Hi Steve -
Welcome to Day One of this week's topic for Business Wisdom in Under 5 Minutes.
I'm Business Coach John Whitt, and I'll be your host for the rest of the week.
Let's get right to it!
Our question today is "What has Three Eyes and Owns a Great Business?"
The Answer:
A Business Owner with Balanced Perspective.
(Is Your Business Perspective Balanced?)
We'll explain the Three Eyes part in a bit...
Perspective is the foundation for everything that happens in your business – good and bad.
The right perspectives will make your business rock; the wrong perspectives will make it sink like a rock.
Notice we said "perspective(s)" above – plural, not singular.
All of us approach everything we do from multiple perspectives.
Let's consider our choices in food, as one example of different perspectives.
F'rinstance:
- Our health-conscious perspective wants us to eat fresh fruits and vegetables.
- Our taste-loving perspective wants us to eat chocolate cake, potato chips, candy – maybe even Twinkies.
- Our weightlifting perspective wants lots of meat-based protein.
- Our humanitarian perspective will consume no flesh.
- Our spiritual perspective may consider cows as sacred - but no problem eating chickens.
- Our fast-food perspective can't wait to chow down on our next major beef burger.
You get the point – different perspectives, different choices.
Important… all of the above perspectives may coexist at the same time within us.
And - when coexisting perspectives are in conflict, it creates stress and dysfunction.
So we desperately want that piece of luscious pecan pie, but we are freaked out at the possibility of gaining even more weight. Ergo – we get stressed and can't decide.
What does all this have to do with your business?
As with life in general, most business owners approach their businesses with multiple, concurrent perspectives. Want to pay yourself a lot, want to conserve cash; want to hire help, don't want to deal with people; have a favorite product you love to sell, but it has the lousiest profit margin of anything you offer, etc.
For the rest of this week, we will consider, and delve deeply into, three particular, high-level perspectives. These perspectives are colloquially referred to as "The Three Eyes" (that's right, it's a metaphor, not an Alien or Spiritual Master), and this is what we shall call them henceforth.
Because business decisions are largely driven by The Three Eyes (i.e., three disparate perspectives), when they are appropriately balanced, business decisions are likewise balanced, and the business flourishes.
Conversely – when The Three Eyes are out of balance, the business will at best certainly suffer, and at worst collapse or shrink (instead of growing profitably and productively).
Therefore, it's important to understand The Three Eyes, their respective focus (pun fully-intended), concerns, qualities, and emphasis - and maintain a proper balance among them.
NOTE - To give credit where credit is certainly due, we should mention here that the principle of The Three Eyes is laid out originally by Michael E. Gerb in his most-excellent book, The E-Myth: Why Most Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It (first publication 1988, updated and reprinted in 2007 as The E-Myth Revisited).
As with all material we allude to in these daily emails, we highly encourage you to read the original references, your time allowing.
In any case, we will do our best to find the concise gems of knowledge most relevant to you, the business owner.
In summary:
- Three critical perspectives (The Three Eyes) need to be operational within successful businesses.
- When any perspective is missing or out of balance, the business will suffer in a variety of possible ways, including lethal ones.
- A significant job of the business owner is implementing - and balancing appropriately – The Three Eyes in their business.
At this point you are likely wondering, "What are the Three Eyes, why are they each important, and how do I balance them properly?"
Stay tuned tomorrow and the rest of the week for new emails, where we dive deep into the different Eyes – one every day - to answer those questions, and more.
We promise to share the unique characteristics of the Eyes, and how each influences your business – for better or worse.
And remember to schedule your free coaching hour with me; see the directions under my Bio below.
See you on the Other Side,
No comments:
Post a Comment