Let me guess, as an owner, you feel at times overworked and overwhelmed.  Even like a prisoner to your business.  You tend to wear multiple hats, function in multiple roles for your company, and juggle way too many responsibilities.  You often end up being the Chief Everything Officer for the company.  Did this business coach come close to describing your current or at least your former situation?

We at The Growth Coach, a business coaching franchise system, see this situation/syndrome repeated time and time again with small business owners throughout North America before they enter our coaching program.  They have the "business owner blues" and are seeking some relief.  They simply want MORE SUCCESS and MORE LIFE and with our coaching process, they achieve that.  Sadly, many business owners can not see the reality of their own crazy situation and it's up to their business advisers to steer them toward coaching help.  You see, many owners consider recurring chaos, confusion, complexity and craziness as NORMAL...they know of no other way. 

While some craziness and chaos may be normal for the first year or so in business, as an owner, you should not be adding hats (job responsibilities) each and every year; you should be removing hats over time.  You should continually be in the process of quitting...quitting lower-level roles and responsibilities.  Your job is to keep elevating your leadership role as your company grows...not taking on more jobs.  Eventually, the only role you should have is to be the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of your business -- not the EVERYTHING officer.

To help you understand this strategic-focusing and quitting process, draw your current organization chart with boxes for all your key functions (e.g. sales, marketing, operations, accounting, customer service, HR, IT, etc.) and write in the names of your people, including yourself, in charge of those functions (boxes). 

Now, time for a business coaching reality check.  As the owner, how many of the boxes have your name at the top?  Or, how many boxes (job functions) do you jump into on a daily basis to help out?  How many different hats are you truly wearing?  If you are wearing more than 2-4 hats, you are at risk for being ineffective, overworked, unproductive and eventually burning out. 

How can you lead your company, refine your vision, set critical priorities, draw up an action plan, and keep everyone accountable for hitting the plan if you are overly busy helping out in the factory, job site, order department, shipping, accounting, collections, sales, customer service, fixing computers, and on and on?  You can't lead and be effective being the Chief Everything Officer.  Being a jack-of-all-trades and master of none (especially in the leadership category) makes you look and function like a jack-in-the-box ... foolish, hopping up and down, and going no where fast.

As the business owner, your job is to create jobs, not work jobs.  As your virtual business coach, let me repeat that for you.  As the business owner, your job is to create and define jobs, not work jobs.  Your role is to define the boxes and how the work is to be done in those boxes (roles, responsibilities, standards, outcomes, etc.).  Next, hire good people and train them on the work to be done in their respective box and what is clearly expected of them.  Then let your people do THEIR jobs...don't do the jobs for them. 

Hold people accountable for doing THEIR jobs but stay the heck out of their boxes...that's why you pay them.  Again, your job is to create and define jobs, not work all the jobs.  This is the path for you to have MORE SUCCESS and MORE LIFE.

Daniel M. Murphy
President, Founder & Business Coach
The Growth Coach
Business Coaching Franchise System
Certified Business Coaches throughout North America