Getting the job done…

I think I know what this blog is going to be about. Not that anybody is reading it yet, but if somebody is, anybody … this post is more of a managerial thought post because I do think I have some good management philosophy stuff to share.

Often I use a restaurant analogy when describing how a small business owner needs to be a jack-of-all-trades in order to succeed. The small restaurant owner needs to be good at SO many things … think about it … here are just a few things the restaurant owner needs to be able to do: take care of guests … cook when necessary … understand all the aspects of business from purchasing to marketing to HR to finance … when something breaks, he heeds to be able to fix it … etc etc etc. Right?

It’s basically the same in any small business. I deal with it every week. And, it has always struck me as a pragmatic necessity only. You gotta take care of business.

And, this week I realized there is another huge reason why the small business owner needs to be engaged and willing to step in to get the job done. I have a decent-sized team now, which means that I am somewhat removed from many of the day-to-day tasks. Once upon a time, I did them all. But, there are some functions now that I haven’t done in years.

My staff has been slammed with work since we are in the final stages of readying MarxFoods.com 5.0 (to launch in a couple weeks). So, I had to pitch in and take a rather big, but entry-level, project off my team’s hands. It was no fun, but I did it. And, in the process I re-learned the function which will make me very able to train the next person that has to do it. I will be a better manager as a result.

And, more than that I realize … As the leader, I set the example. If I have no ego issues with doing entry-level work, my team will see that. And, then it isn’t a matter of my team knowing that ego is unacceptable on our team. But they will simply be more than willing to do what it takes to get the job done. At the end of the day, my team is awesome … they had that attitude to begin with!

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