by As the great Dirty Harry once told us, “A Man’s Got to Know His Limitations.” Advice I would have been well advised to have taken, as Hinesight returns to the blogosphere after a one-week absence. In the spirit of expanding my horizons, I read up on search engine optimization and decided to tweak a few settings. Right! It wasn’t long before the site disappeared, resuscitation failed, a frantic call to web developer, and a rebuild just completed yesterday.
Upon reflection, this is an issue that more and more of us in “free agent nation” will face. What do we do ourselves and what do we outsource? As one-person or small operations, this is critical. It should start with the assumption that there are not unlimited hours available for work — no matter how tempting that might be. So going down a “bunny trail” and following one’s curiosity on a problem outside one’s core expertise is a luxury that simply cannot be indulged. [not only did I wreck my site, but wasted several hours exploring, and then trying to fix it].
It requires a strong focus on what’s your expertise and what’s not. Sure, you can do a lot of things, but does it make economic sense to do so, in the face of limit’s on one’s time? It means that there are not totally “free” agents, as it just won’t make economic sense to do it all alone. So, dear readers, please join me in focusing….on what we do best. I promise! Andy Hines
One of my colleagues frequently reminds me that “we each should concentrate on doing the thing that *only* we can do.” It’s a particularly wise mantra for those of us in non-profit, where organizations contend with the pressure to do more with much, much less than the average company. Hence employees like me may find ourselves going from “helpfully giving advice,” to “unwittingly in charge” in the blink of an eye. Our solution: find volunteers. I wonder if you could do the same?
Ha, sage advice, Gail! I do try….and I bet you do to. The hardest tradeoff is wanting to explore, learn, and do new things versus sticking with your core expertise!