Hands up - Your Money or Your Life!
A recent survey of more than 1,000 senior executives, done by Bank of Scotland Business Banking, has found that the amount of time UK business owners spend at work has increased further during the past 12 months,
On average, those who responded were spending 50 hours a week at work - up by almost three hours (6.3%) a week compared to a year earlier. And, for some, the situation is expected to get worse as 26% of those asked said they expected to be working even longer hours as a result of the current economic downturn.
Small businesses in Scotland put in the most time at work - almost 52 hours a week - while those in the south-east clocked up 47 hours a week.
Critically too, the rise in working hours has had a knock-on effect on personal health. 71% of respondents claimed that they now felt stressed running their businesses, compared with only 54% a year earlier.
My point in highlighting this survey is – do you recognise this behaviour in yourself?
Hands up - are you working longer hours? And if so, why?
Is it part of our ethos that when faced with uncertainty we double our efforts and work longer? What leads us to this philosophy? Does it suggest a lack of confidence, or is it the need to ‘prove’ commitment to our team, our suppliers and our customers? Is it a ‘natural’ behaviour or do we ‘learn or copy’ this behaviour from our peers or forebears?
Or is it simply that we don’t understand our options when under perceived pressure - it is easier to work harder than it is to think things through.
If so, let me suggest to you another, methodical, approach.
It involves, firstly, taking the time out - to understand the issues and then to set priorities.
By asking ourselves (or our teams) the right questions about “what happens if . . . ?” we can identify the truly critical issues in our business, spend proper time on these, and thus ignore those annoyingly ‘loud’ but irrelevant matters.
Once you’ve assessed the critical issues, take time to generate the right solutions – and never just one solution but many different solutions. Write these down, and don’t stop until you have 5, 10, or more possible tactics. Consider the ‘outcomes’ that you want and the result that each of your possible approaches might bring. Then rank them in order of effectiveness and feasibility.
Next, the critical stage, do something - take real and positive action.
Choose your best (highest ranked) option and implement immediately.
But, please, not by doing it all yourself – we’ve been through this one before. Take into account the resources available, and try to delegate elements of the action plan to others where possible. Trust your team and your professionals to work in your best interests. Brief them, with absolute clarity, and monitor progress, without interfering, to ensure things advance the way you want them to.
And if your initial ideas aren’t working, don’t be ‘pig-headed and stick to them - be prepared to change tack.
Never panic - decisions made in haste are often regretted later and usually have limited effectiveness. But, as described above, by taking time to assess properly all the options available to you, delegating some of the tasks, and monitoring the results, you stand to multiply, many fold, your chances of success.
So, get out there and make effective changes to your business for optimal profits.
Richard C
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September 24th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Hi Richard
I think it’s “Running around the Monopoly Board like a headless gamepiece” Syndrome that most of us are guilty of chronically suffering from (even from before the current talk of recession began!), instead of being the Game Player that we really need to be and seeing things from above with a proper game plan.
“Take time out from working IN your business to spend some time working ON the business”. How often have I heard this (and vehemently agreed with it!), but for most self-employed businesses, it seems about 10 times easier said than done.
Thanks for suggesting that it is still possible in the current ‘doom & gloom’ times
Shuaib
September 25th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Hi Richard, glad you’re back! (Hi Shuaib)
I’ve started writing a comment here which was in fact a question for you, but it turned into a full-blown blog-post!
So I transferred it to my Kiss Business blog.
The question was: how do they measure these hours worked and what DO they really measure? Hope my own post makes the need for that question (and answer!) clearer.
Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)
September 26th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Hi Shuab and Karin - thanks for comments.
As mentioned, it seems that often people think that working long hours is good and ‘loyal’ stuff, and perhaps as Karin suggests to display ‘importance’ - but to me it just covers up inefficiencies and poor management during working hours.
And yes, working IN your business instead of ON your business - being busy for busy’ness sake - etc are simply symptoms of ‘procrastination’ - hiding from the fact that you need to address important management issues.
Hence my message - face the issues, assess them in what ever way suits you best, look at the solutions, choose those with the ‘fastest best impact’, but most importantly, get out there and DO SOMETHING!
Richard C
September 27th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Yes sir