My wife runs the day-to-day operations of our horse farm – Summerfield Farm (check it out at SummerfieldFarm.com).  She leads a staff of six and asked me a great question; “Is there always a weakest link when it comes to staff?”

The answer is an unequivocal YES.  Yes, there is always a weakest link in our chains.  I believe we are deceiving ourselves if we think this is not true.  We could be turning a blind eye to a situation we are aware of, or we are choosing to not look for the weak link.  Sometimes we choose to not look because we simply can’t handle the thought of addressing yet another staff issue – another termination, another mentoring or coaching session, another ‘calling it tight’ session.  These can be emotionally draining situations and sometimes we choose to let one slide for a while.

I believe it important to understand the different reasons that cause a weakest link.  The reasons are diverse and not all are bad.  Being unaware of the reasons are what can cause us pain.  Weakest links can occur because:

• We chose to hire poorly.  We were feeling the pain of not having the position staffed and we shortchanged ourselves to just get the slot filled.
• We chose wisely and the person performed exceptionally well until…  People have life events that we may or may not be aware of that deeply and sometimes permanently affect their ability to perform well.
• We made our chain stronger, we made it better.  We uncover lesser weaknesses by addressing the greater weaknesses.  A link that appeared strong when the chain had weaker weaknesses suddenly becomes the new biggest problem.
• We chose wisely, we made our chain stronger, but we now expect more lift out of our chain.  We expect our staff to care for 20 horses and clients instead of 10.  We grow our company from $5M in annual revenue to $10M, then $15M then $30M.  The expectations of a chain expected to lift a $30M organization are far different than the expectations of a chain to lift a $5M organization.

I have found that I can reduce the pain of weak links by taking the time to hire only strong links, swiftly addressing existing or emerging weak links and being proactively aware of my increasing expectations of my chains.

We all have busy lives.  We want to please.  We say yes too often to too many people about too many things.

Pretty soon our lives resemble Once in a Lifetime by the Talking Heads.

“And you may ask yourself Well…How did I get here?

And you may say to yourself My God!…What have I done?!”

Someone is in control.  It is either us or the world we constructed around ourselves.

Taking control of our time is critical to being an effective CEO and business owner.  We must follow Stephen Covey’s Habit #3 which is to “Put First Things First.”  This means determining our highest priority outcomes and scheduling the actions required to achieve them.

Scheduling is critical.  To be truly effective and achieve the outcomes we desire we must consistently implement the discipline of maintaining and then sticking to a detailed schedule of our time.

Scheduling each day – to the hour – can take some getting used to.  Scheduling today is tough; it’s already committed.  Scheduling tomorrow is a tiny bit easier.  Scheduling next week is much easier and scheduling two weeks out is far easier.

We have to schedule actual work time for the tasks we must accomplish in order to achieve our highest priority outcomes.  We can start small.  Schedule 30 minutes each day next week.  Then 60 minutes each day the week after that.  Then 90 minutes, then …

We can train the world around us to be submissive to our highest priority outcomes if we do this slowly and consistently.  Consistent implementation over months can create 10-20 hours a week (and more) dedicated to our highest outcomes.

It took me over 6 months, but I now have a minimum of 20 hours in my calendar each week dedicated to my highest outcomes.  Some weeks this even reaches 30 hours.

We, and the world around us, must be able to physically see the dedication of time to our highest priorities and outcomes.  The world will respect our decision to take control of our day and the allocation of our time if we train it properly.

If our clients, or potential clients are coming to us in a distressed condition we will need to enter the ICU to treat, or service, them.

Some business models are proactively designed to support clients in crisis or emergency mode, but most are not.

Clients in crisis tend to destabilize our environment because they are panicky, demanding, emotional and time consuming.  Many times the cost to our organization is higher than we initially thought and the return on our decision is greatly diminished and can quickly become a loss.

This loss may not be measured in absolute dollars.  The loss may be in the opportunity cost of so much attention being paid to one, or a small number of distressed client.  Are other clients and potential clients being ignored or underserved because our organization is so busy caring for the client in distress?

This loss can be masked by our desire to take on a new client, increase our footprint and grow our revenue.  This loss can also be masked by our desire to be helpful and compassionate.

We should make sure the decision to take on a client in crisis is made “eyes wide open” to the impact on our organization and our current clients.

We should avoid waking up one day to the reality that we are in the ICU and didn’t even know it.  Even the ICU can seem normal if you have been there long enough.