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New Study: Stop Chasing Money. You’ll Be More Successful Pursuing a Big Why

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The Industrial Age factory system designed work around making money. But people who work for a bigger reason are happier and better paid.

A new study, the 2015 Workforce Purpose Index, reveals that 28 percent of people are purpose-oriented, identifying them as “the most valuable and highest potential segment of the workforce, regardless of industry or role.” We call this a Big Why: something that is bigger than making money, that you can never check off as complete.

The 28 percent who express this Big Why approach to life are motivated by two things:

1) Personal fulfillment

2) Serving others

In contrast, the other 72 percent are motivated by

1) Status

2) Advancement

3) Income

Everybody Can Be Purpose Oriented

Some surprising things stand out in the study. The 28 percent don’t make less money than the 72 percent that are money-motivated. They also come from across every industry, every imaginable job type, and every age demographic.

The research says, “By every measure, they have better outcomes than their peers.” They:

– Are much more fulfilled at work

– Do better work and get higher evaluations

– Have much longer tenure in their companies

– Are bigger fans of the company

– Are much more likely to become leaders (and make more money)

The Joy Is in the Pursuit

People in the 72 percent can and do change, but that change usually comes quickly, not over time. A lot of people in midlife seem to wake up and decide they need a bigger reason to be alive than just making money or having a fancy title. The study points to a life principle that too few of us discover. In our business, we say it like this:

The joy is in the pursuit, not in the acquisition.

In grade school, I remember buying a tiny battery-operated beach radio. It was cool for about three months. Then I wanted a bigger one. Over 20 years, I bought a half dozen or more stereos, with increasingly more power, features, and quality. I continue to look at more expensive ones, but I have had a lot more fun pursuing the next one than acquiring it.

A Big Why gives you reasons to do things that you’ll never be able to check off as complete–be a great mother, get involved in a nonprofit, help others get to where they need to be in life. A Big Why isn’t necessarily a huge Why, like solving world hunger (although it can be). Instead it’s a continuous Why–one that will get you out of bed when making money won’t.

Workplace Engagement Is Unrelated

The study also clarified that purpose-orientation is much different than the too-often-used buzz phrase “workplace engagement.” People with a Big Why don’t need anyone to motivate them to be engaged. You really can’t motivate them; all you can do to them is keep them from being engaged at work (they’ll leave if the work environment stifles their purpose.)

Three Reasons to Be Purposeful

In my first book, Making Money Is Killing Your Business, I outlined why purpose-orientation works better than stuff orientation:

1) Making money is not an empowering vision. People who have a bigger reason to work than making money tend to make a lot more of it.

2) A goal realized is no longer motivating. The joy is in the pursuit, not in the acquisition.

3) We are made to be and to do something significant, our whole lives, not just the first two-thirds. There is something for everyone to chase that will get them out of bed every day, that is bigger than making money.

What Does This Mean for Business?

The study recommends that you create partnerships with people, not treat them like “resources.” And employers should measure how work is helping their people in the areas of relationships, personal impact, and growth, not status, advancement, and income.

The bottom line: There is a new war brewing for a very different kind of talent–purpose-oriented people–and companies are scrambling to figure out how to develop hiring mechanisms to find these people.

You could be one of them. This year, intend to be purpose driven. Get a reason to go to work that is much bigger than making money, that is motivating both at work and at home, and that drives you to get out of bed during the tough times. You’ll be more fulfilled, build better relationships, be more likely to advance, and still make as much or more money than someone chasing status, advancement, and income.

The joy is in the pursuit, not in the acquisition. Get your Big Why in 2016, something you can never check off as completed, and run with it.

Article as seen on Inc.com

The Participation Age

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Are you?

We’re out of the Information Age and well into the Participation Age. It’s your time – are you participating?

In 2006 two of us were flown out to Silicon Valley to accept an award by Sun Microsystems for branding, messaging and design work. At this conference some Sun leaders and outside consultants were talking about the new “Age”, called the Participation Age. Quite a few other leaders and publications have used it as well, and I found it to be a compelling description for the new Age in which we find ourselves. The hallmark of the Participation Age is “sharing.”

You First. No, I Insist, You First.
The Participation Age has seen the organic and viral growth of a dizzying array of sharing systems; from weekend software projects tackled by people all over the world who don’t know each other, to co-creation of products and services by companies interacting directly with their customers, to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and a myriad of other sharing platforms.

