In my last blog, titled Don’t Get Stuck in Ops Land, I challenged business owners not to get lost in operations.
But knowing isn’t doing.
In this blog, I provide some proven tactics to break free of operations.
Let’s explore moving more of our capacity from Ops Land to Strategy Space.
Living in Ops Land is the default position.
Your time will be spent living in Ops Land unless you decide to break free.
Only you can choose where you spend your time.
So, the first stage is awareness.
Of course, you know that you need to lead, strategize, focus on customers, manage, analyze, market the business, run & attend productive meetings, mentor staff…. the list goes on.
But hiding in Ops Land prevents you from spending the important valuable time required on these activities.
Again, only you can make this happen.
Staff, customers and suppliers will not tell you do it.
It starts and stops with you.
Now you have committed to creating a balance between strategy and operations, how do you execute your plan.
Start with a daily habit of working on your most important 3 things every day. Try and do this in the morning before drifting into email, operations and busywork.
Set an alarm for 30-60 minutes to check email and return phone calls, before returning to your big three things.
Build a habit of building your strategic time for 1 hour per day (5 hours per week) to at least 3 hours per day (15 hours per week).
When I get push back on this from owners, I ask them how many hours they work weekly. If 50 hours is the norm, I remind them that 1 hour of strategy per day is just 10% of their capacity and 3 hours per day is 30% of capacity. Therefore, they still have most of their time still available for operational activity.
Of course, this does not have to be a fixed amount of time per day (although it could be). However, measure it and target a goal of total hours per week to hold yourself accountable.
Note and celebrate what you achieve.
Remember that elite business owners often spend 50% or more of their time on strategic tasks.
When stuck in operations, analyze what you are spending time on. What can you delegate, outsource or drop to increase your strategy time available?
It is also critical to know your biorhythms. What windows in the day are you operating at your most optimal level? When are your flat spots?
Allocate more generic tasks such as business administration and email to times when your biorhythms are flatter.
Allocate strategic time in windows that you are sharper and more highly functional.
Chunk admin tasks into time blocks to ensure higher efficiency in completing them.
Review your internal meetings, adding or eliminating meetings to have more impact. Review agendas and set fixed times on a rolling basis in your diary. Ensure that meetings have specific action items, deadlines and individuals’ accountable for follow-up tasks.
Seek feedback from the team on the tasks you should ‘stop doing’. There are always activities not required and these should be scrapped or outsourced wherever possible.
Make team members more accountable in operations. Allocate ‘Internal Champions’ to oversee core operational tasks. Set up rolling regular ‘laser’ check-ins with them to get feedback on blockages, issues and ask them to present suggested solutions. You will recover operational hours from this as you triage operational issues directing the solutions and actions back through the team.
The above hacks and tactics should release significant capacity back to your diary, freeing you up to be available for working strategically on the business.
And finally, getting out of Ops Land allows you have more control over your life.
Without a skewed reliance on you operationally, you create more capacity to conduct activities of choice, work on personal/professional development, spend more time with family and friends, while taking regular holidays.
Don’t hide in Ops Land.
Be elite.
Celebrate the wins and monitor your progress.
Be a captain of your industry, not a slave.
Break free and be your best.
Have more impact on your business and in your life.
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