They tell the story of two young fish who were swimming up the stream one morning when an old fish came swimming by. “Good morning fellas,” said the old fish, “How’s the water?” and he swam off. One of the young fish looked at the other and said “What’s water?”
As a CEO, your water is time. It’s the thing we swim in, that surrounds us so completely that we don’t even realize it exists. Because we don’t often pay attention, it carries us along and we must function within it. It flows along at a constant rate regardless of our actions.
Not considering time (like the fish don’t understand water) means that time often pushes us along. The way this usually plays out is something comes up and you respond. The phone rings and you answer it. An employee comes in with a problem and you deal with it. Something breaks and you jump in to fix it.
However if we pay attention to time, we can put it to our own use. Before you respond to those things do you think about time? Do you consider how long it will take and whether that time could be put to better use? In financial analysis, this is called the opportunity cost. We are so immersed in time, there is no corresponding word for “cost”.
The immediate is the enemy of the future.
Often I hear from business owners that they don’t have time to plan or build for the future because there’s so much they need to do right now. Of course there are consequences if you don’t respond right now. But if responding right now means putting off building for the future, there are consequences to that too.
If you want to act like a CEO instead of just a business owner, you must consider the consequences of each and determine which is more important to your ultimate success.
