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Page 49 GO IT ALONE!
Similarly, in Less Is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity as the Ultimate Competitive Edge , bestselling author Jason Jennings concludes that the ability to focus on a consistent strategic goal, what Jennings calls a simple “big objective,” is the single most significant differentiator between productive and nonproductive companies: “To focus means to concentrate attention or effort. Unfortunately, most corporate leaders act as though they suffer from attention deficit disorder when it comes to keeping their companies focused on mastering a simple BIG objective.” Jennings also stresses that focus is not something that shifts from day to day—it is a dedicated concentration on the central skill that allows your company to create value. And in his memoir, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?: Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround, Lou Gerstner, who engineered IBM’s successful turnaround, agrees. Gerstner notes that “few people and institutions would admit to a lack of focus, even in an exercise of honest self-evaluation. However, I have learned that lack of focus is the most common cause of corporate mediocrity.”
Set Up the Business So That You Have the Time and Energy to Focus As noted earlier, it’s not uncommon to meet entrepreneurs who will say that they know exactly how to make their businesses thrive—they just need a work week of several hundred hours. By outsourcing as much as possible, you create the equivalent of your own 300-hour work week: You have the time necessary to devote to the specific skills or service that are the basis of your business and its success.
Burnout Is Not a Necessity: It Is a Symptom of a Problem Developing a successful business means that you will need to work hard and have a high degree of determination. It does not, however, mean that you must be a victim of the burnout that
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GO IT ALONE! Copyright 2004 by Bruce Judson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
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