Creating Your Business Owner's Manual - Florin Lungu

Florin Lungu - "Entrepreneurial Mindset"

Introduction

In the book The E-Myth, Michael E.Gerber emphasizes the different roles (hats) we play as entrepreneurs and business leaders. He shares that we split our days between the manager, the technician, and the entrepreneur. We put our technician hat on when we spend our time into the day-to-day nighty-gritty part of our business doing things we probably should not be doing. Here is us working hands-on in the business. Then there is the manager role we play when we are focused on fulfilling the current business and serving existing clients, maintaining the status quo. It is only when we work on the business rather than in the business that we think like an entrepreneur. When we plan and strategize for the future, we build new business opportunities and we improve ourselves as business leaders that we move our business forward. 

Well, the challenge is that even if this dichotomy seems more present in small businesses than in medium and large enterprises, there is a manager, technician, and an entrepreneur in every leadership role no matter how big or small your organization might be or if you’re a line manager, department head, C-suite executive or CEO, this is valid for you too. 

So what is your business owner manual? Is a collection of standard operating procedures ( or SOPs) that describe in detail how your business works. Imagine you decide to franchise your business and someone wants to buy the license to run the same type of business you run in another city or in another country, what would you hand over to them as the way you run your business? I call that the Business Owner User Manual or the Franchisee User Manual. 

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Show Objectives - The Why

Many business leaders believe the way business is run is clear for everyone in the organization but the reality is that the further away from the day-to-day activities the less insight into how business is done we have. I used to say this in my automotive corporate world that the higher you are on the management ladder, the further away from the cars and the less time you spend driving the products we sell. 

If you wonder how well organized and documented your business is, ask a new employee after they have been through your onboarding process. You might be surprised by what you hear. 

The reality is that a diligently organized well-documented business opens the way to that self-managing self-reliant organization every business owner dreams about. 

But the process of documenting the SOPs is tedious, costly, and the business landscape changes so why should an organization spend time creating their User Manual?  


Key Issues - Owner Perspective:

1. Creating SOPs is time consumptive.
2. Even when creating SOPs, employees often do not take the time to read and implement them.
3. Things change and they often become outdated very quickly.

What You Need to Know - The What

1. The core reasons and benefits of having an SOP
2. How to write an SOP
3. Mechanisms to increase utilization and the updating of the SOPs

​What You Need to Do​​ - The How

1. Begin with the end in mind
2. Choose a format
3. Ask for input
4. Define the scope
5. Identify your audience
6. Write the SOP (Record a tutorial and have it transcribed)
7. Review, test, edit, repeat

Shows

• Next: Episode E2.07.3PM Managing the implementation of PD's (Position & Role Descriptions) 

Written by Florin Lungu
Organizational Development Expert & Business Mindset Coach. 
With 12+ years of international experience in leading and training people in international corporations, 6+ years in the personal and corporate development industry, and 5+ years of entrepreneurship, Florin has learned a bit (often the hard way) about embracing change, leading people, and business mindset.

Born and raised in Romania he worked in France and relocated to Sweden where he now provides organizational development services to the international business community. He holds an MSc in Automotive Engineering, he is a Certified Behavioural Analyst and part of the biggest professional coaching & training organization in the world and provides business growth solutions to SME’s.

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E2.06.3.PM