Who is sailing the ship?

In one paragraph

Someone has to be looking at where the business is going. In most small firms that person is also the busiest one doing the work, so nobody is doing it.

The metaphor is simple: a ship needs someone at the wheel watching the horizon, and it needs people rowing. The owner of a small business is usually rowing hardest of all.

The consequence is not that the rowing is bad. It is that the ship makes excellent speed in whatever direction it was last pointed, and nobody notices for a long time that it is the wrong one.

Gerber's version of this is working *in* the business rather than *on* it — see Michael Gerber. The ship version makes the same point about direction rather than about systems.

The practical question

Not 'are you working hard' but 'when did you last spend two hours deciding where this is going, with nothing else in the diary'. For most owners the honest answer is measured in months.

How to actually use it

• Book the steering time before the rowing fills the week. It never gets added afterwards.
• If the answer is that the business cannot spare you for half a day, that is not a reason to skip it. It is the finding.

Where it breaks down

• In a business of one or two, the owner has to row. The point is that some steering still has to happen, not that rowing is avoidable.

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