What Can You Control?
On the road of business (and in life) there are things you can control and things you can't. I recently found out about Steve Jobs' approach to this dichotomy.
When he promoted someone to VP, he gave them this little speech. Janitors, he said, are allowed to have excuses. If the reason they can't accomplish something is beyond their control, the reasons matter. But somewhere between the janitor and the CEO reasons stop mattering.
When an employee becomes a vice president, he or she must vacate all excuses for failure. A vice president is responsible for any mistakes that happen and it doesn't matter what you say.
Certainly there are reasons for why you didn't get your results. Some of them are beyond your control. But at the VP level and above, the reasons don't matter. You must see them not as excuses, but as obstacles that it's your job to predict, avoid, and if necessary overcome.
The article where I found this story has more examples of how this works in practice. But there is one element that's missing. And that is your goals. What you want FROM your business. That's why when I start with a client, I start with my 20 Questions exercise. That gives us a clear description of what success looks like for them.
What Are Your Goals?
Steve Jobs was famous for wanting to put a dent in the universe. My goals have always been more modest. I've wanted someone to love who loved me back, time with my family and to travel, fun work to do, and financial independence. I mostly reached those goals in my 40's and 50's. If I'd known then what I know now, I might have reached them even sooner. But isn't that how life goes?
When you reach your goals for your business, instead of seeing those blocks on your road as either obstacles or excuses, you can turn off the business road entirely and take the path through the woods or up the mountain or head to the beach.
But until then, my question for you is what things do you treat as excuses and which ones do you treat as obstacles?
In other words, where are you on that continuum from janitor to CEO?
The picture is my son, Jamie overcoming some obstacles on his 30th birthday when he and I went camping in Vedauwoo, Wyoming.
