When you were in grade school there was little change in your routine. But a few times a year, someone different was standing at the front of the classroom – the substitute teacher. And the games began. Students would sit at different desks, tell the substitute teacher how things really worked, earn reprieve from turning in homework, and get an extra day to study for the spelling test. What happens in your classroom when you are gone can tell you a lot about your role and your business.
If you haven’t taken off several consecutive days in a while, first address that problem! If you have, think about what did and did not happen while you were out of the office. There are lessons to be studied.
Did your office turn into a scene from Lord of the Flies? No, it didn’t. You are surrounded by good people. But not everything went business-as-usual, either. Some tasks were not completed as quickly or with the proficiency you would have liked, while others cruised along just fine – maybe even better. These two situations demonstrate opportunities for your business.
Those activities which progressed as usual or better when you were out – stay out of them. Whether it is approving marketing materials, signing off on client proposals, shadowing salespeople or running meetings, you aren’t contributing, but rather creating a bottleneck. To put it nicely, your time is more valuable when spent elsewhere. For instance, if you are a salesperson and your sales assistant did not have any issues handling calls from your existing accounts, maybe you should focus more on prospecting and let your assistant be responsible for account maintenance. If you are a manager and your team held up fine while you were gone, maybe you should shift more focus to strategic planning and stay out of the day-to-day.
Those things that did not run smoothly while you were out are also opportunities. Your peers that covered for you or your staff who support you did not understand your expectations. Assuming they were not punching out at noon every day, the failure to properly complete responsibilities means they do not have the resources to do so. You need to transfer knowledge about how you operate and what you expect. You will likely find areas of misunderstanding that were not otherwise visible to you, but nonetheless are in need of attention. For instance, if you are a salesperson and another rep was covering for you, you will see the differences in how the two of you operate which can lead to swapping of best practices. If you are a manager and your staff was paralyzed during your absence, it may mean that you are too involved in the details and need to give your team more autonomy.
A more long-term opportunity may be illuminated during your absence – what if something extreme were to happen? Do you have redundancies in place? For instance, is someone else authorized to make purchases for the company or negotiate pricing with customers? Do you have your staff members’ home and cell phone numbers stored somewhere else besides your office? If you are a small shop, is there another broker or service provider that can service your accounts while you are away?
Analyze your business's performance during your absences to better understand how and where you can best contribute to its success.
