Analogy is a powerful way of getting out of a mental logjam and seeing and understanding things more clearly. I use a number of analogies to help business leaders and owners come to grips with the issues they face.
Many leaders and owners struggle understanding the difference between working “in a business” and working “on a business.” Working in a business is tactical in nature. It deals with the ongoing issues of what is. Working on a business deals with the issues of what could be or better yet what should be.
If you think of the business you are in as a clothes washing machine it might be clearer. Every day you get up at 0-dark-thirty, do your thing and get into work. Working in the business is imagining yourself every day opening the washing machine lid, hitting the on button, hopping in and closing the lid after you. During the day getting through a normal cycle is oxymoronic. Someone is always opening the lid and throwing in more dirty wash, just when you should be ready for the rinse cycle.
At some point, way later in the day than what you planned, someone comes along, opens the lid and extracts you (usually a call from home about a promise you made). And out you climb, still wet and grimy with all the things you just left behind, you go home, do your thing until the alarm clock signals it is 0-dark-thirty, and you get up and do it all over again.
If you feel like your business life is stuck on the spin cycle, you are working in the business.
Working on the business is staying outside of the washing machine – actually operating it rather than it operating on you. It is looking to the future, deciding what your clothes washer will be and do and working on things that will make that happen so that what you imagine will become a reality some time down the road.
What causes owners and leaders to stay in the washing machine? Even though it’s seemingly crazy, it is comfortable. When you are in the “machine” you are dealing with the known, stuff you are good at. It is easier to stay in the “machine” than deal with the future, the uncertainties, and the risks of the unknown.
If you are living in the washing machine – get out! Make getting out a habit. How? Schedule it on your calendar, PDA, or tell your support staff to fish you out at a predetermined hour!
Just do it!
