There was a time not long ago, when most business owners considered it a hostile world. They were at odds with their competitors, with labor and with their community. They felt at the mercy of the economy, the environment and the government. In short, it was “us” against a pretty big “them.”

But there has been a shift in the landscape. Today collaboration is becoming the norm. To survive and thrive as business owners, we must work in harmony with our community, with our labor force and for the benefit of the environment. They, in turn, have to work with us. We must each be cognizant of and communicate about our needs and our limitations. We must seek solutions together that benefit all parties.

It can be a scary thing to start trusting entities that you have always viewed with suspicion. Perhaps you have had bad experiences with some constituencies that seemed to be out to drive you under. But it is worth noting that these other parties are under the same pressure as you to adapt to a new environment that is more collaborative and more interconnected.

Survival is no longer you or me. It is now you and me – or it will be neither of us.

The business interactions we had in the past were often strained ones. If we dared to call them relationships, it is safe to say that we were in need of “couple’s therapy.” Our relationships with our workers, with our suppliers and with our neighbors may have hardly been relationships at all by any meaningful definition of the word. It would be more accurate to call them entanglements. When things get tangled, there is a lot of twisting and pulling. It is frustrating and time consuming. In short, it is not good business.

At this juncture, we can no longer settle for entanglements. We need true relationships. When you are in a relationship, you care about the other party. You also count on them.

So how do you upgrade your previous business entanglements to real relationships?

Recognize that Giving and Receiving are Two Sides of the Same Coin

One does not exist without the other. There is no coin with heads but no tails. If you think, “I’ll worry about my heads, they can worry about their own tails,” I promise you will find yourself getting old paradigm results in a new paradigm world. The real world will pass you by. Let me translate that into business terms: It will cost you money.

Giving and receiving are not the same as giving and taking. Taking is the old way of doing business and it is not even present in the new model. Receiving replaces taking, upgrades it, really. Receiving requires a willing giver. Taking never did. You cannot sustain a business if you are regularly dealing with the unwilling, whether they are your employees, your investors, your customers or anyone else.

If you come at these relationships with the expressed or even unexpressed intent of remaining “in charge,” you will weaken the relationship. That is not to say that present hierarchies need to change. You still get to be your employee’s boss or your supplier’s customer. It’s just that it’s not about domination, but rather cooperation. Fully take on your role. If you are a superior in that role, recognize you also must be a protector and benefactor in the truest sense.

These true relationships have some new overhead, but they also have valuable benefits that more than offset your investment in them. Someone has to go first, though. You are a leader. That means it ought to be you. People like leaders and they will follow. So lead.

There are the occasional few who won’t follow, no matter how well you lead. They don’t want a relationship, they expect to stick with the old, substandard arrangement of entanglement.

So how do you let go of entanglements that will never become relationships?

Recognize Them for What They Are

Just because you have always bought from Prickly Supply Corp. doesn’t mean it is worth it to stay with them. While familiarity is a factor in a relationship, it is only one. The best price often comes with other costs. So does the best selection or the fastest delivery or the longest terms. You have to weigh all factors. If they don’t care about you, the day will come when the price will be too high, and yet you will still be obliged to pay it. Get in front of that curve by finding the people who are your supporters in the companies that are your supporters.

It all begins and ends with people. One person you know you can count on in the shipping department can make all the difference. Maybe it’s someone in accounting or customer service. Yes, it can even be someone in sales. Sales people as a group have often had an unlovely reputation. But as the world shifts, so do sales people. In fact, they are at the forefront of this shift. Look for sales people you can count on. More and more come online every day. For those that can’t or won’t get with the program, it is time to say your goodbyes.

You can ask for new contacts: New contacts in sales, in service, in accounting, in shipping and more. Sometimes the answer is, there is no one else. If that’s the case, make your choices mindfully. Just remember, entanglements are burdensome.

Breaking an entanglement isn’t necessarily permanent. I know a beautiful company that has rehired a certain employee twice after twice letting him going for not being committed enough to their relationship. They continue to be on good terms. They remained on good terms even after firing him. It’s not about making anyone wrong or punishing anyone. It’s just about setting a high standard for the mutual care between you, and then living it.

