For the person who is serious about dialing up his business, figuring out how to make the systems and procedures of his company handle as much as possible (instead of him personally) is one of those things that just has to be done.
Yet for the kind of entrepreneurs I typically work with, what often keeps them from building systems is their own talent and intuition (sometimes that’s a euphemism for being a control freak) . As long as they are always there working and hardly ever taking time off, they feel they get along just fine without those silly formalized systems that in their minds just reduce efficiency.
I try to convince them otherwise. It is sometimes a tough sell. These people have a history of learning things themselves and being right about 99% of the time, usually since about the third grade. Being that way has gotten them to where they are. It’s my job to convince them that the same personality characteristics that have helped make them successful (until now), might actually keep them from getting from “here” to their lifetime financial and lifestyle goals.
That is why so much of my business coaching involves helping clients deconstruct the magic in how they work, in order to figure out what is really driving a client’s economic engine, what information he’s using to make decisions, and what can and can’t be delegated. Generally, more can be delegated than he thinks.
A very smart friend of mine who is one of the best dental practice consultants in the country says that being a control freak after age 50 or so is “about 99% a fatal condition”. He may be right, but I think I have helped bring a few of them back from the brink. The ones that “get it” tend to be the ones who can most vividly imagine themselves still having to work when they are 70, and who decide “no way”.
If you have been diagnosed with Smart Guy Syndrome and accept the diagnosis, maybe, just maybe, you can be helped.
