BEING AND BECOMING
I propose ideas to improve the experience of accounting.
One of my favorite coaching formulas is:
Performance = Potential − Interference.
It is commonly associated with John Whitmore’s work in coaching, and it is easy to understand why the idea is attractive. Remove the things interfering with performance and more potential becomes available.
But I think we have to be careful with the word interference.
When I became a partner, I started removing things from my life that seemed inefficient. One of those things was mowing my lawn. I could afford to pay someone else to do it, so it seemed logical to buy back the time.
Years later, I noticed a successful CEO mowing his own lawn. It made me reconsider the assumption. Maybe mowing was not interference for him. Maybe it was something he enjoyed. Maybe it gave him space to think, move, disconnect, or simply be himself.
Not everything that consumes time is interference.
Family dinners, sleep, exercise, coffee with your spouse, hobbies, reading, time outside, or mowing the lawn may reduce the hours available for work while increasing the person available to do the work.
There is a difference between removing friction and removing identity.
As you become a partner, leader, owner, executive, parent, or whatever comes next, pay attention to what you are giving up in the name of becoming more successful. Some things should absolutely be delegated, automated, stopped, or avoided. Others may be part of who you are.
Be intentional about both being and becoming.
Ask yourself: What is interfering with my performance? And just as importantly, what looks like interference but actually helps me perform?
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