It means I don't have to be involved in every little facet of the business. Micromanagement is just not my gig, and I'm probably lucky to be tweaked like that, but I think if you've got your mind on the detail then you're just going to keep doing the detail and the big picture stuff will never get done.
I will pick up a job to experience it, understand it and look at how we might do it better, but I couldn't do what I need to do if I was doing my team's job all the time. I'm a massive delegator and I put a lot of trust in my team. Part of this involves continual training — whether that's on product, help with professional development or recommending a good book someone might like to read.
What kind of hours do you work, and how much time do you work on the business as opposed to in it?
That's hard to quantify because I don't start or finish at the same time as my team. But say I'm doing a 40-hour week, I'll do some of that in the office, some in the evenings and some on the phone in the car. At the moment I'm the president of the Auckland chapter of EO [Entrepreneurs' Organisation] so I spend a lot of time on that. But that enables me to work on my business versus in it because of the sort of challenges we talk about at EO and the other people I get to talk to who run businesses. I'd probably have a 50/50 split between working on the business and in it.
What are some technologies you use to help you work smarter?
When you're wanting to develop new ideas, reading is important. But because I don't do detail and I don't have a huge amount of time I use Blinkist. It's a mobile app that basically provides a synopsis of a book, where every chapter is about a page long called a 'blink', and you can either read it, or listen to an audio version. It gives you the idea of a book, and if you want to delve deeper you can then buy the book and look at specifics. That's been incredible for me.
How about any other time management tips?
A big thing for me is my to-do list, and I ascribe to that old adage of 'touch a piece of paper once as it comes over your desk' — I do that with paper and email. I also turn off as many superfluous emails as I can. For example I get LinkedIn updates weekly rather than as they happen; little things like that make my inbox as streamlined as possible.
And whenever I go to learning events if I'm able I'll take one or two of my team with me because then they'll get excited about what we're learning and they'll run some of those things in the business. It opens their minds and means it's not always up to me to lead the team to new ideas.
What's a key piece of advice you'd give to a business owner struggling to work smarter not harder?
You don't grow a business, you grow the people who grow a business. People development is massive for me.
• Coming up in Small Business: 'Handmade' products are a growing consumer trend. How have some crafty folk built businesses around their handmade goods, and what markets are they developing for their offerings? If you've got a story to tell, drop me a note at nzhsmallbusiness@gmail.com.
