E Myth Mastery

The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World-Class Company

By Michael E. Gerber

… three personalities in every business owner, the Entrepreneur, the Manager, and the Technician.

… technician … go to work …

… entrepreneur … free her from the tyranny of routine that the technician willingly submits too.

… manager … manifest the entrepreneur’s vision …

(Gerber 2007, 20)

The entrepreneur, however, is never passionate about work. Creation is discovering something new. Work is not for the purpose of discovering something new. Work, the work we all do, is for the purpose of getting something done. The minute creation becomes about getting something done, it turns into work. Work is not unimportant. Things must get done. But getting things done is not creation. It has a result in mind. Entrepreneurs do not set out with a result in mind, though they always discover a result. They set out to create. Creation is discovery. Discovery is magical. Discovery is the juice that an entrepreneur lives for. The juice of discovery comes from the pardon that creates it. The passion that creates it is everything to the entrepreneur. It is what makes entrepreneurs, the entrepreneur inside of us all, so absolutely, wonderfully, miraculously alive.

(Gerber 2007, 34-35)

Wrestling with a stranger. We are all called to wrestle with a stranger, to engage with that part of us that refuses to give up and the part that wants to flee, both at the same time, the parts that are known to us as well as the parts that are unknown.

To wrestle with a stranger, to engage in mortal combat, to risk yourself, particularly your beliefs about yourself, and to care more deeply about your relationship with the process than how it all turns out, is what passion is all about.

(Gerber 2007, 41)

A leader who can’t concentrate, cannot discriminate. A leader who can’t discriminate will spend as much energy on the least important things as the most important things.

So what are the most important things to the leader of an enterprise? They are the strategic drivers of the enterprise: the vision, its substance and how it is communicated, with intention, with conviction, with sincerity, and, most of all, with clarity; the business model, the unique way the enterprise works that differentiates it from the rest of the market; the consciousness of the enterprise, how people are regarded, how they are compensated, the core ideas that are important to them and to the enterprise that provide meaning to what they are expected to do every day, and how that is reflected in the look, feel, and function of the enterprise; and, finally, the end game, what it is, when it is expected to happen, what has to happen between now and then to make sure it does, how much capital is needed to assure its success. In short, the focus of the leader is to assure that the enterprise will function in a world-class way.

… There are so few who start out with a clear, long-term vision, most are just reacting to what comes up, confusing their ability to react with their ability to lead. … A leader is someone who can remember what he wants. And what he wants has little to do with what comes up. What comes up is called tactical work from a leadership perspective. What he wants is a strategic question through which a leader evaluates everything that comes up.

(Gerber 2007, 76-77)

We live in a world that expects us to “get” money but doesn’t teach us anything of real value about it. People who don’t have it long for it, dream about it, suffer from its absence, give the little they have to the lottery or the stock market in the unfulfilled hope of getting it. People who have it feel they never have enough, allocate it poorly, live in fear of losing it, and mistrust other people’s intentions around it. Because few people have a grip on their money, few companies do also.

“Create a list, … of the indicators of your company’s financial health, the measures that tell you whether your business is on track or not and producing the results you expect of it or not. … Simply ask the question: What do I need to know about the financial performance of my company to know how well it’s working?”