If you’re a Technician at heart—
and most small business owners
are—you likely spend your
days focused on making, selling
or delivering your product. This
Tactical Work is in your nature.
And for Technicians, even
though they’re overwhelmed by
this work, they’re addicted to all
the doing. They’re validated by
resolving problems and checking
things off a list—it gives that
experience of productivity, of finishing
something.
Entrepreneurial work is Strategic
Work. It’s stopping, reflecting,
thinking, analyzing. It
doesn’t often have the automatic
pay-off of a checklist—and
it’s not going to feel as valuable
because the revenue-generating
work feels more productive.
But your business demands
that you do the work of an owner—
unless you want everything
that makes your business run to
begin and end with you, reliant
solely upon how many hours
you have in the day.
When juggling responsibilities,
start by asking yourself: Is
this Tactical Work or Strategic
Work? And little by little, start
filling your time with more
strategic activities.
This can be hard because
it may run counter
to your instincts as
a business owner and
how you approach your
business today. But just
test it. When a pressing
task or issue comes up,
watch how you react—
instead of defaulting to
what you always do,
try to stop yourself and
make a different (and
perhaps less emotional)
choice.
I’m not suggesting
that you change overnight. Just
look for opportunities to grab the
strategic, low-hanging fruit. Delegate
a client issue to a manager.
Step away from day-to-day
sales to spend time creating a
financial forecast. At a minimum,
try planning your day tomorrow,
taking 10 minutes to write out
all the things you want to do.
That small step alone may overwhelm
you, but commit to one or
two small changes right away.
It’s so easy to be reactive
in your business.
But remember, your
actions transmit
meaning to your team,
clients and community. So
when you practice acting
with intention, you impact everything
around you.
My client prioritizes handling
his plumbing customers’
problems immediately—himself,
in person. When he told
me how stressed this made
him, I asked, “But do you really
have to be the one to go?”
Whenever I ask this, the
answer is inevitably “yes” because
the fear of losing business
is real. But in a moment
like this, challenge yourself
to pause and say, “Do I really?”
If the answer is yes,
then do it. That pause
is the owner in
you being discerning, making
the choice knowing that whatever
happens next can bring
either a good result or a consequence—
or both.
Making this choice is never
as simple as just saying “yes” or
“no”. But give yourself a chance
to question your belief—because
you’re the only person
who’s going to challenge it. You
don’t have a boss telling you,
“No, don’t do that.” You’re the
boss, and you can trick yourself
into thinking that anything is important.
Everything can’t be your top
priority. So when everything
feels important, you have to
learn what to do first—and in
what order. And if you’re so busy
running around in the Technician’s
mindset, there’s no way
your business can win.
With my client, I tried to help
him work through his overwhelm
with one of the oldest tools in the
history of self-management: a
checklist. I said, “Let’s make two
lists: one with the work you have
to do as the person in the field,
and the other as the owner.”
And by just writing a list, he
was doing Strategic Work. Making
that list is the thing a true
owner does—it’s taking a moment
from the tactical stuff to
look at all the work and question
what’s possible. This is the very
first step to prioritizing.
Once you have that list
in front of you, choose what
your business needs you to do
next—rather than what others
need from you. Just having that
starting place gives you clarity
about your work in an objective
way, without judging whether
or not each thing on your list is
important—just whether it’s the
next best thing to do.