Some of our entanglements exist because of other relationships. Hiring your nephew might not have been as great for business as it was for family. Really though, you aren’t doing Nephew or Auntie any favors if you allow for a dependent or codependent entanglement to exist. Nepotism gets a bad rap. There is nothing wrong with familiarity opening doors. But it’s a real relationship that keeps those doors open. Be flexible but strong.

Business is about people. It’s about relationships. It’s about working together, not just for the common good but for the good of each individual. As this standard rises, all of society rises. We entrepreneurs are at the head of this charge. Society will follow. So foster strong business relationships. The world needs it.

Tangled Photo via Shutterstock

The post Do You Have Business Relationships or Mere Entanglements? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

But just like in real life, this story hasn’t ended.

Directing others involves delegation. It’s just that abdication and delegation can look pretty similar at the beginning.

How can you tell them apart? Let the saga continue.

Mark Gets a Promotion, Bob Gets a Vacation

Bob started his business because he is good at what he does. As his reputation in the marketplace grew, so did his business. He reached the point where he could no longer do it alone. So he hired Mark and then Jim and then others. The roster may have expanded but the nature of the business stayed the same. Bob never got away from being busy all the time as the business grew.

Something had to give.

One day Bob made a big mistake: He forget to place an order for a critical inventory item. It just slipped through the cracks in all the commotion of a typical hectic week. He had multiple unhappy customers due to the lack of stock.

But Mark came in with a solution: Buy the items from a local competitor to deliver to their long time customers. It wasn’t a profitable solution but it at least kept the customers happy.

This got Bob thinking, “Mark is a ‘get it done’ kind of guy. He really understands what matters here. A happy customer was more important than the profit on one transaction. Mark is the kind of guy I can trust to make the right decisions.”

So on Friday afternoon, Bob tells Mark he has a crazy idea. If he doesn’t get a break soon, he is going to wig out. So he is taking a week off starting Monday. He’s heading up to the forest where there’s no Internet, no cell phones. Just pine trees, peace and quiet. He’s leaving Mark in charge. Mark already knows everything about the business. It will be just fine.

Mark is a little dubious about this. Sure, he is confident that he knows the business, it’s just that there are things that only Bob has ever done. Bob won’t hear it though. He thinks Mark is just being modest. So with a flourish, he hands the keys over to Mark and heads out the door with a big smile on his face.

Let’s Stop Our Story For a Moment

Delegation involves several steps. The first step is to determine the right person to delegate to. (I was very tempted to invent the word “delegee” there.) “Right” does not necessarily mean “presently qualified” and this will tie into why delegation is a multi-step process. Qualification can be created if need be, but qualification (new or existing) isn’t enough. The fact that the target of your delegation is presently qualified can get you into trouble. It can lull you into short cutting the necessary steps of delegation and turn you into an abdicator.

So after selecting and training, you need to provide two things: Assignments and authority.

It does no good to make someone responsible for paying vendors if they can’t sign the check. You can’t instruct someone to keep the store appropriately staffed if they aren’t allowed to alter the schedule. Sometimes we forget the authority we ourselves possess. It pays to think this through. It’s not a bad idea to ask them what authority they think they will need to carry out their assignments.

If you find yourself bristling at their reply, consider whether it is because they are overreaching or if you are just uncomfortable giving away the authority they will require to get the job done.

Delegation can be emotionally challenging for you. After all, they could fail. What is even scarier is – they could do it different than you. We are often more attached to our methods than the outcomes. Get clear if you are going to delegate. Outcomes are the only thing you truly manage going forward.

Once you have set them on their way, you must allow them the freedom to perform. Micromanaging (really, managing at all) will stifle their work and defeat the whole point of delegating. You intention needs to be to free yourself of these particular responsibilities. Plug into the possibility that your qualified people are now a part of your brain trust. Their ideas and innovations are an extension of you. Let them bring something to the table.

