The Three Dimensional Secret to Building a Successful Business – Part Two

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The following article is an excerpt taken from “The Entrepreneur Within”

The Entrepreneur Within: The Three Dimensional Secret to Building a Successful Business

Part Two

In part one of this two-article series, we posited that there are four major stages to developing a successful business and the six steps to a successful building process

Those four stages are analogous to Baseball:

1. First Base: The Doer Stage – The owner and the business are one and the same thing.

You not only do the work you know how to do but the work you don’t know how to do as well.

2. Second Base: The Delegator Stage – This is a place of quiet desperation.

The leader must learn how to work “on” your business, not “in” your business.

3. Third Base: The Dreamer Stage – Leadership: The true product of the business is not what your company sells but how it sells it.

4. Home Plate: Personal Freedom. Sell your business, not your product.

We now need to look at the entrepreneur himself.

What changes, personal might he need to make in order to be successful.

This article is devoted to that issue.

The Big Issue

The problem of going into business for yourself is that everyone who does needs to be three-people-in-one:

1. A Dreamer

2. A Delegator

3. A Doer

One of your personalities is the strongest of the three, and he/she always manages to control the others.

The secret is to learn how and when to move from and between being a Dreamer, a Delegator and a Doer.

The key is to understand what stage your business is at today in the Business Life Cycle.

Make sure that you understand each stage.

What goes on in the business owner’s mind during each of them?

And what does he do to get to the next base?

This process is critical to discovering why most small businesses don’t thrive and ensuring that yours does.

An Important Observation

We tend to think that if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work.

The technical work of a business and a business that does that technical work are two totally different things?

So the carpenter, or the electrician, or the plumber becomes a contractor.
The doctor opens a medical clinic.
The barber opens up a barber shop.
The technical writer starts a technical writing business.
The hairdresser starts a beauty salon.
The engineer goes into the semiconductor business.
The musician opens up a music store.

The problem of course is that they then believe that by understanding the technical work of the business they are immediately and eminently qualified to run a business that does that kind of work

The Paradox of Business Leadership

Rather than being their greatest single asset, knowing the technical work of your business becomes your greatest single liability.

For if the Doer didn’t know how to do the technical work of the business he would have to learn how to get it done.

He would be forced to learn how to make the business work, rather than to do the work himself.

She would be forced to learn how to work “on” her business, not “in” her business.

The real tragedy is that the business that was supposed to free him from the limitations of working for somebody else actually enslaves him.

Suddenly the job he knew how to do so well becomes one job he knows how to do plus a dozen others he doesn’t know how to do at all.

Your Entrepreneurial Dream Turns into a Nightmare

See the young man studying to be a doctor.
See the young man develop a medical practice.
See the young man start a no O.H.I.P. fee for service medical business.
See the young man become an old man.

The Dreamer, the Delegator and the Doer

The Three Dimensions to Running a Successful Business

The problem of going into business for yourself is everyone who does so needs to be three-people-in-one.

That is, there are three leadership functions, roles that a leader needs to be successful.

The management, timing, integration, relationship and application of these three personality types is the secret to running a successful business.

They are being:

1. A Dreamer

2. A Delegator

3. A Doer

And when a business is small, those business dimensions are conflicted by, determined by and subject to the personality and inclinations of the owner.

So there is a conflict for control by these three forces, a kind of war going on inside the owner of every small business and thus the business itself.

It’s A Three-Way Battle Between:

1. The Dreamer: The Entrepreneur,

2. The Delegator: The Manager

3. The Doer: The Technician.

Unfortunately, it’s a battle no one can win.

And the conflict is compounded by the fact that while each of these personalities wants to be the boss, none of them wants to have a boss.

The Three Personalities and Their Needs

Personality One: The Dreamer

The Dreamer is our creative personality.

It is always at its best dealing with the unknown, prodding the future, creating probabilities out of possibilities, engineering chaos into harmony.

Every strong entrepreneurial personality has an extraordinary need for control.

He lives in the visionary world of the future.

He needs control of people and events in the present so that he can concentrate on his dreams.

Personality Two: The Delegator

The Delegator/Managerial personality is pragmatic.

Without the Delegator there would be no planning, no order, and no predictability.

If The Dreamer craves control, the Delegator craves order.

Where the Dreamer thrives on change, the Delegator clings to the status quo.

Where the Dreamer invariably sees the opportunity in events, the Delegator invariably sees the problems.

The Dreamer builds a house and the instant it’s done begins planning the next one.

It is the tension between the Dreamer’s vision and the Delegator’s pragmatism that creates the synthesis from which all great works are born.

Personality Three: The Doer

The Doer is the technician.

If you want it done right, do it yourself” is The Doer’s credo.

The Doer loves to tinker.

Things are to be taken apart and put back together again.

Things aren’t supposed to be dreamed about, they’re supposed to be done.

1. The Dreamer lives in the future

2. The Delegator lives in the past.

3. The Doer lives in the present.

The Doer loves the feel of things and the fact that things can get done.

As long as the Doer is working, she is happy, but only on one thing at a time.

She knows that two things can’t get done simultaneously; only a fool would try.

So she works steadily and is happiest when he is in control of the work flow.

So there you have the four stages, the six steps and the three personality/leadership styles that an entrepreneur needs to build a successful business.

Good luck.