Conquer the Chaos, 2nd Edition

7Strategy

Bill Harney is the son of an entrepreneur. He grew up around his family's business and hoped to take it over one day. He worked in the business, learned the ropes, became a valuable employee, and gradually moved toward taking over as president of the 12‐person business. Finally that day came and he was overjoyed. He knew all about the business and was ready to take it to the next level.

As Bill began leading the company, he realized it was a lot tougher than he expected. He was putting in long hours, implementing systems, and trying to build a foundation for growth. These relentless responsibilities brought chronic imbalance and fatigue. There were so many fires to put out, so many issues to respond to, that he struggled to proactively build the business the way he had planned. Bill and his team were all working hard but the results didn't match their effort. They weren't working on the right things and they weren't working together.

In the verbiage of Michael Gerber, author of The E‐Myth, Bill and his team members were constantly working in the business. They had very little time to work on the business. In other words, they were doing the work of the business, but they weren't working on the business itself to make the business run more effectively. And so they were stuck in a reactive rut, struggling to grow the business the way Bill intended.

Over the past 20 years of my career, if there's one phrase that characterizes small business more than anything else, it's ...