By Nick Hopkins
Partner and Director of Tax Services
In Steve Covey’s seminal business book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” there is a chapter about “sharpening your saw.” It tells of a lumberjack who is trying to cut down a large tree, and not making much progress because the dull saw is ineffective. Someone suggests to him that he should stop and sharpen the blade to expedite his task, but he believes the time lost stopping to sharpen the blade will prevent him from completing the task in a timely manner.
Unfortunately, a lot of business leaders reflect the beliefs of that short-sighted lumberjack.
They spend too little time in their own professional development: learning new skills, new approaches, new technologies or analyzing the changing trends in their respective industry. They immerse themselves in their day-to-day operations, dealing with work-day problems and challenges without ever stopping to evaluate the situation and investigate a possible improved process or procedure.
Remember the definition of insanity: doing the same failed task over and over, but expecting a different result!
As a leader of your enterprise or organization, how much personal improvement time do you budget for yourself and your top managers each year? How many dollars did you allocate to improve your personal skills or for your management team to attend outside educational resources?
As Indiana CPAs, we are required to attend a minimum of 120 hours of continuing professional education every three years in order to maintain our licenses. What do you require of yourself and staff to maintain their competence? Their skills? Their value to your business?
Our business environments exist in a sea of constant change, which will only grow more uncertain in the future. We must commit our organization to a strategy of continuous learning and improvement, and imbed the concept of adapting to our changing industries as a critical requisite component to the success of our operations.
There is a cliché that states: If you are not growing … you are dying! As leaders, we must pledge ourselves and our organizations to self-improvement, adapting to changing environments and, most importantly, enhancing our human capital – our most critical asset.
I would challenge you to look back over the past year and see if you can list five or more actions where you attempted a new approach, attended a class or broadened your insights into your company. If you can’t … ask yourself: are you any different than the short-sighted lumberjack?
Growth is not always measured in revenue dollars, but rather growth in capabilities, growth in talent, growth in the frequency of trying new approaches, products or services. Invest in YOUR Human Capital! If you do that effectively, the growth in revenue dollars and net income will come naturally.
So, as a leader, whether that be your company, your department or your personal efforts – commit yourself to learning by budgeting for it and planning to make it happen. Don’t procrastinate! Your FUTURE depends on it!!
If you need advice on how to sharpen your company’s saw, please call Nick Hopkins at (317) 608-6695 or email [email protected].