Michael E. Gerber in his book ‘The E myth’, explains that to start and run a successful small business, we, as the owners, need to approach it like we have three people inside us.
The Entrepreneur, the Manager and the Technician.
The Entrepreneur is the innovator, the grand strategist, the creator of new methods for penetrating or creating new markets.The Manager builds systems and organises operations effectively; and
The Technician (employee) is the "doer"
The Entrepreneur
The Entrepreneur is our creative personality—always at its best dealing with the unknown, prodding the future, creating probabilities out of possibilities, engineering chaos into harmony.
He/she lives in the future, never in the past, rarely in the present. Their worldview is a world made up of both an overabundance of opportunities and dragging feet.
They create a great deal of havoc around him, which is predictably unsettling for those he/she enlists in hi/hers projects and because for them, most people are problems that get in the way of the dream, they have an extraordinary need for control. Control of people and events in the present so that they can concentrate on their dreams.
The entrepreneurs' resilience and drive is what take new business off the ground and is invaluable in moments of economic downturn or uncertainty (COVID proves this!)
The Manager
The Manager is pragmatic and without them, there would be no planning, no order, no predictability. If the entrepreneur lives in the future, the manager lives in the past. Where The entrepreneur craves control, the manager craves order. Where the entrepreneur thrives on change, the manager compulsively clings to the status quo.
Where the entrepreneur invariably sees the opportunity in events, the manager invariably sees the problems.The manager is the one who runs after the entrepreneur to clean up the mess.
Without the manager, there could be no business, no society. It is the tension between the entrepreneur’s vision and the manager’s pragmatism that creates the synthesis from which all great works are born.
The Technician
The Technician is the doer and they love to tinker. If the entrepreneur lives in the future and the manager lives in the past, the technician lives in the present.
They love the feel of things and the fact that things can get done. As long as they are working (doing things) they are happy, but only on one thing at a time. They know that two things can’t get done simultaneously; only a fool would try. So they work steadily and are happiest when they are in control of the workflow.
They are not interested in ideas; they're interested in ‘how to do it. To the technician, thinking is unproductive and isn’t work; it gets in the way of work.
What happens when we get "stuck" in one of these roles?
At the start of our journey as business owners, we wear the 3 hats, we have the idea, we develop the concept and we deliver it to our customers, with time, the ideal is to strike the right balance that serves your business, not our comfort zone.
The typical small business owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70 percent Technician and unfortunately, most businesses are operated according to what the owner wants as opposed to what the business needs.
Of course, for many that's the reason of setting your own business, to do what you want to do... however, many business owners find themselves stuck in the role of the Technician, even when what they love to do and they excel at, is in the other roles.
“If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business—you have a job.”
Once you recognise that the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life, not the other way around, you can then go to work on your business, rather than in it, with a full understanding of why it is absolutely necessary for you to do so.
A mature company is founded on the broader perspective of building a business that works not because of you but without you and it knows how it got to where it is, and what it must do to get where it wants to go.
The more you work ‘on’, the easier the work you do ‘in’ your business will get and your job as business owner, is to prepare yourself and your business for growth.
"Working ‘in’ your business is spending time managing your business as it is today. Working ‘on’ your business is investing time so your business can be better tomorrow".
If you are ready to take your business to the next level and need some pointers to start the process. Let's talk
Growing your business, is our business
You can get the book directly in Amazon "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael E Gerber
summary can be found here:
