We are excited to have met Mahesh Kumar, CEO of Result. Result is a growth advisory outfit that helps fast-growing digital businesses internationalize into new markets. Today, we will be sharing his advice for entrepreneurs, regarding time management, personal development, and decision-making skills!
This is the second part of a two-part article with Mahesh. Read the first part here.
Time Management
At work, we need to do a lot of different things, ranging from big projects to nitty, menial tasks. It is important to be able to discern what are the tasks that create value, and what keeps you busy. Both are unavoidable and as one may try, the latter are tasks that are still essential in moving things forward. The key is not to avoid them, but to spend as little time on them as possible, be it by improving your skill set or to ask for help from others.
Consider the Eisenhower Decision matrix to organize your workload and priorities.
- Important activities have an outcome that leads to us achieving our goals, whether these are professional or personal.
- Urgent activities demand immediate attention and are usually associated with achieving someone else’s goals. They are often the ones we concentrate on and they demand attention because the consequences of not dealing with them are immediate.
Learning and Personal Development
Even though our resources (time, finances, etc.) are limited, there is always time to combine learning with things you want to explore. Most people choose to be either a specialist or a generalist. If you choose to be a specialist, you will have a more comprehensive understanding of your interest, thereby being able to do more or attend industry-level events.
I chose to be a generalist which means that I invested my time and effort across different topics. While I may not have a doctorate degree, I get to converse with different experts for hours even on topics that require a certain depth.
Regardless, continuous learning should not take a backseat in our lives. It is key to never stop learning from experts.
Also, sometimes you might be caught in a position where you have to make out-of-the-ordinary sacrifices. Although there will always be opportunities, the same opportunity might not come knocking twice. This places us in a position where we have to challenge conventions or to ‘take the path less traveled’. What will be ideal is to have a safety net to balance your commitments. This will also help you to focus better on your challenge because it reduces your worries.
Decision Making
Given the fast-paced environment and a small team, entrepreneurs often find themselves at crossroads where they must be able to make sound executive businesses decisions swiftly. These decisions will go on to leave an impact on the future of the company. It is then, noteworthy to know what kind of decisions there are.
As what Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, has theorized, there are two types of decisions that we usually make.
Type 1 decisions are not reversible and often have high consequences. These are the choices that we have to be very careful with. Type 2 decisions are the lower stakes choices that can be easily reversed if need be.
“As your organization gets larger, there seems to be a tendency to use the heavy-weight Type 1 decision-making process on most decisions, including many Type 2 decisions. The end result of this is slowness, unthoughtful risk aversion, failure to experiment sufficiently, and consequently diminished invention.”
Source: Business Insider
Therefore, it is important to fight the tendency to fall into the trap of immediacy. Allocate more-than-needed resources on things that have less impact.
Conclusion
These three aspects are extremely critical skills to cope with the high demands of entrepreneurship. It was a great meetup with Mahesh, and do check out the first part of this series as well: The Importance of Your Idea – An Entrepreneur’s Guide.
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