Great success whilst being a 9-5 person?

Running a SME is a consuming affair.  Have you met anyone who has achieved this with great success whilst being a 9-5 person? 

For most people success requires hard work and effort.  A comparison with the sporting world and we see even naturally gifted athletes have to be driven and put in the extra effort to get to the top.  The same could be said of becoming and being a partner in a firm of Chartered Accountants.  According to the article in the Observer, Scott Cormack, a partner at KPMG, certainly worked hard.  70 hour working weeks were common.  The resulting stress is thought to have contributed to two broken marriages and prostrate cancer. 

It is never easy is to obtain a good work life balance whilst driving for success.  However, I do believe that the workflow and culture of an organisation makes a huge difference.  Good workflow saves time and an open culture means not being chained to a desk to deliver results.  The aim being to achieve more from the effort put in.  In an ideal world this would be enough, but the reality is for most successful SME owners there are times when you are going to have to work painfully hard.  Just try to avoid doing it all the time.

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Comments

[Stuart Jones]

I always used to say to new start businesses that if you worked hard you would succeed and I in the vast majority of cases I was proved right. However, about ten years ago although my advice was the same I was proved wrong more and more often and I couldn't understand why.

But suddenly it hit me, my definition of hard work didn't correspond with the new generation of business owners. I now try to define hard work by saying it isn't 9 to 5.

P.S. I can't decide if this is a touch evangelical or slightly Dolly Parton! I can't imagine where they meet.

[Philip Woodgate]

Hi Stuart

Interesting you say that. It is not true in all cases, but I have noticed that as well. Overall, I think we all reap what we sow. If you want success you've got to work at it.

I wonder how people react when you tell them your definition of hard work.

[Will - ArenaFlowers.com]

For the first ten years of my career, when gathering experience in the city and at at eBay, I worked like a maniac, hoovering up as much information as I could. Then, when we set up Arena Flowers, I worked like even more of a maniac. However, in the end, the aim has been to get to a position where everything has been correctly delegated to the right levels and the building (phase one at least) is behind you so you should start to have a less nightmarish work/life balance. Then you can concentrate on the "what nexts? what's our strategy got to be now?" type thinking, which is the most fun bit. And then the work begins all over again.

One other view is that working 15 hours a day, the brain simply doesn't function as clearly as it should and stress etc etc can cloud judgement. So I try to make sure that I don't work too hard or long, take exercise and do other things. It means I'm fresher, more motivated and better at my job if I do a 10 hour day than if I do a 14 hour day.

Having said that...one day during recent Mother's day rush I only got 2 hours sleep! But it's all good fun.

[Philip Woodgate]

Hi Will

I think your comments will be familiar to a lot of individuals. For all the books and course giving techniques to save time, delegate better etc sometimes the simple truth is there are times when there is too much to do at not enough hands on deck to do it. The only way to get through it is for the hands on deck to work longer.

[Andy Warren]

For many entrepreneurs the definition of work and play are very blurred as they blend together when you are passionate about what you are doing. This is often the fundamental difference between someone with their own business and someone working in a large organisation.

The single most important challenge is for the entrepreneur to determine what they want to get out of their business. If the ultimate outcome is poor health and damaged relationships then you have to question what it was all for. A good balance means seeking the success and financial rewards as a means to an end and not as an end in themselves.