Business matters

Know when you’re done

It is a surreal experience seeing thousands of hours of inspiration and perspiration laid out in front of you for the first time. A tangible, physical representation of hopes, dreams and aspiration. The product of hundreds of taxing early mornings and blurryeyed late nights laid out chapter by chapter across the editor’s desk. It is a firm reminder that setting yourself a big aspirational goal, like writing your first book, or starting, buying or growing your own optical practice, carries a big personal cost – especially when it is something that you are truly passionate about.

Ultimately, for me, it proved to be a testing but highly rewarding and enriching experience. It also highlighted a little talked about but crucial aspect of goal setting and project management: the ability to let go. On face value, the concept that letting go is an essential part of successful project or goal accomplishment is somewhat counter intuitive. Most people assume that you just have to keep battering away at the task until it is done. For certain simple goals, this may be the case, but for more complex multi-stage tasks, learning to let go is an essential skill to master as part of the changemanagement process.

KILLING YOUR DARLINGS There are two aspects to letting go. The first is knowing when to ditch an idea or theme, a process William Faulkner famously termed, 'killing your darlings'.

Enlist trusted help to see the wood for the trees

During the editing process of my book, it took real guts to admit which sections of the manuscript worked well and which were superfluous or distracting from the core message. It was tough coming to terms with the fact that by the end of the editing session, hundreds of hours of work had been completely cut out of the book. For an optical practice owner, it may be letting go of an unprofitable product or service, or changing an ingrained habit or culture amongst your whole team that is no longer serving you well.

The second is knowing when you are done and when it is time to let go, when the project is complete. When people are particularly passionate about an undertaking, it can be difficult to finally know when to let it go. There can be a desire to continually research and refine. The danger of letting yourself do this is two-fold: 1) you risk missing out on the optimal timing for your launch; and 2) in a fast-changing world, your project can quickly become less relevant if you don’t launch and commit fast enough.

In some cases, this can mean that people ultimately fail to launch at all. There may never quite be the perfect moment to implement Eyeplan, launch a dry eye clinic, or acquire that extra branch via Myers La Roche, but getting the timing 80 per cent right surely has to be better than not doing it at all? The other major danger is over-working or over-engineering in a desire for perfection. Sometimes less is more. This is a trait that many artists know too well – from rock stars to painters to authors – whose desire to perfect their creation can ultimately spoil something that at one stage may have been a masterpiece.

In optics, this often manifests itself in a practice owner failing to change their mindset from being a one man band responsible

for all aspects of their business, to learning to manage a team within a growing business and mastering the skill set of delegating, outsourcing and automating relevant functions. As the business grows, the skill set of the owner has to grow to become a leader and this involves learning to let go of certain functions and to empower others to do them.

So what can we learn from all of this? Being truly objective with our own personal and business projects is difficult, especially when it involves undertakings that we are passionate about and where we have invested significant emotional energy. Whether you are writing a book, starting or growing an optical business, seeking to change a career or lifestyle, or looking to devise a practice exit strategy, having someone you can trust to help you see the wood for the trees, the good from the bad and to tell you when to stop and when to go or let go is a key component.

ART OF SUCCESSFUL DELEGATION When it comes to running your business, it can be hard to see the proverbial ‘wood for the trees’ and where learning to let go in the form of successful delegation really does come into its own to allow you to focus on your true skill set and regain a semblance of work/life balance. It is rare, even in £1m+ turnover independent practices, to find an owner who isn’t performing a range of functions, in addition to their ‘day job’, be it sorting the IT, resolving staff issues or managing payroll.

It takes courage to step back and break down all the elements of your current role and determine: a) why you do them; and b) why it is absolutely necessary that it is you who performs that particular task. There will always be tasks which are essential to your overall control which can’t be delegated but for most others, if you are honest with yourself and are prepared to let go of your ego, it will be entirely possible for you to allocate most tasks to a staff member or to outsource to a third party.

When trying to let go, honesty with yourself is needed as you determine: what do I do now?; why do I do it?; should I keep doing it and why?; who, either inside or outside my team, could do it instead? Trust and empowerment are essential elements for delegation to be truly effective. You will need to identify staff or suppliers who have the skills or ability to learn the task. Open communication is needed to make sure that there is absolute clarity between both parties on the requirements of the task, the range of possible acceptable outcomes and progress.

Daily team five-minute ‘huddles’ are ideal for identifying where a task is not going to plan, or for bigger projects to be either delegated internally or to a third party. Pre-planned weekly or monthly catch-ups are preferable. Where tasks aren’t going to plan, then consider if your instructions have been clear or whether more training would be beneficial. Don’t revert to old ways unless you are totally sure that you have exhausted all routes to achieve the right result.

TAKING THE NEXT STEP It is all too easy to think that by doing everything yourself, you not only maintain control but save time by not having to specify work to a third party or train your team. Ultimately though, effective delegation will enable you to free yourself up to do other things, either inside or outside your business such as improving your home life or your golf handicap, or embarking on a different strand towards business growth.

Where you have successfully delegated tasks within your business, your team will benefit from the opportunity to expand their role and their skill set, making their working lives more interesting and fulfilling with the positive side effect of improving staff retention. If you are ambitious, you will inevitably reach stages in your career where the business needs cannot be met either by yourself or by successfully delegating internally.

Growth through acquisition or strategically planning your exit from the business are two such events where you will need to draw on external support. But who can you trust and what should you look for in an adviser? Your choice of adviser can make or break your project and, ultimately, your business.

When you have spent significant time creating, designing or building something, it takes real tact from a third party to steer you in the right direction and to get yourself over the line with just your best material or ideas. Emotional intelligence, personal chemistry and empathy, and belief in your project are therefore equally as important as technical skills and experience.

When you are ready for that next step in your practice journey, be it practice growth, acquisition, exit planning or selling, the team at Myers La Roche will be delighted to help.

Dominic editing his book with help from his editor, Taryn Johnson

Dominic’s book about retirement planning