I volunteer as a mentor with eForAll, a terrific organization that supports aspiring entrepreneurs to launch mainstream businesses. I was recently on a call to meet a potential mentee who is striving to start a landscape business. He told me that he currently is a one-man company, and he has so many customers for lawn mowing that he cannot devote any time to anything else. He also said that his lawn mower is too small, but he cannot afford a larger commercial mower, and he cannot afford to hire anyone because he does not have equipment for them to operate. He needs a loan to expand his business, but he does not have time to secure one. He is a perfect example of the tyranny of the urgent being the enemy of the important. We talked about his need to take a breath and plot a course forward that will work for him, rather than just staying on the treadmill he is on and remaining frustrated.
The concept of taking a breath is something I often speak with CEOs about. Particularly in early stage companies, the founder/CEO tends to do everything, and as the business gets going they are rapidly consumed with the treadmill of day to day demands, and fall victim to the tyranny of the urgent. Moving from the massively hard task of launching a business to the herculean task of building a sustainable business requires a major change in CEO behavior. The first step is to take a breath and recognize the situation. The CEO needs a moment to reset and plot a path forward. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs are so caught up in the moment and the crushing workload that they fail to consciously take a breath.
The same scenario happens in more mature businesses with experienced executive teams. Each executive is consumed with their own daily tyranny of the urgent, but collectively, the CEO and the executive team need to periodically take a breath. My approach is to schedule routine quarterly executive offsite meetings. Typically spread over at least two days so that there is evening social time to unwind together. Meetings have formal agendas and meaningful strategic topics to discuss and debate, but the key is to look a little further into the future to see what is coming instead of constantly being buffeted by unseen forces. The ability to look further into the future, or deeper into what is going on, creates the space to anticipate and course correct without falling victim to the tyranny of the present daily activities. A side benefit is it forces the executive team to disconnect from immediate issues, and rely upon their teams to hold down the fort. That means they have to have a competent team behind them, and at times the retreat will serve to highlight weaknesses in the next level team.
A wise manager I once worked for had an interesting saying — ‘always be decisive and make timely decisions, but never make a decision until you have to, because you may learn more. The key is to know when you have to decide.’ It was his way to say ‘don’t procrastinate, but also don’t shoot from the hip without thinking about all of the angles.’ It was also his way of creating a pause to take a breath and make a well conceived good decision, not just any decision. In a fast paced, growth environment, everyone feels urgency, and they put that urgency on the shoulders of the CEO and leaders to make rapid decisions. The mantra to ‘take a breath’ is a way to slow time and make sure the urgency does not lead to carelessness or a treadmill situation.