We were working with a highly successful SMB team in Texas earlier this year. During one of our monthly leadership forums (8-10 business owners), the owner and his general manager presented their business performance data. The company had recently added a sixth location and was struggling to pull it all together and make it profitable. The peer group worked collectively to help find solutions, remove obstacles, and unlock potential for the next level of breakthroughs.
About halfway through the session, we noticed the owner was spending 16-20 hours a week on extremely tactical 1-1 work with clients. We asked the general manager about it and he said he does the same thing. Both key leaders spending nearly half of their time on tactical work…we were getting close to finding the problem.
As we finished up the session we found that all three of the SMB diseases were infecting this team.
- Phantom Clarity: A lack of strategic and tactical plans, clearly communicated and delegated, had the whole team working really hard, in painful frustration, with no measurable progress being made.
- Reality Distortion: The top two leaders had convinced themselves that they were the only ones who could handle certain clients and situations. Despite having dozens of other employees trained and certified, the president and GM were each spending up to 20 hours per week on basic delivery. Neglecting critical leadership duties (Creating Clarity) that demanded their attention.
- Accidental Isolation: Sometimes we are a little too close to our own $h!#, the easy solutions to our dilemmas elude us. The business owner peers in this leadership forum helped them ‘see’ the problem and held them accountable to make the necessary changes.
Take our three diseases survey and see if you need a new prescription.