#prioritzation

(via A Watched Pot and Multi-tasking)

“No” is often seen as a rejection and most owners of strategies or initiatives don’t want to see their babies rejected. 

I read Jerry's book last year, but I think this resonates with me more. What I'd like to see him address is the reasons behind why a founder or a key employee gets involved in so many tasks and job functions.

Part of the motivation is, yes, he or she may be able to do it better (in less time) than some of the staff, but part of the motivation (in my mind) is that some of the work the founder is doing is stuff that they enjoy, and perhaps why they started the business or created the product in the first place.

This doesn't change the fact that Jerry is right, it is about prioritization, focus and execution. But I try to defend the practice of multitasking and getting involved in nearly every aspect of the organization I work for, for two reasons:

1. Mentoring: we're trying to build a team that operates with a shared understanding of the level of consistency, quality, service and thoroughness that we want to be pervasive in the company culture.

2. Quality Assurance: By checking in on how the sales team is operating by working with them, or how the development team functions, or how the wireframes evolve during the course of planning and specification we are making certain that quality nor process suffers as new staff join the company in times of accelerated growth.

But, we're self-funded. A VC has an exit strategy. That surely motivates them to want their founders highly focused on product and marketplace.

And to a point they are right. Nearly all of these other tasks can be modeled as processes and people can be trained to follow them.