Linux, an open-source software operating system, owned by no one, runs the fastest computers in the world and tens of millions of cell phones. The development of Web 2.0 was based on sharing of information, services, products, knowledge and opinions to the point that companies don’t own their brand anymore; those who participate in sharing about it on the internet are the owners.

Small Is Now Big
United Airlines discovered this painfully when Dave Carroll wrote a song called “United Breaks Guitars” (they broke his) and posted it on the internet. Within a four days of the posting, it had received millions of hits and United’s stock value plunged $180 million. Before the Participation Age, companies like United regularly wrote off one badly treated customer at a time, knowing they had a limited reach. But now, one person’s shared view of the world has a power that it never had before. The Participation Age has made your small voice more powerful than any time in history.

We’ve also seen sharing create massed responses to a single person’s plight from all over the world, and the proliferation of crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding companies that help people in ways they could have never imagined.

Participating Through Work
The Participation Age has changed the way people relate to each other, but most importantly it is changing the way we relate to work, allowing us to go back to a more natural relationship to work that was dominant for thousands of years before the strange and interruptive blip in history we call the Industrial Age.

Past generations that grew up in the intimidating shadow of the Industrial Age were taught to react, respond and at times even to contribute, but not to participate and share. Participation demands that we be proactive and creative, which is our basic human nature. The Industrial Age did not want us being proactive and creative; it wanted us to be extensions of machines and loyal and almost indentured servants to the company (via the golden handcuffs of in-house retirement plans).

I Double-Dog Dare You
At our core, we are not made to be extensions of machines. We are made to Make Meaning, not just money, and the Participation Age, more than any time in human history is daring each and everyone of us to find our voice, be uniquely you or me, and encourage the world to participate in what each of us is building. Get after it; create, innovate, bring something unique to the world around you; share it and let others participate in making you and it better. How much fun is the Participation Age? It kicks the Industrial Age’s ass, for sure.

My next book will share a lot about our move to the Participation Age, and how too many companies are still stuck in the Industrial Age.

Share with us – what are you building?

Why Our Favorite Questions Keep Us On The Treadmill

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The Four Short-term Q’s

There are six basic questions we ask in business, but we only love the first four. We ask those four all the time. We’re consumed with them:

What – What do we sell?
Who – Who do we sell it to? (or for English majors – to whom do we sell it?)
How – How do we market it?
Where – Where do we sell it?
…or other versions of the four.

We use those four questions to create, innovate, clarify, repeat the same activity every day, stall and do nothing, pay the mortgage, and in general, to run our business.

The Four Treadmill Questions
But there is something inherently wrong with these four questions – they will never get us off the treadmill. Why? Because they are most often used to help us make money right now, and anything that focuses us on making money NOW is likely to keep us on the treadmill and make it harder to build a business down the road that makes money when we’re not around. These four questions help us a lot in the short-term, but very little or not at all in the long-term.

Why, “Why”? And When, “When”?
There are two other questions that we don’t like so much, but are a lot more helpful to growing a business in the long term:

When – The Second Least Asked, Second Most Important Question in Business
When should be asked every time you asked the first four – “When” will you… →figure out “what” to sell, “who” you sell it to, “how” you will market it, “where” you will sell it?, etc. We don’t like “when” because it holds us accountable, creates metrics that demonstrate clearly how we’re doing, and makes us work when we feel like goofing off (“sorry, got a deadline, need to keep going”).

Why – The Least Asked, Most Important Question in Business
We don’t like why at all. We don’t know how to ask it, it’s too fuzzy, it takes a lot of energy to answer, but most importantly, it doesn’t seem to make us much money right NOW. But “why” is the question that is most likely to build a business LATER that makes money when we’re not around. And the best way to build a business LATER is to ask “Why” NOW with every one of the other five questions, including “When”. (When will I do it? Why then?)

Three Whys to Every Other Question
Want to get off the treadmill? Any time you ask what, who, how, where and even when, ask why. The best habit would be to ask at least two to three “whys” to every other question. (What do I sell? Why do I sell it? Why not sell x instead?)

If you only ask the first four questions, you are likely to only make enough money to pay your mortgage. If you ask the last two, “when” and “why”, every time you ask the others, you are likely to build a business a real that makes money when you’re not around.

Get off the treadmill. Ask when and why all the time.

What to Obsess About in a Maturing Business

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Not survival.

