Beyond The E-Myth

Michael Gerber's offerings provide helpful advise for good small business practices.  Are There Some Missing Components for Escaping The Entrepreneurial Treadmill?   

Michael Gerber's 1988 book, The E-Myth, is recommended reading for all entrepreneurial business owners. The sequel, The E-Myth Revisited, is also a valuable read. If you've not read these or need a review, here is my brief summation.

For most Entrepreneurs, the challenge in succeeding with Gerber's E-Myth concepts is not understanding them, but improving the skills and changing habitual behaviors required to execute.  Let's examine why.

Common Attitudes of the Start-Up Entrepreneur

In early stages of entrepreneurial growth, the necessities of survival often dictate a Spartan existence as chief cook and bottle washer. This stage of existence establishes some attitudes and behaviors that can cripple an entrepreneur's ability to grow.

• It's quicker if I do it myself.

• They'll never be able to do this as well as I do.

• Once we get to (x number of) employees, it's just too difficult to manage. I don't ever want to get that big.

• No job is too big or too small. We'll work with anyone that can pay us.  

• I can never get my people to work with the same conviction and dedication that I have.  

• Most employees are basically unmotivated and dishonest.

• My vision and business plan are in my head. There's no need take the time to write it all down.

• We need to be the best in our industry at everything we do: Quality, Service and Price.

• I have no choice but to walk in each morning and go where the winds of the business take me.

Escaping the Entrepreneurial Treadmill 

While Gerber's concept of viewing your business like a franchise has helped many technicians to find a way off the treadmill, most still struggle getting off. Why?  Reading about it is easy. Doing it is not. 

Successfully developing a franchise mentality requires two elusive elements:

1. Improving the entrepreneur's business savvy and people skills to comfortably and effectively delegate and motivate employees.

2. Changing previously rewarded attitudes and habits to more productive ways of thinking and acting to support effectively getting things done through others. 

Getting off the treadmill requires effective processes for developing these two critical elements. Without them, most hands-on entrepreneurs are never comfortable enough to let go. Their hands-on mentality combined with self-fulfilling and self-defeating attitudes keep them confined to that treadmill.  They often intentionally avoid growth opportunities for fear of their inability to manage.

Ask yourself...

• Is your company avoiding the pursuit of growth opportunities out of concern that non-owner employees are incapable of execution? 

• How many of the attitudes listed above describe your present philosophies?

• How will this approach effect your future ability to attract and maintain customers?

• To what extent are they keeping you on a treadmill of business and personal frustration?

• If there was a way for your organization to become more effective in the art of getting things done through others, would you be better able to get your business to comfortably grow?

Beyond The Franchise Mindset

The franchisor approach involves optimizing and establishing business processes that will allow anyone to be trained to produce the same outcomes. It's an effective way of getting a business to run itself.  Might there a way to make process improvement even more effective? Can we learn a lesson from one of our country's most admired companies?

Tom Lemanski is the president of Vista Development of Kildeer, IL. He is a facilitator of strategic business planning and the organizational and personal development of positive leadership behaviors in executives, managers and  sales professionals.

Email your comments and feedback to: tom@vista-development.com