Everyone by now has heard the words of Michael Gerber, “. .work on your business…” The concept is well established in the world of small business owners but is it understood?

The context of this phrase is based on three personalities Michael recognized in a business owner, the technician, the manager and the entrepreneur. The concept to work on your business was meant to move the owner from being a technician, doing the work of the business, to the mind of an entrepreneur, the visionary.

Over time with the familiarity of the term, its essence has been lost. Business owners who lead as technicians proudly declare that everything they do that is not client facing is, from their perspective, working on the business. They are technicians, working on their business from the standpoint of a technician finding things to do. Technicians are most happy doing something. With this in mind, you can self-assess? Is this how you are most comfortable working on your business?

Entrepreneur

EMyth Revisited, the book that famously explains the concept of working on your business was not referring to a technician’s perspective. The concept relates to the entrepreneur, the visionary. The entrepreneur takes a higher-level view. The entrepreneur wants to see clearly in their mind’s eye, the business they are creating and what it will look like when their vision is achieved. Then they imagine what it will take to get there, seeing how each aspect of the business works to produce consistently reliable results to surprise their clients or customers.

It is not possible to know what to do, do, do without that vision guiding the work. The manager side of the business owner creates systems that produce the results the entrepreneur imagines.

Fred

Working with business owners who have been running their business as a technician with mixed results, has shown why this does not work. Fred is a technician; he knows all about locks. He is the expert. Fred has hired employees who in his mind do not understand about locks the way he does so it is easier for him to do the work himself. Fred has been trying to solve this problem for years. Asking Fred to look at his business from a higher-level perspective, to work on his business, to determine how his locksmith business could change, so that staff competently did the locksmith work, challenged Fred immensely. Fred is so used to just doing the work that stopping to think at a high level was difficult, Fred wanted to change his role in the business, so he worked with me to change his relationship to his business. He realized his attempts to lead his company like a technician was not working. He was hiring the wrong people, did not know how to make them good at doing the work of the business and more.

Change How You Relate to Your Business

So often the work on the business begins and ends from a technician perspective with random and inconsistent results. To work on your business requires the point of view of the entrepreneur. Fully knowing and understanding the vision and how the business can be developed to build that vision.

It is not easy to stop doing, doing and doing more especially when acting in this way is comfortable and familiar. To create real change in your business means to cease to be a technician leader and become familiar with the entrepreneur as a leader of the company.