The work you’re best at may no longer be the work your company needs you to do. Face it, you didn’t start your career as a printing company CEO. You most likely came up through sales, production, finance or operations – or maybe a combination of them. You rose to the top because you were good at what you did. You became a leader and then an owner at some point: whether through an acquisition or being part of a family business. Then the job changed.
The New Office
Even though you’ve moved into a different office, your staff may still be looking to you for the same answers you provided them in your last role. The problem is, it’s easy to keep doing the work that you know, particularly when you are better at it than most of the others around you. It feels good to solve problems and to help your team perform. What you can’t lose sight of though is that your job changed, and the work that you were best at may no longer be the work your company needs you to do.
And your day-to-day business, the question isn’t whether you can jump into a production problem, or help close a sale, or review an estimate, or help solid financial issue. Of course you can. The better question is: should you?
We all know that there’s comfort and doing something you’re good at. And we also know that your time can be totally consumed in those areas, and it feels good because you’re productive, you’re getting things done. The challenge though is when your company looks to you, the fixer, as the normal course of how they should operate. Being busy isn’t necessarily the same as doing the work as CEO should be doing. And every hour spent doing work, someone else could reasonably do, is an hour you didn’t work on the business.
Two Sides to This Problem
It’s not as easy it’s just saying you need to delegate more. The real question is have you built a team, an organization, that can handle what the owner let’s go of? Have you developed your team. Are they engaged. Do you have the right people doing the right things. Are their roles and decision-making rights clear? Any lack of clarity here will revert to making the owner indispensable to make all the decisions. That makes it difficult to grow and scale the business.
It’s Faster If I Do It
“It’s just faster if I do it,” I’ve never heard that line before. The challenge for most new owners or CEOs is letting perfect. Be the enemy of good. Most members of your team won’t be able to do things exactly the way you’ve done them. And I’ve got news for you, that’s OK. Let it go. Make sure the work is getting done through having the right people in the right rolls. Set the expectations and let them do their job. The more that happens, the more engaged they will be, and have some ownership and what they do. The less that happens, the more they’re just going to wait for you to do it.
If Not That Then What?
So, if you shouldn’t be focused on solving everyone else’s problems, and doing the things that you used to do before you got the big chair assignment, what should you be doing? Here’s a few things that I think the CEO should be uniquely qualified to do:
- Set the direction of the business and establish the key priorities
- Build and develop the leadership team
- Final decision on allocating capital and resources
- Lead by example to shape the culture and protect the core values of the business
- Develop strategic relationships with clients, suppliers, and other stakeholders
- Pay attention to your employees, know who they are, and let them know that you appreciate what they’re doing for the business
- Anticipate what’s coming around the corner from your customers, from the markets, from the economy, and work to manage any potential threats or opportunities, heading in your direction
- Help your team understand why it’s important to be better tomorrow than you were yesterday and all that you do
- And undoubtedly there’s a whole other list that goes along with these initial responsibilities
And guess what, most of these things are not going to be on your Monday morning to do list and will be easy to forget. But don’t forget these, you can’t forget these. Face it, reality says that you’ll still be helping your team solve problems most days. The challenge will be to make sure that you carve out time to work on the business as necessary and not get totally consumed with working in the business.
Mike Philie helps owners and CEOs in the Graphic communications industry validate what’s working, identify what needs to change, and create a practical path forward.
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