week 79: you can be busy and not be in business
the more busy you are might mean the more ineffective your business strategy
thank you to over 11,000 of you who read this weekly and share with your friends and family for behind the scenes on building a million dollar business from scratch and beyond.
i also include a personal note in the end so i am grateful that you let me do that without judgement.
lately i hear every CEO and every leader i meet say they are busier than ever.
at the same time i am seeing record number of people losing jobs, companies going under, and sales plummeting.
so i am forced to evaluate myself with this question.
am i busy?
absolutely. some days, i have 12 back to back meetings.
but then i can make this harder by saying…
am i delivering on business outcomes?
honestly, sometimes i do and sometimes i don’t.
so here is what i am learning to do:
focus on strategic projects. not teams. - there is no such thing as “my team”. it’s one team. meaning we are all on the same team. so we are going to outline all the projects and prioritize together so we can move forward, faster. not just as individuals or isolated teams but as one team.
become business leaders. not functional leaders. - no more departmental priorities. instead, let’s align on top 3 business priorities and adapt our projects in the service of those priorities.
project owners and not titles make decisions. - as we spend more time together making decisions as a team as opposed to silos, i am learning that we need to let project owner lead the swat team and not the other way around. the one who owns the project is the one who leads the project.
now… i will keep you posted on how it goes but right now it feels like every company needs to become flatter, more open on what’s working and what’s not, project based and let the business leaders emerge.
warning: everyone who has been working on “here’s the way i have always done it” and “it’s uncomfortable to share” what i am working on or “you won’t understand what i do”… that breed is fast evaporating from the real business world.
busyness does not equal business.
you can be busy and not be in business.
but if you can focus on your business priorities as a business leader, and do meaningful work that matters.
on a personal note, my kids got to be in a book promotion video of my friend, Tim Elmore’s new book - i can’t wait - it’s about 52 stories of amazing kids across the world, who made a difference.
in a world where everyone is too quick to find faults and point fingers, i welcome a book that shines the light of goodness thru stories of incredible faith, power of dreams, mighty strength of the little ones that challenges the status quo of how we think of our next generation.
i got to read an early copy and so did my kids and you can watch them in the video around the 2 min mark sharing their thoughts on the book.
have the kids been busy? sure… a lot of school work and sports will keep them occupied.
but reading books has been one of the most important skills i hope to pass on to my kids.
the more i read and the different kind of books i read, the curious i become.
this was not busy work of doing a video - but rather a very “meaningful” work where they learned to face the camera, do some acting, take feedback and redo their parts and ultimately do something they never have done before.
the best part, they had no idea if their part of the video will even make it in the final cut.
when i asked them about their experience … Krish replied - “Epic” and Kiara said - “famous”.
so for my house hold, obviously my kids are “epic famous” now because they took the time to read.
they were not busy reading the book to get a reward, they were busy preparing, even if get didn’t get in the final cut.
that was meaningful work.
leader point: in business and in life, when you remove the busyness, what you are left with is meaningful work.