Entrepreneur: From Jack of All Trades to Master of One
Entrepreneur: From Jack of all Trades to Master of One
Whether you’re an entrepreneur with a billion-dollar business and thousands of employees, or under a million dollars in revenue and 10 employees, you’ve had to perform multiple functions as your business grows. Your role has stretched from tactical to strategic and spanned multiple functions and responsibilities. But even as you successfully maneuver these challenges and the business grows, you must evolve from being a Jack or Jill of All Trades, performing functions that exceed your capability and capacity; to becoming a Master of One, performing work that aligns with your purpose and expertise.
This is the challenge for many entrepreneurs who retain such close control over their businesses that they don’t benefit from others’ expertise and in the process limit the company’s growth prospects. Some find it difficult to trust that others will make better decisions in critical areas. But it is crucial to transfer accountability to others who will take on responsibility for aspects of business growth. (more…)
“What if we’re wrong?” That was the question a senior leader asked his CEO as they were discussing business strategies and plans. “We probably are,” she replied, “but let’s move forward nonetheless.”
Jake was elated. His COO had just called him into his office to give him the good news. The executive committee approved his promotion to VP of Client Services. This was the promotion he had been working towards for the past five years. It had even come a bit sooner than expected as his predecessor resigned several weeks ago to take a position with another company. He wanted to call his wife immediately to share the good news, but she was on an airplane returning from a west coast business trip. Instead he had to rush to pick up his two sons and take them to their after-school sports activities. He was scheduled to be on vacation over the next two days and looked forward to the long weekend to get his mind in gear and prepare to step into the new role. It would be effective one week from today and the announcement would go out on Monday. 
How many times have you had a medical issue you considered to be minor, and instead of going to the doctor, you googled the topic, asked friends or family for advice and visited the drug or grocery store for solutions to address it. All of this only to realize after a period of weeks that you really needed expert help. Even if you had health insurance, you didn’t want to take the time to visit the doctor’s office, get a prescription, go through a medical procedure, or worse, hear news you didn’t want to hear. This “bad news” might range from a firm directive to change your eating or health habits, or worse, a condition left untreated has reached a serious state. It now requires greater intervention, greater disruption of your “normal” routine, and significant stress to manage through it all. You took a risk and now you’re dealing with the consequences.
Supporter relationships are evidenced by business interactions that are more transactional. Supporters focus more on what they are getting, rather than what they are giving. Supporters emphasize the importance of clients’ understanding and valuing their expertise. They tend to receive more crisis calls as a reactionary response from the businesses because something hasn’t turned out as expected.
Bob sat down at his desk and let out a huge sigh. He had just returned from lunch with one of the board members at his company. They were preparing for the current CEO to retire within the next 6 months and the board wanted to initiate a formal selection process to confirm Bob as a candidate to replace him. Bob had been with the company for 15 years and held the CFO role for 5 years. It was time to step up. He knew the inner workings of the company as well as challenges in the industry. He also knew that his chances of being selected were pretty good. But there was one nagging issue on his mind. He fundamentally felt that the strategy the current CEO and Board were pursuing wasn’t going to pay off the way they thought. He had shared his concerns in the past but given the politics didn’t feel he could push it too far. Now, if he were to be selected as CEO, he realized he couldn’t lead the organization forward with a strategy he didn’t believe in. He knew that two or three of the twelve board members might support his thinking, but that wasn’t sufficient to make the shift he felt was necessary. And if he declined consideration, he’d have to come up with a really good reason because telling them he didn’t believe in their strategy would call into question his role over the past several years. 
Pat arrived at the office early. She hadn’t slept well the night before because she was wrestling with an important decision that needed to be made in her Executive Committee meeting that morning. They had been evaluating the development and launch of a new product for the past six months. Today they needed to make a final decision on whether they were going to move forward. The discussions had been thorough yet difficult with wide ranging opinions on what they should do. There was significant risk associated with the launch, but the potential reward could be a greatly improved market share. As CEO, she needed everyone to make a full commitment to the decision, and while the objective analysis appeared to lead the team to adopt it, a number of other issues had arisen, and there was a LOT of debate. 
A key requirement of good leadership is to ensure that the organization and its initiatives are sustainable, both during and beyond the leader’s tenure there. This means that the company’s values, beliefs, goals and objectives cannot be dependent upon a single or few people as the glue holding it together. Situations will inevitably occur where such individuals are no longer a part of the organization, and thus the glue fails.
Leaders spend a great deal of time focusing on building strong teams, selecting the right people with critical skill sets, managing diversity of thought and matching complementary strengths. They structure their organizations based on the capabilities needed to accomplish organizational objectives and optimize opportunities to control as many variables as possible to ensure a cohesive team.
Imagine that you’ve just joined a new organization or department or been appointed to lead a significant new project. You’re excited about your new role and have been given a charge by your new leader regarding specific outcomes and metrics to achieve. You took some time to evaluate the challenge ahead and get to know the team, and you’re ready to make some “quick wins.” There are obvious areas for improvement that will impact organizational metrics favorably. As you meet with your colleagues and team members to introduce your plans, their responses are muted. They don’t seem to appreciate the value of these initiatives. You continue to meet with key people one-on-one to gain their support and probe for issues, but you keep hitting a wall filled with excuses, pushback and noncommitment. What’s wrong? You’ve entered a “no wake zone.”