One area where an entrepreneur can often go wrong, is to lose focus on a business.
In my view, ‘focus’ is about seeing the business very clearly and deciding what systems need to be in place.
To help with this, I’ve created what I call a ‘Focus Report’. A Focus Report should play a constant role in managing the content of your Operations Manual.
The Focus Report enables you to decide whether your business Operating Manual is complete.
Focus means:
– Check that all of the business systems have been created.
– Check that all the systems are running correctly.
– Check that none of the business systems can be optimised.
– Check whether any business systems need to be removed from the business.
In practice, this is a day long process of reviewing your existing Operating Manual to question it and ensure that it meets the business goals on every level. You should do this full exercise at least once per year.
The process may lead to some uncomfortable discoveries. For instance, when I ran this process, I realised that we were regularly neglecting the interior upkeep of the motel units. We had no system in place for determining when the unit interiors would require maintenance or renovation, and this if left unchecked could lead to a point where it could cause dissatisfaction for our guests.
I also realised that some of our documented systems were not up to date. Due to minor changes like staff and software changes, we were missing important components of our operating manual.
Having discovered these problems, I was very motivated to spend more time on fixing them, first by documenting the process by which they should be fixed, then setting aside time to train the right people on how to fix them.
So the bottom line is, focus does not necessarily mean spending all of your time in a business. It means seeing the business with clear eyes, and acting impartially to improve the system.
