Category Archives: management

Experiments in outsourcing with the 4HWW – Short insights

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In 2007 I started trialling outsourcing for our small company.  Inspired by the Tim Ferris book The 4 hour work week I started looking for opportunities to move some of our financial tasks out of the organisation.  The responses from off-shore organisations were less than inspiring and, in the end, I chose someone closer to home (in the same city in fact).  There’ve been some glitches but things are now relatively smooth and I have expanded the tasks that we outsource.

Ferris says that outsourcers need to be clear about the tasks that they are asking others to do and suggests instituting controls that check that tasks have been understood and are progessing as expecting. 

The other success factor that I would add is that of identifying tasks that can be moved and allocating the time to actually do this.  While I’ve moved some tasks I’m still drowning in administrivia.  It’s the same old delegation issue – if I have to show someone how to do it I might as well do it myself. 

So, my two part resolution for 2008 is (i) identify more opportunities for outsourcing (ii) make the time to take action on these.

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The ‘E-Myth Revisited’ Part 2

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‘The E-Myth Revisited’ suggests creating an organisational chart when a business starts with a view to how it will look when it is mature.  By necessity at this early stage it has the owners’ names beside every role.  This needs to change over time.

The key here is to start at the bottom of the organisation not the top – starting to work on the business at the flash points where one is working in the business.  We have recently been considering appointing a general manager, essentially to be one of us – so where there were 2 people running the business now there would be three!  But when thinking more about the tasks that are consuming time and where we are adding little strategic value it became clear that these were primarily administrivia….financial tasks, resourcing tasks, quoting tasks…not general manager tasks.

And, in fact, how could we delegate the strategic management of the business when we didn’t yet have the operational or tactical management of the business under control?

So, the focus now is on the identification, process and delegation of these tasks not on recruiting a general manager, although recruitment of some sort may be required.

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Revisiting “The E-Myth Revisited” Part 1

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In Michael Gerber’s classic business book “The E-Myth Revisited” he discusses why small businesses don’t work – suggesting that when a person starts a business they are a combination of three people: the Entrepreneur, the Manager and the Technician. 

Gerber asserts strongly that being a Technician is not sufficient.  If a person really wants to do the technical work in their business then they should close the business down and go and work for someone else.  By focusing on the technical work often the managerial and entrepreneurial work gets crowded out and the business owner has created a job for themselves but not a business.  Except that now, as well as doing their job, they have to do the accounting, the HR, the marketing etc….it’s no wonder they’re so tired at the end of the day!

So, this has led me to ask the question: what aspects of being a Technician can I let go of to allow the space for the Entrepreneur and the Manager to grow?

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