Only the brave take Fridays off
Should you take this Friday off??
Most people throughout their working years ponder on that little conundrum many many times. In the world of accountancy, although not as boring as many might assume, come Thursday morning, it is very tempting to take some of the that precious leave and either have a lazy day at home mowing the lawn or something more exiting.
So that is the question; should you take this Friday off?. Would you be missed? Do you have any crucially important appointments, will anything spoil while you are gone?
If you are running your own business like us. What goes through your mind when you contemplate doing that runner for just one day at short notice? OK maybe ‘leave’ isn’t an issue, you don’t really have anyone to answer to either so, what’s stopping you?
Responsibility.
Depending upon the size of your business, the buck, in one way or another, is likely to stop with you. Leaving things undone can give you a reputation, cost money or even lose key customers. Who will look after the fold while you are gone, who will deal with that inevitable crisis that lurks around the corner waiting for you to leave? Now that is a conundrum.
Only the courageous and the bold take Fridays off.
You could of course just be brave or reckless and decide, that you are literally going to do that runner? If you think about it though, the goal of any entrepreneur is to be in a situation where they are just not needed for the business to run. They have people, capable of dealing with the day to day operations and the odd crises that arise, but sensible enough to stop when they cross onto that holy ground that needs your attention and yours alone. Therein lies the brave courageous soul who in fact can take Friday off.
It is not easy to delegate. Would you give your precious assets to the right employee to look after? Trust them to make decisions that could profoundly affect their value? Accept that they might not make the same decisions that you would, and then back those decisions to the hilt, with your own money? That is a tall order, but a psychological barrier that many an entrepreneur has to cross to allow their business to grow beyond merely what they are capable of handling themselves.
That is the key, in most cases, to breaking the barrier between owning a job (however good that might be) and owning a business that has a life of its own, an asset in its own right. Something that you can sell for real money.
So how do you do it? You can buy numerous books on the matter but in the end it boils down to your style, common sense, your resources and the people available to you. Books cannot light your pathway just give little tips along the way.
Here are some tips that we have come accross.
Use the experienced resources available to you. Get advice from trusted friends (who’s opinion counts) and people who have done it before. Most in business would be delighted to share their experiences with you, it is after all a very lonely world.
Try not to rely on ‘good people’. Those assets can quickly walk out of the door and demand more and more. If possible it is better to rely on good systems that your good people work within. The balance to that is of course to make sure that you reward the talent that you have so that it does not walk.
Learn about the art of delegation. Delegation is not just passing a task on, closing your eyes, clenching your buttocks and hoping it will be OK. In the book “The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey” by Ken Blanchard and others ... the ‘one minute manager’ does not just pass on his monkeys (tasks) but insures them. Make sure that your staff member brings the task back to you when it is ready to ‘push the button’ so that you have the opportunity for input. As confidence builds you can then insure projects (rather than tasks) and so on... until before you know it you aren’t needed anymore. Now that does take courage.
So the question is - should you take this Friday off? The answer is likely to be a bit of both. You may not be needed in that close day-to-day way but your business does not yet run without you. In some sectors maybe it never will, nor would we want it to. However by some simple forward planning most of us can arrange to do that runner on Friday.