You found a viable product or service. Then you grew the business into a stable, healthy profit-generator. Now what?

A company owner approached me a couple months ago to get help with his business. When we talked it was apparent his business had grown to a nice size, providing a good income for him and his employees.

When I asked what he wanted to accomplish in our one2ones he said, “I need a reason to keep going. I’m making good money and the business is doing a few million a year, but I can’t seem to grow it, and don’t seem to have the clarity I need to move forward.”

Make Meaning, Not Money
The Industrial Age taught us the lie that if you got money, that money would naturally give you a great lifestyle. “If I just had a million bucks life would be great.” No, it wouldn’t. Business owners who work to make money rarely make a lot of it because making money is not an empowering vision. Those who chase something bigger than just making money are much more likely to make a lot of it. We call that a Big Why. A Big Why moves you from Survival right through Success to Significance.

Significance Rocks
Startup and growth are about viability and money, sacrificing time and present significance to get there. This was my sixth business (I’ve started another one since). When I started it, I worked seven days a week the first year, then six the second, then five the third. But once we had a viable product and the money was coming in, I wasn’t done. It was now about ensuring that the business created both time and money for me (and others in the business), because it is the combination of these two resources that set us up to create Significance in the world around us.

The Poverty Mindset
Survival is a very strong instinct for starting a business. I’ve got a mortgage to pay. The fascinating thing is that most business owners live in survival throughout their entire 40 year career – poverty mindset – always living at the end of their two main resources – time and money.

They don’t have a Big Why, a reason to grow their business, so if they happen to make money, they just buy a bigger house or more toys to ensure they are completely out of time and money, and then the need to survive kicks back in to help then grow the business to support the new poverty level they’ve set for themselves.

The Big Why Mindset
Business Owners with a Big Why take paying their mortgage as a given, it’s just background noise for getting something done much bigger than making money. A Big Why is so motivating that it makes you want to get out of bed even when you’re not making money, and it drives everything you do.

Another client of mine said, “I knew when I had my Big Why, because it had me.” He went on to explain that once he had something much bigger than just making money to drive him forward, that he found himself making every decision, from buying a copier to opening a new location, based on whether it would get him to his Big Why or not.

The Big Why – something you can never check off as done
A Big Why is a goal you can never check off as completed – being the best parent, solving poverty, giving every month to a charity, making an ongoing impact in the world of technology (Bill Hewlett’s Big Why for starting HP). Those who have made the biggest impacts always do it with a Big Why, not with a desire to make money.

What is Your Big Why
What is your Big Why, that motivator that you can never check off as completed? Every great business owner has one. If you’re wondering why your business is stagnant or that you’re just going through the motions, don’t look “out there”. Look inside and ask yourself, “What is my Big Why”?

If you do that, you’re much more likely to grow a very successful business that leaves a legacy that will endure. If you don’t get Utter Clarity on your Big Why, you’re likely to stagnate and go through the motions.

Run and grow your business with a Big Why. It’s a lot more fun.

Attitude actually ISN’T everything.

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Close, but no cigar.

I’ve heard it all my life. Your attitude determines your altitude, attitude is everything, attitude is a choice, etc. Good luck with that. It sounds like a big fake “grind” to me. And I’m certain it won’t make you successful.

People aren’t successful because they have a good attitude. They have a good attitude because they have something much deeper figured out. Attitude is a RESULT of something much bigger. If we don’t have the bigger thing, ginning up a great attitude is like lipstick on a pig.

Emotionalism is Not a Good Attitude
People with great attitudes that aren’t backed by the bigger thing are usually pretty obvious. They’re convinced that attitude is everything, so they rely on emotionalism and “everything is GREAT!” “live is wonderful” statements on the outside while they’re dying on the inside. And they just hope that “fake it until you make it” will get them through. It won’t.

It impossible to have a good attitude by deciding to have a good attitude. It’s like squinting hard to make a wad of bills appear in front of you. At times I do have to “just decide” to have a good attitude, but I guarantee you I would have no motivation to make the decision if it wasn’t driven by something bigger.

The Fourth “S”
The Industrial Age taught us the “Three S’s” – Safety, Security and Stability. The problem with the three S’s is that they are at the bottom of Masloew’s hierarchy – they are just survival mechanisms. The Three S’s will not give us enough motivation to have a great attitude. The fourth S, the one the Industrial Age couldn’t afford for you to have – Significance – that is the driver of attitude.

