Gazing up from the gutter

Think about when you had the idea for your business. Where were you? At work? Or somewhere else?

I bet in virtually every case the answer is ‘somewhere else’. Great ideas don’t come when you are stressed out at work. Great ideas come when you are relaxed and have a clear head.

It’s perhaps ironic that most successful startups begin with an idea formed while on holiday, walking in the hills or on the golf course – or wherever it is that the idea’s owner finds it easy to kick back and relax.

But then once the decision is taken to pursue the idea, most people throw themselves into their work, expecting all the little great ideas that must follow one big great idea will come automatically – whatever the environment.

You start your business, things take off and then all of a sudden it’s a couple of years later and nothing is clear – you’re so involved in day-to-day stuff that you’ve lost track of where you’re going and chances are all you can see are problems. I call this the ‘gutter view’, and I’ll let you know how to avoid it later.

Some of my best business decisions – in fact all of my best business decisions – are made away from the office. A few years ago I realised that spending long hours in the office seemed like the correct response to a challenging business environment. But after I felt the onset of burn-out and started to take time off I realised what a great thing it is for your business for you not to be there.

The opportunity for startups is to learn from my mistake and realise the value of time away from the office early on. This will help to retain a strategic handle on your business and avoid the gutter view.

You might think you’re skiving, but what you’re doing is maintaining the ‘helicopter view’, the perspective of your business and the market you’re in that gives a clear and overall picture – not just a view of the gutter.

There are a number of ways of maintaining the helicopter view. I took it to it’s literal extreme and actually started learning how to fly helicopters – you don’t get very good ideas while trying to hover at four feet off the ground while talking to air traffic control on the radio but it’s a great way to take your mind off work for a while.

I work from home two days a week. I don’t do nine to five on these days, in fact I probably do less than a full day in terms of hours, but I am able to focus on issues much better than in the office and concentrate on external communications – with customers and suppliers – better than when I’m in the office where most communications are internal.

As for holidays, I try to take more than anyone else in the office. I don’t feel any guilt about this. As an owner manager I rarely go more than a few hours without thinking about work, however hard I try to do otherwise.

And when I do think about work while on holiday, the clarity of thought is often incredible – leading to some great ideas and decisions to implement on my return.

I try to schedule an off-site meeting with my co-director at least every six months. We take a look at where we want to be in three to five years and how we’re going to get there. Day-to-day operational issues crop up but the main focus is strategy.

By being out of the office it is easier to put the day-to-day stuff to one side. Use venues that are a world away from the day-to-day – the last off-site we had was on a boat. I’ve found that since our first off-site strategy meeting everything has got easier – knowing where we are headed makes every decision so much simpler.

When you have the helicopter view, you have a huge advantage over the competition – you can see the opportunities and dangers ahead and retain full sight of what’s going on in the right-now. That’s a powerful thing for a startup.

Daryl Willcox worked as a journalist before starting his business providing media information for companies (www.dwpub.com). The company is gaining a huge following for Response Source, its innovative research service for journalists and public relations people.