Avoid the Shiny Bunnies

Squirrels, shiny bunnies, kitten bombs, Facebook – whatever you want to call it, distractions are everywhere. There are the day-to-day distractions that get in the way of your tasks and responsibilities. Social media, a new show on Hulu, and mundane chores all distract you from the things you know you should be doing in order to effectively manage your life or meet your goals. 

While this type of distraction can be a serious issue for some of us, today’s article is going to focus on the larger version of this problem. Individuals getting distracted is one thing. Entire organizations that get distracted is a completely different problem. 

When an individual is distracted it leads to anything from messy houses to jeopardizing their job. However, it can be much more devastating when a business or organization becomes distracted. It can lead to profit loss, bankruptcy or even total failure of the business/organization. 

For a business or organization, this happens when the leadership loses focus on the mission, vision or purpose. Leaders become distracted in many ways. It could be a flattering offer that comes their way, pressure from partners or other community leaders, or a need to prove something. This article will look at:

  1. How to identify organizational distractions
  2. Strategies for keeping your business on track

Identifying Organizational Distractions

As a leader, you might not even realize when a shiny bunny is headed right for you. You’re going along, doing what you believe is best for your business. By being on the lookout for these distractions, you can save your organization money, time and heartache. 

  • Too Good to Be True: We all know that if something sounds too good to be true – it probably is. As leaders, whose focus is on growing revenue or impact, it can be tempting to chase after this squirrel. A new project, partnership, or endeavor might sound like a fast track to growth. 
  • You Need to Justify: If you find yourself justifying why something is a good idea, it is an indicator that you need to look more closely at your decision. Anytime it’s not completely obvious how a decision connects to your mission/vision/purpose, you might be pursuing a distraction.
  • Secrets or Hiding Things: Keeping secrets or telling different “stories” to different groups of people should be cause for reflection. This is an indicator that you are hiding something, or that you are moving in a direction that is not consistent with your core focus. 
  • Outside Pressure: Leaders from other businesses, agencies, or entities will always have an ulterior reason for wanting to partner with you. Even if they give you 100 reasons why they believe it would be a good move for your business, they still are pursuing the partnership for their own gain. 

To be clear, there are definitely times when new business opportunities make sense. This article is not meant to prevent growth and innovation. Rather, it’s meant to keep you from losing your focus on what is most important to your organization. Being aware of what these distractions look like is the first step. Next we’ll look at how to deal with and minimize distractions.

Maintaining Your Focus

  • Know Your Vision

The first step in maintaining your focus and minimizing distractions is to know your vision. This article goes into detail about the importance of having a crystal clear vision. Without it, you are much more susceptible to distractions. When your mission/vision/purpose are foggy, leaders grasp at straws. When we don’t know where we are going, we welcome (and sometimes even look for) distractions. 

  • Communication & Trust

In tandem with your vision comes building up your communication and trust. This involves sharing your mission/vision/purpose over and over, solidifying the importance and ensuring all staff, volunteers and stakeholders understand. In addition, creating open and honest communication systems builds up trust. 

  • Ask Questions

Building trust among your team members is key to this next step, which is to ask questions. Big decisions should not be made in a vacuum. Get input from those you trust, and who also trust you enough to be honest. Brutally honest if necessary. Ask tough questions about who has the most to gain, what is the downside, and how the opportunity might change the focus, culture, and direction of your business. 

  • Be Completely Honest

In order to make the best possible decisions for your company, you must be 100% honest with yourself about your motivation. Otherwise, ego can easily get in the way of taking action in the best interest of the organization. Making decisions that make you look good is obviously a goal, but it shouldn’t be the only goal. If your own self advancement is the primary factor behind a new endeavor, you need to be able to step back and objectively look at how it will impact the business. 

  • Strategy Screens

Creating strategy screens can be very effective in keeping your business on track. A strategy screen is a list of questions or criteria against which you can test potential new opportunities. By working with your board, stakeholders or leadership team to create a list of 5 to 8 criteria, you can proactively protect yourself from distractions. 

  • Operational Plans

Solid operational plans will keep you moving in the right direction. This includes annual goals, quarterly action steps, accountability, and regular measurements. By establishing goals designed to move you towards your mission or vision, breaking them down, assigning accountability and regularly measuring your progress, you stay on track. This structure can serve as an insurance policy protecting you from distractions. 

As leaders, you are constantly faced with opportunities and decisions to make. You absolutely do not want to be risk adverse or your business may become stagnant. However, at the same time, you want to focus your energy on opportunities that will help you meet your business goals. By being able to quickly identify organizational distractions you will be able keep the shiny bunnies at bay. 

Need help creating your vision, communication system, strategy screens or organizational plans? Email me at kim@athena-coco.com to schedule a free 30-minute discovery call to find out how to lock out the squirrels! 

Kim Stewart

Kim is a mom, wife, lover of being active and the outdoors,
and helper of nonprofits, small businesses and leaders.
kim@athena-coco.com 

 

Are you Too Close to the Problem?

Remember that boyfriend (or girlfriend) who was really awful for you? All your friends knew it, but you couldn’t see it. Remember tuck rolling your acid washed jeans? It was cool at the time, but looking back it seems pretty ridiculous. And do we even need to talk about perms?

My point is, when you’re close to something it’s difficult to see the full picture. You get caught up in emotions or trends or the very small piece of the picture that is right in front of you. It’s not until you have the luxury of time or distance that you are able to see the full story.

The same goes for leading your business. When you are completely consumed with working IN the business every day, you are likely facing problems. These present themselves as feeling overwhelmed, having difficulty making decisions, and frustrations from things not going as planned. Sometimes you don’t even see the problems. If you’re knee deep in the hoopla, you might not even recognize that you have opportunities to make better decisions, simplify, or realign.

