Business owners are people. That may seem more than obvious, but bear with me. We business owners – my clients, my colleagues, and myself included – bring our personal motivations and needs to work with us, just like any employee would. We are not robots, and we don’t leave our personal side at the door when we come to work.
Business vs. Personal Needs
However, owners have a particular challenge when it comes to balancing their personal and business motivations. Think about it: a typical employee has a manager, and part of that manager’s job is to help the employee balance their personal motivations and their work motivations, in a way that keeps the employee happy, healthy, and productive at work. Whereas we business owners don’t have a manager – we have to manage our own balance of personal and business needs, or bring in someone to help us do so. Why is this important? Because the owner’s choices about this balance have a huge impact on the success of the business.
I regularly provide strategic advice to business owners about major decisions they’re making in the business. And we often discuss various options and their impact on both the business and the owner. Part of my job is to point out when I think the owner is making a decision that feels personally satisfying but is limiting the business’s growth. It’s certainly the owner’s choice to do so, but if it’s going to get in the way of reaching the business goals they’ve set for our engagement, then my job is to point that out.
In some cases, I’ve recommended that the owner talk to a coach about their mindset (their mental approach to their business decisions); a good coach can help you untangle your motivations and give you the tools to make healthy, balanced choices that get you to both your personal and business goals. As a consultant, I can help you figure out what your options are, and what the consequences of each option are; the coach can help you make clear-sighted choices and avoid self-sabotage.
Plant vs. Puppy
When I notice an owner seems to be letting their personal and business goals get out of balance, I talk about treating your business like a plant instead of like a puppy.
When you get a puppy for companionship, you feed it, walk it, play with it, train it to do fun tricks…and in return, the puppy provides unlimited, unconditional love. Maybe it guards the house or serves some other function, but it also provides some personal emotional fulfillment, right? Whereas when you grow a plant – whether it’s a houseplant or a tree – you tend it, water it, prune it, keep bad bugs off it…and it thrives. It might provide you a sense of pride and happiness, but it doesn’t love you back. A plant is not capable of loving you back. Its purpose is not to love you, but to grow and flourish.
Another difference between a plant and a puppy is that when you forget to feed the puppy, it’ll let you know. It demands the care it needs to stay healthy, whereas a plant suffers in silence. It’s easy to forget about the plant’s care, if you’re not intentional about it. And you may only notice there’s a problem once the plant is in dire straits.
A business is a plant, not a puppy. I’m not saying we don’t get personal satisfaction from our businesses, because we do. But a business’s purpose is not to love us or meet our personal emotional needs. It’s certainly possible to design a business around your personal emotional needs, but if your goal is a growing, thriving business, then you will regularly have to choose to do what the business needs, versus what you personally need. I’m not saying it’s an either/or choice; in fact, there are usually options that will serve both needs. But, to use our metaphor: if a plant needs watering, and you personally don’t feel like watering it right now, it will wilt. If you fall into a pattern of waiting until the plant wilts to water it, you’ll eventually damage the plant permanently. It may not die, but it won’t thrive like it should.
That is a remarkably good metaphor for a business. If you continually choose to starve the business of what it needs for growth, because the business’s needs conflict with your personal emotional needs, then the business will not thrive. It doesn’t mean you have to ignore your personal needs all the time, but you can’t ignore the business’s needs either. It’s crucial to find a healthy balance, for the sake of the business and yourself.
And it’s crucial to be intentional about assessing the business’s health regularly, because the early signs of trouble are very subtle. Like a plant that slowly dries out (and unlike a puppy that demands to be fed), a business will not loudly demand that you meet its needs, until it’s in a crisis. You have to pay attention to the choices you’re making.
Paying Attention to What Your Business Needs
Let me give you a concrete example of how this plays out. When I get an emailed inquiry from a prospect, I reply and suggest that we meet to discuss their needs. I used to write each response individually, because it felt like the right way to create a connection with the prospect. It made me feel good, like I was giving personal attention to the prospect. And I was 100% sure that these emails I wrote were unique, individualized messages that made the prospect more likely to respond. Automating the process to generate a standard reply felt wrong to me.
However, writing these custom responses was taking time away from other important things the business needed me to do. I liked doing it, but the business needed me elsewhere. So I finally decided to look at the ones I had sent, and see whether they really were unique. Lo and behold, they were almost all the same language! I was literally writing the same words and phrases each time, with remarkably little variation, even though in my head, they all seemed very individualized.
Standardizing these responses and automating them would have no negative impact on the recipient, and would allow me to invest my time where the business needed me. Even though I got a lot of satisfaction from the process of responding personally to each inquiry, that process didn’t serve the business, nor even the prospects; it only served me. And for the business to thrive, I needed to make a decision to let go of that process.
This is a very small example, but there are lots of others, from my own business as well as from colleagues’ and clients’ businesses. Any time an owner is resisting a change that will optimize the operation of the business, because it’s uncomfortable or they will lose out on something they personally enjoy in the business, they are making a choice to sacrifice a little bit of the health of the business, in favor of meeting their personal needs. And just like tending a plant, you can do this occasionally without permanently harming the business. But if you consistently choose to meet your own needs and ignore the business’s needs, you will not only limit the growth of the business, you’ll also risk its health as well.
Intentionally Keeping it Small
If you’d prefer to keep your business smaller, that’s ok. Many owners choose to run their businesses in a way that is more satisfying personally, and that often results in less growth. As long as this is a conscious choice, it can work out very well. It’s like growing a bonsai instead of a full-sized tree. It takes planning and effort to keep a bonsai healthy and happy without growing larger. If you simply neglect a baby tree, it will not magically turn into a bonsai.
Likewise, you can keep a business smaller and keep it very healthy and satisfying too, with some planning and effort. But simply ignoring the business’s needs in favor of your own will not turn out well. You’ll get some personal satisfaction, but you’ll also feel frustrated and “stuck” when your business fails to thrive.
If this concept of finding the right balance between personal and business needs is interesting, this chart will help you see when your decisions are in balance or out of balance. And if you’d like some consulting advice about the decisions you’re facing as a business owner, schedule a free consultation with Dunathan Consulting.