The Final Step is Feedback and Mentoring

Just because you have delegated doesn’t mean you have washed your hands clean of the whole thing. Monitor results and outcomes. Do the results meet your expectations? If they do, offer praise. Positive feedback encourages people to keep up the good work.

If results are not up to par, understand it is your responsibility to help them make adjustments:

• Did you train them properly?
• Do they need a refresher?
• Were your instructions clear?
• Did they understand the outcome you were seeking?
• Did they have the resources needed?
• Did they really have the necessary authority?

Delegating involves these steps, in this order:

• Selecting
• Training
• Instructing
• Assigning
• Authorizing
• Mentoring

If you’ve stopped anywhere along this path – you didn’t delegate, you abdicated. The earlier you stopped, the worse the abdication was and the higher the potential damage.

So whatever happened with Mark?

Tanned, Rested and Back On The Job

Bob strolls back into work with a new spring in his step. He’s asking himself why he waited so long to take some time off. After all, Mark could have covered for him long ago.

Mark is already in the office. He looks up haggardly and says:

“Oh man, am I ever glad to see you.”

Bob inquires:

“Why, what’s up?”

Mark then launches into a litany of unexpected happenings. This broke and that person was late and the supplier shipped the wrong size and their latest customer wants a price break and…Mark wasn’t prepared for any of this.

Bob barely got past step one of a six step process before he disconnected. So here’s Mark, all stressed out that he “failed” – when it was Bob who failed him. He had abdicated rather than delegated.

So Bob has some work to do. It’s not just that he needs to clean up from last week. He needs to really prepare Mark so that next time, he can take it all on. Mark is up for it. Bob can do it right.

After all, Bob is going to need another vacation soon enough.

Man in Forest Photo via Shutterstock

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A small businesses starts out as a one man show, just a guy who “bought himself a job.” Let’s call our guy Bob. Bob’s got no one to manage and nothing to direct. Just do the work; go home; repeat.

And then it happens: Bob succeeds. Bob’s business starts getting busy, really busy. It’s a nice problem to have but it’s a problem all the same.

Bob realizes something has to give. So he hires Mark. Now Bob is no idiot. He makes sure that Mark is the kind of guy who can handle himself. As a result, things get busier yet.

Feeling he is now getting pretty good at this hiring thing, Bob brings on Jim. Jim is no slouch either, so everything is going to be great. Except it’s not. There are conflicts and details are being overlooked. Customers aren’t as satisfied as they once were. In short, hiring Jim has lead to more headaches.

It’s not that Jim was a bad hire. It’s just that the dynamic has changed. There didn’t used to be any need for coordination. Resources didn’t need to shared. There was nobody to step on anyone else’s toes. Bob realizes that he needs to start managing.

Managing is a completely new skill set for Bob. Bob may be great at what he does but that doesn’t guarantee that he is great at passing on his skills, either with training or documentation. He always did things intuitively but now he has to consciously create systems. But it’s Bob’s company so he sucks it up and starts to learn.

Mark and Jim put up with Bob in his new role as a neophyte manager. It seems like there is a bunch of unnecessary overhead and regulation. Bob’s occasional indecision is disruptive. But hey, it’s a job. Bob’s a good guy, they reason. He’ll figure it out. In our story, he does.

Bob the Worker Has Morphed Into Bob the Manager

Bob has now learned how to go from worker to manager so as the business continues to expand, he starts grooming Mark and Jim for more responsibility. After all, he reasons:

“I was able to step up, so can they.”

Mark and Jim have an easier time of it than Bob. Since Bob laid the groundwork, they just need to learn how he has been doing everything. Bob feels a sense of relief that he finally has some help in shouldering all the management responsibility. Everything will be wine and roses from here on out, he figures.

Except. . .

Mark and Jim still seem to need to be managed. So he tells them how to do their jobs on a daily basis. He assigns tasks like he always used to. Mark and Jim don’t feel comfortable making decisions in this arrangement. So they are always going to Bob for approval on matters big and small. Bob is getting more and more frustrated because he feels like he is doing three jobs, his own and Mark’s and Jim’s.

