The Last Thing Your Business Needs is Another You

Every so often, a big-name Hollywood actor decides they want to get behind the camera and add / Director to their job title. And why not? Their networks, deep understanding of the movie-making process and intimate knowledge of what the actors need to sell a scene could make them well-suited to the role. There certainly has been some huge successes with the likes of Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, and Greta Gerwig as well as others that fell short. (Did anyone see Johnny Depp’s directorial debut The Brave?...I didn’t think so.)

The flops remind us that making a movie involves lots of different skills and ways of thinking. Directors often have a strict process and methodology they follow. Script writers are all about imagination. The actors think in detail - often obsessively so. And, of course there are a slew of technical specialists who need to analyse information and follow set systems to bring the final product to life.

While all of these skills work collaboratively, it’s easy to see how things can go horribly wrong when someone doesn’t understand the limits of their role. And that same idea can be applied to how we develop and evolve our entrepreneurial skills. 

Assessing Your Skills

Just like a movie production, your business needs a variety of specialists, skills and ways of thinking. That’s why one of the biggest mistakes an entrepreneur can make is employing someone who is the same as or similar to them. The last thing your business needs is another you. Instead, you should be finding people who complement your skills and fill in the gaps.  

The best way to do that is to understand exactly where your strengths and weaknesses lie, specifically the skills that you’ll need most as an entrepreneur. I’ve identified 16 proficiencies that make up what I call your entrepreneurial intelligence. They are divided into four quadrants, and for the sake of this article, I’ll focus on eight of the 16 proficiencies (two from each quadrant) to give you a sense of each:

Left Brain / Big Picture

Planning – Ability to develop and stick to a well-considered and achievable business plan and set of milestones.

Systemisation – Ability to organise systems, processes and prototypes both small and large for each aspect of your business.

Right Brain / Big Picture

Innovation –Ability to create untried and unproven ways of solving problems and capitalising on opportunities.

Inspiration – Ability to motivate others, to create elegance in your brand and message, and inspire new ideas from your team and partners.

Left Brain / Tiny Detail

Financial Management – Ability to understand financial statements, to manage the set-up and delivery of the accounting function, and to budget effectively.

Analytical Skills – Ability to analyse figures, analyse the relative merit between opposing strategies and decisions, and identify strengths and weaknesses in people.

Right Brain / Tiny Detail

Staff Management – Ability to hire, fire, and motivate staff to achieve results, conduct performance appraisals. Establish incentives and understand HR laws.

Sales Management – Ability to promote your business through marketing, lead generation, database management, pitching, closing sales, and up-sell existing clients.

What to Do Next

Once you’ve identified your strengths and weaknesses, you can focus on the proficiencies you do have, a few you could improve on and others you should outsource or delegate to others. Additionally, you should ensure that your business model doesn’t hinge on your weak spots.

Don’t try to improve multiple core proficiencies at once. Instead, make a commitment to focus on one improvement area each month or quarter. Put a plan into place of the habits you're going to start to change, the people you’ll ask for advice, the training programs you need to do, the books you need to read, or the people that you can learn from or model. Sharing your goals with your team also helps keep you on track and allows others to gauge and positively reinforce your improvements.

For instance, if my objective was to improve my financial management, I might commit to preparing my own financial statements and analysing them to determine which expenses are going up unnecessarily or are larger than they should be. Or if I was going to try and improve my analytical skills, I might commit to doing a lot more spreadsheet modelling in order to compare two options when trying to make a decision. If was trying to improve communication skills, I might commit to doing a monthly director's message that I can send out to staff.

Entrepreneurs often find themselves torn between different parts of their business. By understanding your proficiencies, you can start to identify where you should be spending your time and energy so you can work smarter, not harder, and perhaps more importantly, enjoy the process.