrepreneur to win. I believe that the key distinction is that the three skills represent the three FUNCTIONS of the business that must be completed for the business to succeed. I believe that the entrepreneur does not have to perform all three functions personally. In fact, I am convinced that the business and the entrepreneur will be more successful if the entrepreneur DOES NOT personally perform all three functions.
A business is like a chain. It is only as successful as the weakest link in the chain. The three links to any business chain are the technical function, the management function and the visionary function. The success of a business will rarely exceed the level of poorest execution of the three functions. For example, if the entrepreneur performs the technical and visionary functions at an excellent level, but performs the management function at a poor level, the business success will rarely rise above the poor management level. Therein lies the dilemma. The business is limited to the lowest level at which these three functions are performed. Yet, it is extremely unlikely that any one person, in this case the lone entrepreneur, can exercise all three functions to a high enough level at one time to generate the expected business success. Hence, businesses where the entrepreneur must personally exercise all three functions will rarely succeed. Let’s look further at each of the business functions to learn why this is true.
The technical function of a business requires someone to actually perform the duties of that business, which attract payments. This could include repairing air conditioners, extracting teeth, painting houses, writing computer programs, or installing tile. People who do the technical work have almost total control over what they are doing, they frequently do something tangible, and they receive almost instant feedback and gratification. This is the “doing function.”
The managerial function of a business requires someone to direct, coordinate, and organize the business activities of other people (and themselves) to achieve the daily and weekly success goals. People who perform the managerial function have much less control, because of reliance on others to actually perform other duties, and they have delayed feedback and gratification from one day to a week.
The visionary function of a business requires someone to look years into the future, set goals, organize, and lead the business to the completion of the vision. People who perform the visionary function have virtually no control, because they must rely on others to actually perform the managerial and technical functions, and the many unforeseen things that will happen during the years. They perform even less, if any, “doing” type of work, and have delayed gratification and feedback from one-to-five years.
It is extremely difficult for one person to simultaneously perform all three functions well.
You can see that the type of skills, activities, control, and gratification periods vary widely for these three very different functions. The very different nature of these three functions, the very different skills needed to perform them well, and the very different types of people who would be mentally and emotionally capable of performing these functions requires three very different people. It would require one lone super-human person with three very different personalities and motivations, and with excessive energy and time to simultaneously perform all three functions at a level high enough for the business to succeed. These wide differences are the reasons it is so difficult for any one person to perform all three functions simultaneously. Yet, entrepreneurs are lead to believe they must execute all three functions themselves. In addition, most entrepreneurs feel not only compelled to do everything themselves, but most feel they are very capable of doing so.
The business will succeed because the lone entrepreneur will not perform all three functions.
But, when the lone entrepreneur feels compelled to work long and hard to execute all three functions of his or her business, the business will almost always fail. In essence, the business will fail because the entrepreneurs did too many things and worked too hard. This year, over 800,000 of the approximately 2,000,000 start up businesses will fail! Nearly 1,000,000 of those remaining will fail within 3 years. Clearly the sole entrepreneur doing everything approach is not working that well.
Smart and successful entrepreneurs discover the three functions they have the greatest desire to perform and will be the most successful at completing. You will also want to know the functions you have the least desire to perform and at which you will probably be the least productive. This is an extremely important discovery process about you, the entrepreneur. Once you have made these discoveries, you will want to design your business around you. By custom designing your business to suit you and your personal desires, passions, priorities, and talents, you will orchestrate your ability to enjoy and excel at the functions you selected for you. Likewise, you will avoid performing the other functions you would have suffered and struggled to execute well enough for the business to succeed. You will want to enlist others to perform the functions of your business that you do not want to do. You will want to join forces only with people who have a strong desire to perform the functions you do not want to do and have a strong desire to avoid performing the functions you love doing.
It really comes down to creating the best fit for you first, and then creating the best fit for the people performing the other functions. It is almost like the sport of baseball. There are nine positions in baseball that must be played well by all nine players in order for the team to succeed. In the entrepreneurial small business world there are three positions that must be played well for the business to succeed. Pick the position you want first then have others play at least one, if not both, of the remaining two positions. This way everyone will be much more productive, have more fun, and the business will thrive.
Hire a business coach.