Bob realizes that the problem isn’t Mark and Jim. Bob’s problem is Bob. He knows he needs to let Mark and Jim do their jobs. He gave them more responsibility but what he failed to give them along with it was authority. Now Bob gets scared. Giving away responsibility seemed okay, but authority? What if they make a mistake?

Let’s Stop Our Story for a Moment

Do you see what is happening here? Bob got good at what his business does before our story began. He learned how to manage as our story unfolded. But if this story is going to continue, Bob has another learning curve to master: learning to direct.

Management has to do with tasks. It is about how to do things, when to do things, and who does those things. It is about delegation, all surrounding the accomplishment of tasks.

You can manage schedules. You can manage materials. You can even manage workers. But it turns out you cannot manage managers.

The reason you can’t manage managers is because the minute you do, they stop being managers themselves. Lots of companies call some of their employees managers. But when you examine how things work operationally, you see that they are not truly managing. The issue is usually not a failure on the part of these would-be managers. No, the problem is they are not allowed to manage.

Bonafide management has two key characteristics: responsibility and authority.

Responsibility can be imposed and it must also be accepted. This usually happens without much fuss. But authority is a different matter. People can be rather stingy about handing out authority. If you want a manager to succeed, it is a necessity that they receive enough authority to carry out their responsibilities. When management fails, it can often be attributed to the lack of adequate authority.

Let’s say that a manager is giving the requisite amount of authority to do their job. So what is their boss supposed to do? The new job of their boss is to direct. How does that differ from managing?

Directing has to do with outcomes. It is about defining results, setting time tables, and providing resources. It is about communicating and mentoring, all surrounding the accomplishment of goals.

A good manager gets workers to do things right. A good director gets managers to do the right things.

It’s not really any harder to direct than to manage but it does require a different mindset. Most managers who rise to become directors could direct. The question is, will they? Will they stay in that comfortable place of managing or will they make the hard choice to delegate authority and then support their managers?

Bob is at that crossroads. He has had to step up before. How will his story continue? Will Bob rise to this new challenge and become the kind of director that every manager hopes for? Or will he neuter Mark and Jim and never really cede to them the control they will need to step into their new roles?

You are Bob

It is up to you to write your own ending. Of course, it never ends. Business is of an ongoing nature. So do what needs doing, manage what needs managing, and direct what needs directing.

Businessmen Photo via Shutterstock

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So it gives one pause that Standford University, that great think tank of innovation and launchpad of so many successful startups says that not only is multitasking not good for you, you’re not even good at it.

The study entitled Cognitive control in media multitaskers, authored by Eyal Ophir, M.S., Clifford Nass, Ph.D., and  Anthony D. Wagner, Ph.D. says our intuition (not to mention our pride) has got it all very, very wrong.

Mythical Abilities of the Multitasker

The study focuses on three key abilities:

• Filtering
• Memory management
• Task switching

It turns out that while many people have problems with one or more of these abilities, chronic multitaskers are bad at all three and they are worse at each of them than the average person.

One would assume a habitual multitasker must be excellent at filtering out noise from their multiple streams of input and at focusing on relevant information. Not so. It turns out that high multitaskers are suckers for “red and shiny”. If it is distracting, they run to it. If it is irrelevant, they jump on it. In fact, the more irrelevant information they see, the more they’re attracted to it. They are moths to the flame.

Surely then the high multitasker must be methodical and organized about memory so that they can store and retrieve information from this flood of data that they continually draw. Alas, that is also not so. It appears that they are much worse at compartmentalizing information. Additionally, they are slower to recall information. Once again, the non-multitasker has them beat.

Finally, the committed multitasker is slower at switching from one task to another and has a harder time making the transition. This may be completely counterintuitive but, well, science.

Do We At Least Have Our Priorities Straight?

Another observation the study made was that the multitasker may not realize the priorities they are applying to their multiple tasks. For instance, a favorite multitasking scenario is talking on the cell phone while driving. You would think that driving would be the primary task while the phone call would be the distraction.

