Notes on running
a business.
Start with a question you are working on. These notes cover decisions inside a company and the arrangements around them.
Time
I put the family in the calendar first.
How I decide which work gets my time: a question about what I would refuse to lose, followed by a change in the calendar.
Read the noteResponsibility
Stop doing it. Teach someone else to do it.
The difference between trying to delegate a job and taking responsibility for teaching it. Move competence into the organisation.
Read the noteOffers
Ideas need somewhere to go.
Three different kinds of work: exploring ideas, deciding what to pursue and carrying out the decision. Give each its own space.
Read the noteInformation
Where does the company’s knowledge live?
A document, a person or your own memory: where the knowledge of the company is kept changes what happens when somebody is unavailable.
Read the noteChoices
When a priority becomes an excuse.
Family, work and health can all matter. A personal example of using a real priority to explain away something that never changes.
Read the noteOrganisation
A professional practice still needs a way of working.
A busy SEO specialist, a video shoot and the problem of trying to recruit a copy of yourself. How a professional practice becomes organised.
Read the noteAI and records
The hard part was organising what I know.
What went into organising my recorded calls and course materials for PDM brAIn. The decisions about the information came before the technical work.
Read the notePreparation
My wife’s 27 restaurant tabs.
A story from Fare about choosing a restaurant in Miami, and why some decisions need a test or a deadline instead of more research.
Read the noteGrowth
I would take Samsung. I would not try to build it.
The difference between an owner who can do many things and an organisation that can do them independently. A story from ImprendiLife.
Read the noteWorking agreements
The things we forget to tell a supplier.
A Saturday call about a promotional campaign, and the assumptions that remain unspoken when we ask somebody else to do the work.
Read the note