Clarity on what you want out of your business and your life is what drives good attitude. If you know where you are going, what you want when you get there, and when you want to be there, it will have a transformational impact on your attitude.

The Big Why
In Crankset Group we talk a lot about “The Big Why.” The Big Why is that one big thing that gets you out of bed every morning that gives you the motivation to create a life of significance. If you have a Big Why, you will rarely have to work on getting your attitude straight, and when you do lose it, it will be much easier to get your good attitude back. It’s not about good attitude, but about having the motivation to have one.

Attitude is a Result, Not a Cause
Focus on Significance, not on attitude. Figure out what is really deeply important and run toward it with everything you’ve got. Use your business to get you there. You’re attitude will follow.

Why I wrote “Making Money Is Killing Your Business”

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I built five businesses from the ground up. Each time in the process I found myself as a hostage of my business, never knowing how it would work out, how I would get off the treadmill, or most importantly, a firm date for when I could look forward to enjoying my business. It all seemed to be up to chance, and that the best I could do was work harder and increase my “chances”.

Along the way I learned two valuable principles that transformed me and my businesses, and helped me build a business I could enjoy for decades:

  1. You get what you intend, not what you hope for… and…
  2. He who makes the rules wins.

Throughout a number of my businesses I intended to work extremely hard and make money, and I got exactly what I intended – hard work and some money. While growing those same businesses I “hoped” they would result in a great lifestyle and worked even harder to increase my chances. But we get what we intend, not what we hope for.

I learned that unless I very intentionally designed my work around building a great lifestyle, that all I was going to get was hard work and maybe some money. I decided I was going to turn the whole thing on its head, stop working for my business and make my business start working for me.

It dawned on me that “He who makes the rules wins”, and that I had been allowing my businesses to make the rules by just “hoping” they would give me a great lifestyle. I added “use my business to create a great lifestyle” to my intentionality, having grown into the belief now that business should not just give us money, but it should give us three things – money, time, and the opportunity for significance, or meaning.

This led me to develop simple tools that would keep me on track to create that lifestyle:

  1. The Big Why – those with a great vision for what to do are more likely to be successful.
  2. A Business Maturity Date – to give me a very clear, measure of the time, money, and significance I now intended for my business to bring me, and a specific date for when I intended to be there – Friday, February 18, 2001, at 10am.
  3. A simple 2-page Strategic Plan – to help me stay above the daily Tyranny of the Urgent so I could focus on the things that would build a business that makes money while I’m on vacation.
  4. Process Mapping – to get me off the treadmill, allow me to train others to do what I do, and create repeatable and consistent experiences for my clients.
  5. Outside Eyes – I have others I meet with regularly who are helping me keep on track. I’m too subjective about my own business to make the kind of progress I regularly should.

February 18, 2011, we’ll be on our way to New Zealand celebrating the maturity of our business, and we fully intend for it to make money while we’re on vacation. Why don’t most businesses get here? Simple, the owner is doing what I used to do – intending to work hard and make money, and “hoping” it will all work out in a great lifestyle. We get what we intend, not what we hope for, And when I realized I could no longer let my businesses make the rules, I was on the road to freedom.

What are you doing to build a business that makes money while you’re on vacation?

UPDATE: The book is now out and available.

The Four Cornerstones of Business Success & Significance

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The Four Cornerstones of Success and Significance are A Big Motivator and Three Bosses.

  1. The Big Motivator – or The Big Why – Lifetime Goals

  2. Boss #1 – A simple Strategic Plan that runs my daily business

  3. Boss #2 – Process Maps and Process Descriptions to create freedom and a reproduceable business (and make it worth a lot more money)

  4. Boss #3 – Outside Eyes on my Business to catch the blindspots and bring balance and completeness to my leadership.

1) The Big Motivator

Why? Why is the least asked question in business and is the most important at every level, from buying a shiny object (Why?) to the reason you do what you do (Why are you in business – what’s the end game?)

Businesses that create success and significance for the owners and in the world around them have all answered why and are driven forward by that Big Motivator. What are your Lifetime Goals, and how are you building your business to get you there? Business should have a purpose – what’s yours?

2) Boss #1

Where and When? – I use a Two-Page Strategic Plan to run every aspect of my business. I know exactly WHERE I want to go and WHEN I want to be there. The second least asked question in business is “When?”