Working ON the Business

You may have heard this phrase before: working IN the business vs working ON the business. When you are working IN your business, you are doing any of the many tasks or management activities that make it possible for your business to run today. In our fast-paced world where there never seems to be enough time in the day, you may feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of tasks and management activities on your plate. This fact may make it seem impossible to ever step away, for even two hours, to spend time working ON your business.

Because breaking away from the day-to-day can be so challenging, I’m going to share four tactics for ways to pull yourself away and give yourself, and your business, the much needed time spent working ON the business. Before I get into these ideas, let’s address the frame of mind you need in order to successfully work ON your business.

When you work ON your business, you are focusing on strategy for tomorrow’s success. The first step is to understand and believe in the importance of taking time to think strategically about where you want your company to go. If you see spending time thinking strategically as a waste of your precious time, then don’t do it. You need to be committed for this to be valuable. Otherwise, it is a waste of time. It’s also crucial to be open to new ideas. If you have no plans of changing how things are done, then there’s not much benefit to stepping away to focus on strategy.

Tactic #1 = Communicate

Okay, so you’re excited about thinking strategically and you’re open to exploring new ways of doing things. The next question is: How? I’m sure that running your business could easily consume 24 hours of your day, 7 days a week if you let it. Obviously, you don’t let it do that. You sleep, you eat, and hopefully you make time for your family and friends; as well as recreation, wellness, and hobbies. These activities fit into your life for a couple of reasons:

  1. Because they are important to you, and

  2. Because you have created a culture where the people in your business understand that you sleep, eat, spend time with family/friends and have some sort of  personal life.

Similarly, you can make working ON your business fit in if it’s important to you and you create a culture where the business understands it’s a priority. We already talked about your mindset around working on strategy, so clearly it’s important to you. The next step is to communicate with your team about why it’s important and how it’s going to look. Share your vision for your company and your belief that to achieve your vision you will need to think differently. Then tell them what it will look like.

Tactic #2 = Get Out

Set aside a specific time on your calendar. The best plan would include about 2-hours a week at the same time each week. If this seems impossible, shoot for 2-hours every other week. Still too much of a challenge? At the very least I would recommend 4-hours, once a month. Pick a time of the day or the week that would be considered your “slow time,” if there is such a thing. Whatever you land on that works well for you, stick to it like glue. Put it in your calendar. Schedule other things around it. Make it a priority.

Then leave. Get out of your office, your store, or your facility. Don’t tell your team where you are going. Take nothing but a pad of paper and a pen. That’s right, leave your cell phone behind if at all possible. Go to a coffee shop or a park or the library. Find a place that allows you to relax and your mind to explore new ideas.

As stated in Tactic #1 – communicate this plan and the purpose of it to your team on a regular basis. By communicating and following through with your plan, it will become part of the culture.

Tactic #3 = Create Accountability 

Does this all sound great, but you know yourself well enough to know that this might last for two weeks before you will find excuses for why it’s more important for you to stay IN the business? If so, consider finding an Accountability Partner to support you. This could be a partner, a spouse, a team member, a friend, a mentor, or another business leader. Explain to the person what you want to do and ask them to help hold you accountable. You may even find someone who wants to do this with you, kind of like a workout buddy.

Tactic #4 = Outside Help

There are times when engaging outside help is the best option. A coach, a mastermind group, or any other peer group are all things to consider if you feel like an outside set of eyes would be helpful. These resources can help give you a new perspective, consider new ideas, or hold you accountable for the things you want to do to reach your business vision. An outside set of eyes will challenge you in ways that you may have never considered, and will push you to do things you might not commit to on your own. Most coaches and peer groups provide a free discovery call or visit so you can explore the different options available to you.

Next Steps

Once you have your time-away plan, either on your own, with a partner, or with a professional, use your time effectively. These steps can help:

  1. Stay laser-focused on where you want to take your business. If you don’t have a vision yet, this is a great first step.

  2. List out all the challenges you face that are preventing you from reaching your goals. Prioritize. Peel back the layers. Often the first thing that comes to mind is a side effect of the real problem.

  3. Once you get to the heart of an issue, explore strategies for working through it. Come up with as many strategies as you possibly can. Determine which best match your brand, your culture, your values, and which will best solve your problem.

  4. Decide.

  5. Plan your communications. If you have regular staff meetings (which I hope you do), add the decisions made to your meeting agenda. Communicate your thoughts and develop any action steps required to roll out the strategy.

  6. Tackle as many issues as you can in your allotted time. Save others for your next Strategy Session.

Put Your Mask on First

There is a strong pull to convince ourselves that business cannot possibly continue to operate if we are not there. Are you really needed all the time? Or does it make you feel good to be needed all of the time? If your business cannot run without you in it for every hour that you are open, I might suggest this as one of the first issues you tackle.

“In case of a drop in cabin pressure, put your own mask on first so you can assist others.” Same goes for your business. Thinking short-term: I have to help my child or my seat mate, is similar to focusing only on the daily tasks. You’re only going to be able to help for a finite period of time. Thinking long term: If I put my mask on first, I’ll be able to help many others, is the equivalent of taking the time to think strategically about your business. You have to think long term in order to take care of your business.

Some lessons can only be learned through experience (like that awful perm), others (like the health of your business) you want to proactive work to solve.

If you would like to explore how coaching or consulting can help you work ON your business, email me at kim@athena-coco.com to schedule a free 30-minute consultation. Calm the Chaos by working ON your business so you can find time to focus on what’s important to YOU.