It’s funny, how much difference one letter can make. In vs. On… but as I’m learning, it makes all the difference. Now if you’re like me, this subtle difference might not be brutally obvious at first. Being a small business person, as I am, I find myself guilty of always being busy. Busy, Busy, Busy… doing it, doing it, doing it… But when I really stop to look at it, what was I doing? Well, I was working IN the business. I was being a developer, I was making calls, sending emails, balancing the checkbook, paying invoices… notice the common denominator of all those tasks??? they are all about 5 levels down the chain (or more) from being the president, CEO, or whatever you call yourself in your business.
Now, don’t get me wrong, when you are a small business owner, you often have no choice, for a while. When you have no revenue coming in, you often have no choice but do all the jobs. But as you start to grow, if you continue doing this jobs because you’re good at it, or it’s easy… well, then you’re just another employee in your business. And who is left to direct things???
Another interesting concept to all of this is the idea of tension. Now, if you have ever worked in sales, marketing or engineering, you’ve felt the tension. Sales starts making promises that operations has to live up to. Engineering doesn’t evolve fast enough for marketing, and so on… That healthy tension keeps business striving upwards. Well, what happens when engineering, marketing and finance are all you??? how can there be any tension? how can you push another group, when you are the other group?
So… what does it mean then to work ON your business???
As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our SAP Service Management Products at my other company JaveLLin Solutions,Mike