I know exactly what my business looks like at maturity and I have a Business Maturity Date – Feb. 18, 2001, 10am. We all know exactly where we are going on vacation and when we want to be there, and that informs us what we need to do before hand, and how and what to pack. We go blissfully through 30 years of business ownership blindly packing the car of our business day after day with no idea where we are going or when we want to be there. How in the world can we make a decision about today if that decision lives in a vacuum? Is it any wonder most businesses never grow up? Do you have a simple Strategic Plan and a Business Maturity Date?

3) Boss # 2 How?

Process Mapping is that route to freedom for the small business owner. It gets all the processes out of their head on to paper so they can create quality clones of themselves who will produce as well as they do, so they can stop being control freaks and get a life.

A business owner who wants to create success for themselves and significance in the world around them with their business has others doing the production so they can focus on the Important things while others take care of the Urgent things. Do you have your processes mapped on a simple graph with some descriptions of each step? Business freedom is not within your grasp if it’s all in your head.

4) Boss #3

Outside Eyes on your business. None of us can figure it all out, and we’re too subjective about and too close to our own businesses to see the potholes.

The business owners who are intent on using their businesses to create success and significance all have peer advisors, mentors, advisory groups, or others who can speak to their business. Who are you allowing to see behind the curtain who can help you build success and significance?

Summary

Do you have your Big Motivator and your Three Bosses? I know, you don’t have time to do this, which is why you’re still on the treadmill. There is no such thing as lack of time, there are only priorities. If getting off the treadmill is a priority, you’ll find the time to not just make money, but build a business that makes money for you, so you can turn your attention to creating success and significance, not just revenue.

What an old guy told me that changed my life.

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The Time, Money, and Energy Conundrum – When I was just starting out, a creepy old guy (about my age – mid-50s) told me life had a built in problem. He said “The problem with life is this.

When you’re young, you’ve got all the time and all the energy to enjoy life, but no money. When you’re in your middle years, you’ve got all the money and all the energy, but no time. And when you’re retired, you’ve got all the money and all the time, but no energy.”

He then went on to say something very profound. “The key to a good life is to figure out how to have all three at once – you’ll make a lot bigger impact in the world around you if you can figure that one out.”

Lifetime Goals are foundational for figuring out the Time, Money, and Energy conundrum, for a very important reason. The definition of a Lifetime Goals is:

A goal which can never be checked off.

A true Lifetime goal can never really be fully completed – there is always something more you can do to make it better, more complete. Any goal that can be checked off as complete is not a Lifetime Goal. Been dreaming about that house on the spit of land at the edge of the lake with the thirteenth tee behind you? That is not a Lifetime Goal – it can be checked off, and once it is, it will no longer be motivating.

The red herring we’ve been fed is that the accumulation of junk is the same as Lifetime Goals. “My lifetime goal is to have $5 million in the bank, a Mercedes, a 6,000sf house, and a nice boat.” No it isn’t. Making money is not an empowering vision, and a goal realized is no longer motivating. This is just making money so you can check off the accumulation of junk. Wouldn’t get me out of bed for three minutes in the morning.

If you’re initially motivated by those things and obtain them, you’ll be sorely disappointed if you don’t have a bigger reason to have them than just having them. The old bumper sticker from the 80s – “He who dies with the most toys wins.” – was wrong. No, he who lives with the most motivating Lifetime Goals wins.

I believe every one of us was made to do something significant with our lives. Have you figured that out for yourself yet? If you’ve got a burr in your saddle or a blue flame coming out behind you for something that really excites you, you know you’re on to something. And everybody is going to want to be part of your life. Nobody runs to catch a stopped train – get yours moving and watch what happens.

You can solve the time, money, and energy conundrum and have all three at once, and make a lot bigger impact in the world around you.

Retirement is a Bankrupt Industrial Age Idea

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Retirement is a really bad, bankrupt, industrial age idea that was never a good idea in the first place. It was invented by big businesses to steal the best 40 years of our lives so they could discard us when our good years were all behind us.

What makes it so wrong? A few very important ideas:

1) A goal realized is no longer motivating.

Retirement is a goal that can be realized, and once it is realized, it’s not what we were promised. In the Industrial Age, the average life expectancy for men after retirement was 18 months. No longer motivated. Out to pasture. Stick a fork in them – they were done.

