Lawrence Fine

One of the difficulties in being involved in a small business is knowing what to delegate and knowing what to do yourself.

Many owners/managers will realize something has to be done and rather than having someone else do it, will decide “it’s easier to just do it myself”. In many cases, it IS easier to do it yourself rather than teaching someone else how to do it but there are a few questions you must ask yourself when these situations arise:

Is this something that will come up again and again and if so, by training someone else to do the task, will that save time in the long run?
What else could you be doing instead of this task? Might your time be better utilized doing something else (opportunity cost)?
If you delegate to someone else, might you be giving that other person an opportunity to grow which they wont get if they aren’t trained?

Because people don’t value their time properly, they frequently get bogged down doing things they could/should delegate to others.

An example of this is a company I know. They decided 6 months ago they needed a new design of their web site. For 6 months, they have had meetings, conference calls, hired consultants to teach them about search engine optimization and finally, they are preparing their RFP. Based on the time table of their RFP, if everything goes as planned, they will launch their new site almost exactly one year after deciding they needed a new site. My conservative estimate is they will have 100 hours of partners time in this process before ever getting a new site (this estimate is probably very low). How much could they have billed in the time spent on this process? Combine this lost revenue with the expenses incurred with the process (consultants etc) and they will have to pay a lot more for their web site than they should in order to justify the expenses already paid. The alternative would have been to hire someone to run this process for them. They would have saved money, billed more hours and had this web site up and running (and generating income) months ago. It’s simply a matter of understanding the value of time.

We make these decisions regarding the value of time every day. Should I mow my own lawn or hire someone else to do so? Should I do my own marketing or hire someone else to do so? Should I drive myself to a meeting or is my time better spent working longer and then flying? Without knowing the value of our time, it’s difficult to make these decisions.

When you do know the value of your time, you might still choose to do something that goes against the logical decision. It might make more sense to hire someone to mow your lawn allowing you to spend that time working (and making more money) but if you find mowing the lawn to be relaxing, it might make sense to do that yourself. It might make sense to occasionally to do things that someone else can do as well and cheaper in order to keep yourself understanding the process. If I remember correctly, McDonald corporate staff all will work in a restaurant for short periods of time to make sure they understand what is being asked of others. In other words, there are reasons to choose not to delegate responsibilities even when it might make sense to do so financially. The key is to make sure you are making the choice based on accurate information.

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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Most of the people who are successful in their careers are doing things they are passionate about. You can hear it in their voice, you can see it in their mannerisms and actions.

Other successful people are simply passionate about work. They enjoy their job but love work. This doesn’t have to be the business owner or multi millionaire. Recently, I was at a restaurant and someone asked the waiter if a particular dish was good. His eyes lit up and he started talking about how it was his favorite food they served. You could hear and see the passion and sincerity. Compare this to the waiter who says “everything is good” while looking off in another direction.

One of my favorite stores is owned by a couple who not only sell the products in the store, but they collect these same products at home. They are passionate about what they sell and it shows.

Is it possible to be successful without being passionate about what you do? I assume so but without any doubt, it’s much easier to be successful when you have passion for what you are doing.

If possible, find what you are passionate about and pursue it. Remember, it doesn’t have to be something that makes you wealthy, or famous. In this case, it’s about what makes you happy and isn’t that what it’s all about?

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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So much can be accomplished through visualization that trying to address it all in a post would accomplish virtually nothing. I’m going to do a few different posts over the next few weeks on visualization and still will only touch the very tip

As has been discussed previously, I consider goal setting to be extremely important (see http://www.lawrencefine.com/blog/2008/05/goal-setting/ and http://www.lawrencefine.com/blog/2008/05/goal-setting-continued/)

Once you have set your goals and created your sub goals and the steps to achieve these goals, it’s important to “keep an eye on the prize” and see yourself having accomplished the goal in the future.

If you are mountain climbing and you keep looking up at the huge mountain, you might start to get discouraged and start to wonder if you will ever make it to the top. Taking a couple of moments to stop and close your eyes (probably a good idea to make sure you are at a safe point to do this before closing your eyes on a mountain) and picture yourself on the top of the mountain will be all that is needed to keep you motivated.

If your team is playing in a tournament and you start to have doubts about your ability to win, taking a moment to close your eyes and see yourself holding the trophy while people are cheering will frequently be all you need to keep yourself going in the right direction.

If you are about to go on stage to give a speech or performance and are getting nervous, picture yourself at the end of your performance receiving a standing ovation.

If you are running a marathon, picturing yourself crossing the finish line might be all you need to get the adrenaline flowing and help you to finish the race.

Simply taking a few moments to close your eyes, picture yourself accomplishing your goal and experiencing the success before it happens will help you accomplish whatever goals you have set for yourself.

In most cases, if you can visualize it, you can do it

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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Most people base their decisions upon the information they have available. You can try to change their mind but it’s extremely difficult to do.

Since it’s difficult to change peoples decisions based on the information they have available, the next option is to give them new information. With new information, they aren’t changing their opinion, instead, they are formulating new opinions. This might seem to be just playing with words but the reality is, it’s much different

Providing additional information (as opposed to just repeating the same information over and over) is the best way to get people to make the right decision (and let’s be honest here, the right decision is simply the decision that we want them to make).

