During the next two months, I’ll focus on a critical transition in the life of a martial arts school. The transition is the one that takes the school owner from being a tactician to being a strategist and frequently takes us away from what we love the most, teaching classes. First, I want to set the stage, and next month I’ll examine how to achieve the best results during and after the transition.
If you’re like me, you became an entrepreneur because you love the martial arts. As I write, the words of Mike Gerber’s E-myth tapes ring in my ears: “An entrepreneur is a technician who has an entrepreneurial seizure.” After the seizure, however, you have a host of responsibilities for which you didn’t necessarily bargain.
Frequently, you do everything; I certainly did. I was doing the phone, the marketing, the retailing, the enrollments, the teaching and the cleaning. If I didn’t do it, it didn’t get done. As I have said before, you end up behaving like an EMT, trying to keep the patient alive, rather than a holistic general practitioner who’s concerned with the long-term care and well-being of the patient. You live a life of tactical response rather than one of strategic planning. I’m sure many of you can relate.
Then, if we have a business plan, a vision, courage to take risks, determination to see through difficulties and dedication to self and the fledgling business, our business starts to grow. It becomes a little dragon and threatens to consume us. It is voracious and undisciplined, craves attention and does not respond well to being treated like a victim at a road accident. It needs well-structured, evolving, reproducible and reliable systems that enable it to mature. Above all, your business needs you to stop being tactical and start being strategic.
I’m reminded of something I heard at a martial arts seminar once: “At some point, you have to step off the deck and step back to the office.” This is perhaps one of the hardest things to do as a martial artist, but it’s perhaps one of the great lessons of leadership. At some point you have to evolve; you have to delegate. You need people who will work the systems that you create and who will do the tactical work. If you train effectively and match personal skills with job title, these people will be as effective, or achieve even better results, than you.
So what’s the first thing you do? Hire a program manager, right? Hiring a program manager gives you the freedom to stay on the deck, teaching class, and to continue deluding yourself that you are, in fact, still the technician. Next, you get a couple of assistant instructors, but you still teach all the classes.
The business continues to grow and you notice that you have moved into the role of being a manager because all your people are coming to you with their problems. You’re no longer the EMT, you’re the fire chief, but you’re still holding the hose!
Somewhere in here, you realize that there is a huge difference between being a leader and being the manager of a business. A leader is the person with vision and plans for the growth of business; a manager implements the plan and communicates it to the staff and clients. As you move from EMT to fire chief, you are attempting to be both leader and manager and still teach all the classes. It’s a difficult time for you, your family and the business. Things can start to slip because the critical strategic work of evolving the business systems is not taking place.
About two years ago, I realized that this was me and if I didn’t take care of business, I would not have a business to take care of. It was at this point that I sat down with my instructor corps and laid out a plan to remove me from the deck, especially in the junior program and the beginning adult classes. It was a difficult task. The technician in me felt as though I was betraying the very reason I opened my business. As I have said before, our businesses are personality driven, not systems driven, so removing me from the deck was taking away a significant personal component.
Stay tuned for what happens next!