Men are beginning to live longer after retirement, but for reasons connected to Lifetime Goals – they’re finding meaningful things to do after they stop going to work every day (or choosing to continue going to work).

2) The very concept of retirement teaches us to put off doing anything really meaningful and substantial with our lives.

I heard it hundreds of times growing up from future pasture-geezers still in their 40’s – “When I retire, I’m going to….[fill in the blank.] What a horrible way to live – always hoping for a future time when you’re actually free to do something with your life.

3) The other really bad notion of retirement is that you’re supposed to work until your 65, then begin enjoying life.

The not so subtle message here is that work and play do not mix, and that you are really supposed to live two lives – your work life, and your meaningful life (shouldn’t work be meaningful, too?). And the ideal way to do it is to live your work life first, and hope you have time left to live your meaningful life afterwards, when you have no energy left to do so.

Wealth is the freedom and the ability to choose what to do with my time.

The retirement game teaches us you won’t be free until you retire. What a load of crap. Stop living for a future that never arrives. Don’t be that guy who, when you’re gone, others say “Too bad he didn’t get to enjoy his retirement.”

Lifetime Goals give us something to begin to enjoy today that we find meaning in, the rest of our lives. Do you have Lifetime Goals that you’re already living, without any need to be retired to get after them? Life should be meaningful, fulfilling, and satisfying today.

Tomorrow never comes. Carpe freaking diem already.

Seven Decision-Making Principles Leading us to Profitability

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Guiding Principles of a business are necessary (honesty, integrity, customer service, etc.), but there is another set of principles that help the Business Owner in particular: decision-making principles.

How we make decisions effects everything we do. Problem – we make decisions subjectively, even when we think we’re being objective. All the research shows this – even at the major company level – we even buy subjectively.

As a result, we react badly to shiny objects, short-term victories and defeats, and strategic planning. So the question becomes, do you guide your biz or does it rule you? Who’s really in charge?

Want to make more money and stop recovering from bad decisions? Get some simple decision-making principles on which you run your business.

Like rails that guide a train, your decision-making principles are a core strategy to having a business that knows where it is going and how it is going to get there.

Here’s my seven decision-making principles. What are yours?

The 7 Decision-Making Principles of TeamNimbusWest Crankset Group:

  1. Business Maturity Date – Know Where I’m going & when I want to be there. (Seriously, you plan your vacation destination and time to be there, why in the world don’t you plan the destination and time to be there for your business. Which one is more important? Duh…)
  2. Make more money in less time. – Why do what others can and will do, when there’s so much to be done that others can’t or won’t do? Yield Per Hour. Distributive Management. Your NOT saving money by doing things below your pay grade. If you want to make $200 per hour, every time you do a $20 per hour job, you just lost $180.
  3. Focus on my lifetime goals, not just on growing my business – A BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal) will keep us going, but “grow the business” is a lifeless idea. So is retirement. Get a reason to have a business, then watch how much more money you make, and in less time.
  4. Get off the treadmill, own the business instead of the business owning me. – The purpose of our business is to create a lifestyle for ourselves and our family. Stop making money, stop making a living, and start building a business that makes money while you’re on vacation.
  5. Work ON my business, not just IN it. Highest and best use of my time. – The key to growth – perfecting as we go by strategic planning, not just production. Know where you’re going, and regularly adjust. I revisit my Strategic Plan every Monday. Keep steering all the time.
  6. Make decisions on where I want to be, not where I am. – Clarity of Purpose leads to Hope which leads to Risk. Know where you’re going (clarity), which will give you something to believe in (Hope), which will allow you to risk moving forward. Take good risks to grow.
  7. Bad plans carried out violently many times yield good results. Do something. Stop planning. Implement now and perfect as you go. Speed of Execution rules. It’s a both/and thing. Move NOW (stop thinking), then as soon as you start moving, start perfecting. If you just move, you’re going to get clobbered. If you just perfect, you’ll never start moving. Implement now, perfect as you go.

What are the decision-making principles of your business?

You’ve got decision-making principles that are running the show. You might as well write them down and see if you agree with who/what is actually in charge. If not, change them and take control of your business future.

Learn objectivity in decision-making processes. Know where you’re going, delegate, make decisions based on your strategic plan, and not based on where you are right now. And stop thinking about it so long. It’s not how good the plan is, but how committed you are to the bad (incomplete) plan you have. And how good you make decisions as you go.