Educate instead of arguing and good things will happen

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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A mastermind group is a small group of like minded individuals who meet regularly to brainstorm and/or motivate each other to do greater things.

Too many people surround themselves with people in their organization who will agree with what they are suggesting (yes men) or who are afraid to say anything that might seem controversial (the emperor has no clothes)

Rather than surrounding yourself with people who will only agree with you, or with people who are afraid to speak their minds, you need to be willing to hear and tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

If you are a business person who specializes in HR issues, you might join a mastermind group with people who specialize in marketing, finance, IT etc. This way, you could share your expertise to help other while others would share their expertise to help you.

The concern many people have with this concept is that someone will take what they learn from you and use it against you in some way. However, if it’s a small group and everyone understands each others concerns and agrees to a non disclosure, this shouldn’t be a concern.

The other issue people have with this is they are afraid to admit they don’t know everything. Sitting with their peers and saying “I don’t know” is scary to some while others realize it makes them stronger.

A mastermind group can meet in person, over the phone or via many other methods online. They usually require a strong leader to keep things going in the right direction and while they cost you time and sometimes money, a strong mastermind group can be invaluable

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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A coach I know has four rules for his college team. They are as follows

1.Be on time
2.No whining
3.Do what you should, when you should, not just what you have to
4.Do things that will make your self, team, coach, family and friends proud

Managers tend to make a lot of rules based on something that just happened. Someone will miss a deadline so they make a rule about missed deadlines (even though missed deadlines are addressed in rule 1, 3 and 4).

If someone does a bad job on a project, the manager makes a new rule (even though it’s addressed in rule 4 above).

Basically, people make rules to try to cover individual incidents when the reality is, the general rules above already address most situations.

The problem with the rules above is, they don’t work if they aren’t applied to everyone.

The coach who uses these rules is late for most things, constantly complaining, does the absolute minimum required and generally breaks all four rules on a regular basis. I’m not sure if he thinks he is above the rules or that he doesn’t see that he breaks them regularly. The problem is, the team sees this and it causes a tremendous loss of credibility.

If you expect everyone else to obey the rules, it’s important that the leader do so as well.

The four rules above are wonderful for most teams but make sure you add the fifth rule which is “obey the rules above”

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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When I was coaching soccer, it was always important to me that when the team left a bench area, it was cleaner than when we arrived. This meant not only picking up any cups and tape left on the ground by our team, but also any that was left by previous teams as well. This might seem to be a small thing but sometimes, when a lot of people do small things, it becomes quite big.

This got me thinking about how this could/should apply to other areas of life.

If you are a member of an organization for a few years, when you leave, do you leave it in better shape than when you arrived? Or, are you like most people and have no impact at all?

If you work at a company, when you leave that company is it in better shape than when you arrived? Or, did you just collect a paycheck and not care?

When you leave a community, is the community in better shape than when you arrived? Or, did you just use the resources and not give anything back?

When you leave this world, will it be a better place because you lived? Or, were you just another number?

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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In our society, people tend to set the bar (goals) very low and then do just enough to reach the bar.. By procrastinating and doing the absolute minimum required until the very last minute, they get to work hard at the very end, give the appearance of doing a job well done and can feel good about themselves. Sadly, their peers and superiors fall for this crap and everyone is happy.

An alternative is to set the bar high, work hard and smart from the start and accomplish something of significance. The problem with setting the bar high and working toward it is others will sometimes feel you are trying to “show them up”. Others will see you working hard at the end and see others who set their bar much lower but then procrastinated and not notice any difference at all because at the end both were working hard. However, the people who really matter (you and others who understand results), will know the difference.

The real problem in setting the bar high is that when you reach it (and you most likely will), it gets set even higher next time. For some, that is a negative (why should I be “punished” for accomplishing something previously?) for winners, it’s just another challenge they will step up to and conquer.

Where is your bar set?

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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If you bought a house for $100,000 and it went up in value to $400,000 during the real estate boom and then it dropped in value to $200,000 due to the real estate bust, did you lose $200,000 or gain $100,000?

Just wondering

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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A question you should ask yourself at the end of every day is “did I earn my pay today?”

This question doesn’t involve whether you feel you are fairly compensated, or whether you like who you work for or anything like that.

It doesn’t matter whether you are an employee, a consultant, an independent contractor or anything else, anyone is paid for their time is able to ask this question.

If you make $7 an hour for 8 hours a day, the agreement you have with the person paying you is for you to work hard, work smart for those hours. Some people feel they are worth more than they are getting paid so they feel all they need is to put in the time and effort they feel $7 deserves. The thing they don’t realize is that isn’t the agreement they made. They are being paid for doing their job right, not for what they feel they should do.

If you are being paid for 8 hours of work and show up a few minutes late, leave a few minutes early and waste time throughout the day on sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc, you aren’t earning your money.

If you are an attorney billing at $350 an hour and are having an assistant do most of the work while you do other things yet still bill at $350 an hour, the client isn’t getting their moneys worth.

If you are a salaried employee this still applies. The questions of are you providing your part of the agreement is just as applicable.

Every day, ask yourself, are you earning your pay. If people are honest with themselves, too many will come to the conclusion, they aren’t.

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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