Use the Principle of Two Circles to Make Better Choices

I just had a con­ver­sa­tion, with a CEO I coach, who was frus­trat­ed because he was thrilled about the pos­si­bil­i­ties to grow and scale his com­pa­ny if he could only spend 50% to 60%, in the Growth Quad­rant (from my upcom­ing book 4 Forces of Growth), but was stuck in 10% to 20%.

And, he had legit­i­mate rea­sons, in his cur­rent real­i­ty, about why he couldn’t get to that 50% or 60% threshold.

Read more about the 4 Forces mod­el here.

I thought that the inter­nal ten­sion he felt was per­fect because it meant that he gets it. And even though he can’t do much about it, now, he’ll find a way to get there and do the right thing for his company.

If he couldn’t get to that 50% to 60% thresh­old, even 10% more can bring bet­ter results. More about that here.

The Pow­er of Principles

This is the pow­er of the frame­works and prin­ci­ples that guide what we do. Some­times, we can’t always spend our time the way we should, but they give us a direc­tion in which to move.

Any frame­work needs to be flex­i­ble enough to accom­mo­date what­ev­er phase we are in and to rec­og­nize we are human.

Big Cir­cles, Lit­tle Circles

Our con­ver­sa­tion remind­ed me of Brent Par­ent, an amaz­ing strate­gic CEO who talked about ⁹⁵⁄₅ in big cir­cles and lit­tle cir­cles, which I talk about in this Mas­ter Class video.

• The big cir­cle – or the Growth Quad­rant – rep­re­sents the oppor­tu­ni­ties that tru­ly move your busi­ness ahead.

This is where you spend 95% of your time to con­tin­ue to growth your business.

• The lit­tle cir­cle focus­es on fix­ing prob­lems. This is where you spend 5% of your time,

Brent used to say that if any of his team want­ed to talk about prob­lems, they were wel­come to come to his office between 8:00 and 8:30 any morn­ing – and he’d be there at 9:00.

He fig­ured that the amaz­ing peo­ple he had hired to lead his divi­sions could fig­ure out their own prob­lems. The only thing he want­ed to talk about was growth and opportunity.

The Chal­lenge

• What can you stop being involved in – meet­ings, projects or doing oth­er peo­ples’ jobs – so that you can free your­self up to invest more time in the growth quadrant/​big cir­cle of opportunities?

Oth­er Blogs

• What Would Hap­pen if You Spent Anoth­er 10% of Time on Growth?
• Del­e­gate Tasks – Includ­ing Your Strengths
• How Suc­cess­ful Lead­ers Pre­pare for the Week Ahead

Old­er Podcasts

• Three Busi­ness Growth Barriers
• Liv­ing and Work­ing in Your Sus­tain­able Sweet Spot