A NEW FOCUS ON SUCCESS
Distractions, they are all around us. They keep us from staying on path. They blur our vision. As we run to and fro exhausting ourselves with the busyness of work, we need to take a time to slow down and remember to focus on success. Focus on the important and not just the urgent. The urgent says, “Deal with me now!” whether it is lines up with our vision or not. It impedes our ability to build something and we end up simply maintaining. What’s important is setting limited, manageable goals and then creating an environment that allows our team to meet them. When we can continually find ways to stay out of the mire of the urgent, then we can focus on truly creating success.
As owners and managers it is our duty to lead by example and not let our firms get bogged down in the day to day. Sometimes we have everyone pulling on us for our time, lining up at our door for information, direction and approval. This environment not only keeps us in the urgent but keeps our firm from doing the important. Often times this makes us a bad example and creates stumbling block to meeting important goals. We must dramatically change if our firms are to grow and accomplish our vision. Below are a few reasons why this happens to us.
1. Trying to accomplish too many things at one time
2. Enforcing an inappropriate level of control over our firm
3. Inability to delegate and the lack of team involvement
4. Creating an uninteresting work place
5. Need for more appropriate software, systems and policies
Without solving the above problems we will continue in the urgent and never reach the important. Once we identify our firm’s specific problems we must set in place corrections and resource ourselves and our team to change.
When firms try to be too many things they tend to do all things very average. Identify what you are best at and build on that. Don’t try to be everything to everybody. Get your whole team working on one thing and doing it excellently.
Most owners suffer from control issues. Hiring the right people is the beginning to letting go. If control is your issue then being able to delegate will be difficult at best, which leads to a team that is not empowered. Focus on building a quality team and then creating an environment where their decisions count which leads to a feeling of ownership is imperative.
Find ways to keep things interesting by varying work assignments, creating a shorter work week or encouraging outside interests to keep moral up. If your team is uninterested then you are doomed. Be sure you are getting the best and not just the most from your team.
Sometimes the problem is bad systems and not the team. Listen to your teams ideas about systems. If your software doesn’t support delegation, team empowerment and accountability then the whirl wind of the day to day won’t be solved even with the best people.
Once you have plans that begin the transformation of your firm you will want to set aside time weekly to ensure we stay on track. Do this with team meetings and review of our goals regularly. Find ways to measure and reward your team for meeting the new goals. If you can do this then you have embraced the important and are now focusing on building success.