There is a fairly simple answer to the question – what does a business need? The answer is most often – more. More time, more money, more sales, more people, more equipment, more exposure, more innovation, more productivity – more.
Each of the individual items listed above are interchangeable. All of them can be replaced with more money, meaning simply that they can be purchased (including time). One can replace the need for more people with more equipment and vice versa; one can purchase sales by spending money on marketing, by providing discounts and even by buying the competition!
Businesses have two main ways of getting more. They can grow through the bootstrap process, or they can raise capital to satisfy the needs. There is never enough money to meet the needs. Which neatly brings us to a major source of stress for entrepreneurs – the lack of resources. Independent business owners must master the art of doing more with less, doing it for yourself, or making what you do have accomplish more.
This leads to a significant attribute of entrepreneurs. Since necessity is the mother of invention, more often than not, independent businesses are innovators.
Picture This - Plugging the Leaks
Unfortunately, this lack of resources is another major source of stress. Picture the proverbial finger in the dyke to prevent flooding – what would you do if first there was a leak for your thumb to plug, then four more about a foot apart – but your fingers will not quite reach. Then there is a major leak two feet higher – just right for your nose. Then another leak two inches away spurts right in your eye! Then, seven inches above the ground, a leak for your left big toe, followed by one at 11 inches for your right big toe. Meanwhile three feet away, a geyser begins to spray, and you have to remove the thumb from the first leak, to slow that one down. Now you are getting a shower from the original leak. Before long you are trying which leak is the most damaging, trying to prioritize those leaks and bend your body into a pretzel to stop enough of them.
All this time, you are praying for a rescue…
This is the stress of the independent business person. Too many leaks, not enough resources to delegate to flood control, while still making progress. This extends well beyond the time pressures described in the first stress post I made… Even if you worked around the clock every day of the year forever, you still cannot do enough contortions to catch all the leaks. All you can hope is that you got enough of them.
There are times when this is exhilarating, but it gets old very fast.
In The Brain
The human brain can only handle some seven pieces of data in working memory at a time – there are days when three is beyond me. If each of our leaks needs to be thought about and a decision made, it becomes exceedingly difficult to maintain your composure. In fact, it is a torture technique that has been used for centuries to break down prisoner resistance in interrogation. Subject them to enough simultaneous streams of information, and the brain (and the mind) wilt under the stress. Not a terrific environment for good decision making.
Bear in Mind
Tackling too many projects and too many roles at the same time will amplify stress, and lead to poor decision. This is not a good recipe for success.
Question?
How many projects have you had to handle at the same time, and how many of those projects suffered from your stress level?
3 Comments
Juggling tasks is part of the game of running a small business and if you aren’t good at it, you better learn fast. It always used to be a problem for me, until I asked one of my bartenders how he always remembered drink orders (he was astounding at doing this!). He said that he tried to break drink orders up into tables or waitresses and he would remember the group rather than each individual drink. He also did a lot of prep work before the rushes started.
I’ve always found that a big whiteboard gets the job done. It’s hard to ignore and everything that is a concern ends up there, so as long as you keep moving forward and know what to do, you should be fine.
Multi-tasking on one project never hurts my ability to be in control. I can tie all tasks under one big picture, and would know my priority well. Multi-tasking on completely unrelated projects is difficult, on the other hand.
There’s a theory that small business owners should consider creating a basket of a portfolio of small businesses. Theoretically it works, but in practice, I find it a challenge.
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