Many small business owners are caught in a trap of reaction: they spend nearly all their energy reacting to requests and urgent demands. Think of the salon owner who finds herself serving clients and dealing with employee issues, leaving her zero time to think about the big picture of her business. Or the head of an engineering firm who is buried in projects and in a cycle of responding to one crisis after another, without time to get his head above water to try and prevent the next one.
No one sets out to start a business with the goal of it consuming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. On the contrary, most small business owners are looking for independence. Unfortunately, the demands of a business are often urgent and can easily become overwhelming.
One of the cornerstones of Organizational ReWilding is structure. Structure plays an integral role in each of the 11 elements because it helps organize large amounts of information and sets the stage for clarity and focus, all of which are vital to the health of a business. (To read more, see our blog post on Structure, Clarity, and Focus.)
The Thinking-Doing Sequence is a structure that helps shine light on what it is that business owners are doing with their time and why adjustments may be necessary.
The Thinking-Doing Sequence
As illustrated in the above graphic, there are two major areas of classification and four steps in the Thinking-Doing Sequence. The major areas are working on the business and working in the business. The four steps are Critical Thinking, Focusing, Planning, and Doing.
Ideally, the owner will spend a significant amount of time working on the business, but we all know that reality doesn’t always align with the ideal. Oftentimes, working in the business takes priority. That’s why, as we look more closely at each of the four steps in the Thinking-Doing Sequence, we’re going to start with the end of the sequence and work backwards.
Doing
Doing encompasses any activities involved with the execution of the business. It speaks to what: What is required to deliver our service or product to customers?
If, as a business owner, you are stuck in a place where doing the work is all that you do, you’re in survival mode. You are constantly reacting to the next email, phone call, or other immediate need that is before you.
While many businesses function this way, it’s suboptimal. Chaos is the norm for a reactive business and brings with it persistent problems such as high employee turnover and tight cash flow. Over time the trauma of this chaos leads to owner burn-out and frustrated employees.
Planning
If you take one step back in the Thinking-Doing Sequence, you’re now in Planning. Planning is focused on the how. How are we going to do the work? It involves looking ahead to the future, perhaps three to 12 months at a time, but it can also mean as soon as the next day or the upcoming week.
Planning occurs at an operational level. It accounts for the scope of the work and the logistics required to complete it, factoring in such contingencies as staff capacity, tools or equipment that will be needed, and scheduling.
The ability to plan gives a business an advantage over one that is caught up only in Doing. It helps to alleviate some problems before they occur and to reduce the organizational trauma that comes with disorder. Even with planning, though, a business may not be very competitive or distinguished in the marketplace, because it does not consider the bigger picture questions.
Focusing
Focusing is related to priorities; it establishes which of the many projects and initiatives the business will choose to prioritize. Of all our options, which projects will we be pursuing?
Focusing looks further down the road than Planning; a business is looking beyond just the coming months to one or more years in the future. At this stage in the sequence, a business is setting goals and coming up with strategies that will help achieve those goals.
Once a business has some strategies and goals in place, it can measure against those goals. This provides clarity as the business plans and executes on which activities are bringing them closer to their goals and which are not. Adjustments can be made throughout the year, keeping a business more agile and responsive to its environment.
A business that can achieve some level of focus more consistently directs its energy to initiatives that move the organization towards its long-term goals.
Critical Thinking
As the first step in the sequence, Critical Thinking addresses the highest-level question that faces a business: Why are we in business in the first place? Why should the marketplace do business with us?
Understanding the why informs every aspect of the business. It feeds into the business model, which drives structures; it influences values, which shape the culture; it informs decisions about how the business goes to market and which customer segments are ideal.
While Critical Thinking has such a great influence on a business, it’s often skipped over by business owners. When that happens, the business tends to have poorly defined strategies. Rather than being anchored to solid identities, these strategies tend to look more like a lot of ideas about what might be possible.
An organization that has spent sufficient energy on critical thinking has a strategic advantage over those that do not. The clear picture of why the organization exists creates a vision for the entire organization to pursue and informs values that unify its people.
Each step influences the next
While it’s common for businesses to be stuck in the Doing part of the business, it’s also not unusual for a business to start with strategy or planning. The reason why the order of the Thinking-Doing Sequence is so important is that each step influences the next.
Critical Thinking establishes the foundation for the business, which then informs the goals and strategies that are developed during the Focusing phase. Focus is critical to Planning because it provides structure around how the business can accomplish the big picture ideas it came up with during Critical Thinking. And Planning hones in on the best and most efficient ways to carry out the work – the Doing.
The Thinking-Doing Sequence can be applied to smaller decisions as well. It’s a great way to reassess the old ways of doing things. When a company feels stuck in a process or a decision, walking through the sequence gives clarity as to whether the outcomes are serving the goals of the organization or not.
When a company begins with Critical Thinking and moves through the Thinking-Doing Sequence, it gains a strong foothold to avoid the trap of reactionary chaos. Rather than responding to the random demands of the moment, the business can execute and measure its progress against a well thought out plan that is anchored in its reason for existence.
The Thinking-Doing Sequence is part of Business Model – one of the 11 elements of an exceptional business. Our mission is to multiply the number of exceptional businesses globally. Join the conversation on LinkedIn.