BE A CEO, NOT AN EMPLOYEE

Worth repeating, before you can full re-engineer your business, you must first re-engineer your mindset you need to tame and calm your mind to free it from  reactive, counterproductive habits. You must adopt a strategic mindset and focus.  Please adopt this simple change management formula BE-DO-HAVE. In order to have, you must do, and in order to do effectively you must truly be. Let us take an example, do you want to have a better golf handicap? Then you must do certain things
: you take lessons ,practice and play more ,get better clubs ,etc. however all this doing won't be optimally  effective  unless you first change your mindset, you must be a better golfer on the inside you must start to see, feel think and behave like a better golfer in order to be a better golfer. Similarly in order to have more freedom, joy and financial success as an owner, you must do new strategies i.e. systematize your business, utilize marketing, etc.). In order to optimally do these strategies you must first be more effective business owner-mind, body, and soul. Like any award winning actor do not just play the part, become the part you must change on the inside before your external realities change. How do you escape the nauseating details and headache of your business? How do you gain greater freedom? You must make the great mental leap from that of employee to that of business leader. first you must acknowledge your technical bias your addiction to being busy, and your uneasiness with delegation. next you must adopt the "big picture" mind set of a chief executive officer(CEO). you must be a CEO in mind and spirit to get the results you seek. you must think ,feel, see ,taste, smell and hear like a CEO.if you don't start thinking like a CEO, it will be nearly impossible for you to start behaving like a strategic business owner and truly working on your business in a proactive ,purposeful manner. the choice is yours. step up and be a leader, not a micro manager!

I would like also to share with you  what I would call a TECHNICIAN’S  ADDICTION.

Some business owners sometimes amuse me instead of working on their businesses, most owners are trapped working in their businesses, slaving away and grinding it out. Interesting, isn’t it?  Instead of working on tomorrow, they are preoccupied with working in today they end up majoring in minor things.  It always beats my imagination when I find a CEO  worrying  about  office supplies and instead of office processes.  Focusing on accounting details instead of holding their employees accountable.  Worrying about the company's vision plan instead of planning the company's vision.  Reacting  with short term, short lived fixes instead of proactively creating long-term solution.  And some even  fixate on their mail, email, or cell phone calls instead communicating their expectations to their key managers or employees.  Why waste a lot of time doing   things right instead of doing the right things. They do the wrong type of work really well. Trust me if you are doing this you  are chasing your tails!

Are you trapped in the body and mind of a doer instead of a leader? Be honest, do you fall into the routine of doing the work of an employee or technician instead of the work of an owner or leader? Do you neglect such areas as vision,  creation, strategic planning, system development, profit  improvement, team development, employee  accountability?

As previously discussed you are  probably a successful technician that caught  the entrepreneurial bug several years ago and bought ,inherited or started a business related to your technical skills. You are too comfortable with and good at handling such details. Such expertise, unfortunately, has strong tendency to suck you into the nook and chinks of the business. These technical assets can be real liabilities and traps for an owner trying to be more proactive and strategic.

Let us take a simple  example may be you were a gifted house painter who thought "i can start a painting business on my own." From the get go, you probably functioned in a technical capacity or the business systems. You worried about selling and performing painting jobs you probably didn't worry about how to design and building a painting business with you as CEO.

Consequently you  function as a jack of all trades painter that also happen to own a house

Painting  company. You are more technician than a leader. Instead of focusing on the

Business of painting  why spend much time  focusing  on the technical work of painting. You probably

Spend far too much time painting or micro-managing your painters and not enough time

Painting your company's future.  Because of your technical comfort zone, you are trapped doing

the work of a painter, not the strategic work of a leader.

OK let me try to drive the point home, being a good computer programmer and running a successful Programming business are two different roles and worlds. Writing codes is technical and tactical work. Just because you know how to do the daily technical work of programming, for example doesn't mean you  know to design, build and manage a business that does the  work of programming. Technical experience is insufficient background for running a business.

Similarly, if your background is selling, finance or production, your bias will get you buried in the selling, financial and production details of the business. You must escape you technical conditioning! Hire others to handle such matters such matters, if necessary. Business ownership is all about strategic leadership, not technical doer-ship, few owners understand and appreciate such critical distinction. Tragically, owners mistake a technician's orientation for that of an entrepreneur’s. They confuse hard work for intelligent work. They have a technician's addiction to detail work. Sadly, they work and Think like employees instead of owners. They do the wrong type of work. They fail to grasp that running a business is strategic, entrepreneurial, and visionary and requires strong leadership.