But, in fact, the phone call becomes primary with the driving as the distraction. This gives you a hint why multitasking causes problems.

Startup Objectives Vs. Multitasking Objectives

How can this be? It seems to fly in the face of what we would like to believe. One key may be in the objectives of our intrepid multitasker. If you want to explore rather than exploit, multitasking, even poorly, will feel more satisfying. Exploration, after all, is just about gathering lots of information.

Exploitation, however, is about concentrating information to put it to some practical use. In the startup realm, exploitation is far more important on a day by day basis.

But I’m Special (So Very, Very Special)

If you are thinking that maybe you belong to a special group to which these results don’t apply, think again. The study found no significant deviation in results based on agreeableness, conscientiousness, creativity, extraversion, intelligence, neuroticism, openness, nor the big one, gender. That’s right, men and women are equally bad at multitasking.

Furthermore, being smart doesn’t help and neither does being well adjusted. We are running out of excuses.

But maybe it’s a generational thing, you hypothesize?

Nope. While there is an enormous desire among Gen Yers, teenagers and 20-somethings to attempt to multitask, they do no better than the more resistant baby boomers. Motivation does not improve results, nor does peer pressure. Yes, the younger crowd may work their smartphone better. But when it comes to actual results, technological superiority doesn’t make up for the fact that our brains operate basically the same whether we are 25 or 55.

Join Multitaskers Anonymous

So what is a recovering multitasker to do?

Plan for monotasking. Reward yourself for completion of tasks rather than counting how many plates you have spinning.

Close down the input sources: don’t have Facebook AND Twitter AND LinkedIn AND twelve Web pages open at once. Don’t surf the Web and watch television and listen to the radio at the same time. Give tasks your full attention in short but concentrated bursts. The less you multitask, the more you will accomplish. And accomplishment can become habit forming.

Have you figured out how to kick the multitasking habit?

Multitasking Photo via Shutterstock

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It’s not simply that there are so many who just plain lack the skills necessary to communicate effectively among the skilled, trained and experienced, there is a current trend to soften things up so much that clarity is obscured or even lost all together.

It shows up in academics, reporting, marketing, and even fiction.

I am sick of politically correct (PC) euphemisms. One that chaps my hide is calling problems “difficulties” or “challenges” or “opportunities” or any other safe-for-children-and-small-pets blather. A problem isn’t a challenge, it’s a problem.

Sure, it may also be difficult or challenging or what have you – but we lose something powerful when we just deflect what is right in front of us.

I once heard a company CEO say to a crowd:

“In the past, our product was sub-optimal from a performance standpoint.”

I was in the front row. My stunned look must have been priceless. Mr. CEO, I think what you meant to say is:

“Our product didn’t work.”

Here’s another:

“Six figures.”

What is that supposed to mean? Do we really think that the difference between 100,000 and 999,999 is insignificant? And don’t even get me started on “seven figures.”

Whew…

Okay, I’ve taken a deep breath now, sipped my chamomile tea, and pet my kitty. I’m fine…really. It sure was nice to get that off my chest though.

The message here is:  if you are going to communicate, speak with genuineness, write with clarity.

Obscuring your topic may seem like it is easing people into the flow, but it is rather lulling them to sleep — or on to something more interesting.

This is especially important when you are writing marketing copy. No one likes to be sold to, so you have a higher standard to meet when you are selling. If you are offering something that is a bonafide good value – you can afford to say so out loud. If you are finding the path of direct sincerity to be difficult, you may need to examine the value of your offering to see if it is up to par.

Speaking clearly does not give license for tactlessness. Honesty is not an excuse for rudeness. Communication is an art in that regard. But the beauty in art comes from its freedom.

Don’t get caught up in the current “rules” about how you are “supposed to” write or speak. If you check your intent and make sure you are on the side of your listener, reader, or dare I say prospect, then you will find the creativity will flow.

As a result, people will find you more understandable, more likable, and more trustworthy.

Political Correctness Photo via Shutterstock

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