But how do you as an entrepreneur or business owner discover enough about you to be able to understand which aspects of your business are best suited for you? You engage a business coach. A business coach is, in essence, a life coach who specializes in coaching entrepreneurs and business owners to business related goals. The most common business goal clients achieve with their business coach is to become more successful and productive entrepreneurs and/or business owners and do so on their terms. The initial discovery phase of business coaching will assist you to unravel the mystery of you, so you become The World’s Leading Expert on You! You can work with your equal partner/coach to develop your business to allow you to fulfill your passions, follow your beliefs and values, maximize your talents, avoid as many of your self-imposed obstacles as possible, and operate your life based on your own priorities. Now that you know what you want your business to look like because you have your business coach/partner to support you with options and clarity, and because you as the entrepreneur/business owner have ultimate control over your businesses, you have nothing stopping you from custom designing and completing your business to suit you. By building your businesses to suit you, you will be virtually assured of achieving outstanding success, and you will get to enjoy the ride along the way.
If this is true, then how do entrepreneurs get all three functions executed well enough for the business to succeed, if they don't do it themselves? Entrepreneurs have others perform at least one of the three functions for the business. We are listing several possible methods entrepreneurs can have one or more of the three functions successfully performed by others.
The partnership solution.
The simplest way to cover all three functions is to have a business with two or more partners who execute different functions. This is a very common success tactic. Do the names of Gates-Allen, Hewlett-Packard, Jobs-Wosniac, Disney-Disney sound familiar? They succeeded in large part because they had at least two people accomplishing the three functions from the outset. Sometimes, it appears easier to go it alone, but if you can find a partner who wants to and is effective at performing one of the three functions, you are way ahead of the game.
As a side note, the most frequent reason business partnerships break up is because the partners are too much alike. Partners with like interests and personalities want to perform the same functions and compete to do so, while not paying attention to the other functions. Friction occurs and partnerships or businesses dissolve. How often do two programmers, or two electricians, or two salespeople, or two mechanics, become partners only to see their partnership and the business implode because they focus on the same function at the expense of the others?
The hiring solution.
Another way to solve this dilemma is to hire someone to perform one of the functions. Normally, the function that is the easiest to hire in is the technical function. However, this fact frequently creates a conflict with entrepreneurs. Normally, entrepreneurs begin their business by performing all three functions, including the technical functions themselves. The baker bakes, the plumber plumbs, the graphic artist does graphic artistry, the printer prints, the accountant accounts, and the list goes on. The sooner entrepreneurs can have someone else perform the technical functions of the business so they can focus on the management and visionary functions, the sooner the business will start down the road to success. When entrepreneurs have others execute the technical functions they transition from being a technician to becoming a business owner.
The Franchise solution
However, if you are excellent at performing the technical functions, you may want to bring in someone to perform at least the visionary and probably some of the management functions. The franchise structure of business has been used for years to allow performers of the technical functions to utilize the franchiser to perform the visionary functions and provide considerable guidance in performing the management functions. Look at the successes of the McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and other such franchises. The headquarters of each of these groups perform all of the visionary functions and design and teach a large part of the management functions. The franchisee performs the technical functions and some of the management functions. Through this separation of duties all three functions get performed exceptionally well to produce great successes.
Conclusion
As the entrepreneur you have the power, control, and obligation to design your entire business around you. You want to discover and know yourself very well going into the design of your business, so you will know exactly which functions and duties you will really want to perform. You will undoubtedly create excellent results from the duties you want to perform. Likewise, you will want to find, attract, and surround yourself with others who will want to perform the other functions of the business you chose to avoid. They will also produce excellent results from performing their chosen duties. This way you get to do what you love, and you will do it well. You also have others producing exceptional results because they enjoy it so much at the other functions of the business you chose no to do. You win because you will work less and enjoy yourself more, your supporting cast wins because they will enjoy what they do and they will be rewarded for their high quality results, and the business wins because all three functions will be executed exceptionally well.
Everybody wins!
Provided as an educational service by Bill Dueease of The Coach Connection, where “connecting great people with great coaches” is their goal. You may contact Bill at 800-887-7214, 239-415-1777, coaches@findyourcoach.com, or http://www.findyourcoach.com/0o-business-coach.htm
About the Author
Bill Dueease is the President of The Coach Connection (TCC), which he co-founded in May 2001 to assist people to achieve their greatest results from life coaching. Over 96.5% of TCC's approximately 1,500 clients have achieved their intial life and career goals by connecting with their personally matched TCC Member Coach. You can reach Bill at bill@findyourcoach.com, www.findyourcoach.com or 800-887-7214
