Strategic Grind
Doing what you Hate so you can do what you Love
I’ve been chatting about strategic grind with the team lately.
Every business owner and team member has things in their day they don’t like doing. It’s part of work.
In this column, we’re going to discuss the kinds of work you don’t like doing - but still should do.
What Is the Grind?
The grind is all those tasks you do, projects you work on, and clients you work with that you don’t enjoy. As your business grows and matures, you’re aiming to minimise this, so you only do things you enjoy. But there will always be parts of your working day that are the grind.
What you need to work out is whether the grind is a waste of your time - or whether it’s strategic. If it’s strategic grind, you should do it. If it’s not strategic, you should try to avoid it unless you absolutely have to.
The Types of Strategic Grind Change Over Time
The types of strategic grind change based on how long you’ve been running your business. Let’s take some examples.
You decide you’re going to be a small business offering Service A. You get an opportunity to provide Service B - not part of what your business does, but the money might be good. Should you do it, or stick to your guns and only do Service A?
The first thing to think about: would you enjoy doing Service B? Because if you’d enjoy it, do it. Life is short. Do what you enjoy. Don’t fall for the rule that you should only do specifically what your business offers.
We live in a time of massive change. As a small business especially, your offering this year is likely to be wildly different to your offering next year and the year after. We’re constantly changing, responding, adapting, completely pivoting in some cases. Often, the way to work out whether we should pivot or offer something else is to take on something that’s not part of our core business.
So assuming it’s going to make you money - do it.
As your business grows, and you’ve got more cash in the bank, you can be more specific about what you say yes to. You’re in a much better place to consider opportunity cost: if I take this Service B work, even though I might enjoy it, is it a massive opportunity cost because I don’t have the time to do something more aligned with Service A?
But early on? If you enjoy it, take it. No brainer.
When You Don’t Enjoy It
Usually, though, you don’t enjoy Service B. Then the question is: is it strategic or not?
You might think - I’ve seen these people on Instagram telling me never to take on anything I don’t enjoy. Life should be great all the time.
That’s not true in my experience. I know lots of small business owners. I’ve been running my own small business for 15+ years. It’s rare that someone only does what they enjoy.
And I know this is the case because if you look at the people at the top of their game - famous celebrities, actors, athletes, musicians, CEOs - they are all doing things at times they don’t enjoy.
Do you think Chris Hemsworth enjoys doing all those promotional interviews? Answering the same questions, joining radio shows early in the morning to promote his latest film? Or the latest rock band on tour, doing all the interviews? Athletes being interviewed after every game, going on shows, building their profile, CEOs sitting through earnings calls when the economy is tough?
Most of the time, the answer is no. That is the grind for them. Why do they do it? Because it’s strategic grind. It lubricates the path to doing what they love - whether that’s starring in blockbuster movies, performing in arenas, going to the Olympics, or growing their busines.
Even the best of the best have to do it. Don’t assume it doesn’t apply to you.
Is It Strategic or Not?
So we come back to: is it strategic or not?
Let’s say you’re offered Service B work. You don’t enjoy it. Should you take it on?
If you’re early in your business, take it. You need the money. That’s end of story.
But if you’re more progressed, weigh it up. If there’s a strategic benefit - for example, doing this work opens the door to a lot more work with that company in line with Service A, or it opens you to a network of other potential clients who want Service A, or it blocks a competitor from disrupting a current client relationship - then these are all strategic reasons to do it. That becomes the strategic grind.
Structuring Your Life Around It
My final point is this: once you accept strategic grind, what do you do with the things that aren’t serving you or getting you to your core business?
Delegate them. Get rid of them altogether. You’re better off doing the strategic grind - work you don’t like but that moves you forward - while structuring your life to remove the other things you don’t like.
Not everything is strategic. The goal is to know the difference.
