It’s all the small things: The power of choosing what matters

In my experience, the fun, fascinating things I could do in a day don’t have the best ROI for the business. Instead, that comes from complex, difficult things where I have to push my skill set to its limit. As you begin investing your time in your organization, make sure you choose growth over the pride of doing it all yourself or the enjoyment of completing the fun tasks at work.”

Doug Phares, managing director, Silverwind Enterprises

You’re likely passingly familiar with the hit Blink-182 song, “All the Small Things.” It’s catchy, has a good beat, and we’ve all heard it countless times since its release 26 years ago. This song about the importance of small gestures recently came to my mind during a coaching session.

I was working with a group of business owners, coaching them through the process of organizing and preparing their business plans so they’d be ready to go to market in the coming months.

At the end of one session, a participant who had done a lot of note-taking pointed out, “It’s all the small things. All the small things you don’t think about or know need to be done are what end up killing you.” It was an accurate observation, although this session in particular had a different dichotomy than big vs. small issues.

Instead, we were focusing on one-off tasks vs. continuing needs. Setting up licenses, organizing business plans, and ensuring product readiness were some of the one-off items we discussed. For continual development, we looked at things like training plans for future employees, instituting policy structures and marketing.

The ongoing items weren't much of a revelation for this group, but the one-off items prompted extensive discussion about where and how to allocate time. This leads me to my central thesis: Whether you’re an executive, a manager or an owner, your most valuable asset is your time and the personal knowledge and experience that you bring to the table.

In the past, I’ve recommended hiring to your weakest suit. Evolving this coaching lesson, I had everyone work on dividing these tasks not by one-off vs. continual, but by what they could easily accomplish themselves and what they would need a lot of time and support to complete effectively.

Once that was done, I instructed them to consider both lists. My advice was, “If there are one-off items on your list that you can do because they’re quick and easy for you to complete, go for it. If you see one-offs that would require a lot of training or heavy lifting from you, maybe hire someone else for those tasks.”

I know how unattractive a proposal that is when you’re beginning a startup — you want to do things yourself to save money when you don’t have much (or any) coming in. But I would encourage you to look at all the progress you can make on other items when you outsource the more challenging tasks to someone whose skill set better suits your pain points. Consider how much time and effort you’re going to save when calculating the real cost of hiring out for a service.

Sounds simple? Good, now I’m going to muddy things further. Once you have a list of ongoing and one-off tasks you can personally complete, you need to quantify the return to the organization for the time you’ve invested. Unfortunately, what I often find is that the things that give me the most joy are also the lowest-return items.

In my experience, the fun, fascinating things I could do in a day don’t have the best ROI for the business. Instead, that comes from complex, difficult things where I have to push my skill set to its limit. As you begin investing your time in your organization, make sure you choose growth over the pride of doing it all yourself or the enjoyment of completing the fun tasks at work.

Any enterprise is not going to be as simple as just doing one thing all the time. But as Blink-182 so wisely teaches us, it’s all the small things. As a leader, you need to decide how to allocate resources to shepherd your organization through difficult areas and when to tackle the little things on your own.

Doug Phares is the former CEO of the Sandusky News Group. He currently serves as managing director of Silverwind Enterprises, which owns and provides management services to small businesses. He can be reached at doug@silverwind.biz.