How to Wear the Right “Hat” for the Task
The term “wearing a lot of hats” is virtually synonymous with being small-business person or entrepreneur. The expression comes from a time when a craftsman’s hat signified unmistakably what he did for a living welder, miner, baker, butcher, banker and so on.
But the luxury of wearing a single hat for a career is long gone. For most of us these days, wearing a lot of hats is what we do for a living. And at any given activity, there may be multiple of those “hats” that have to be firmly on our heads.
For the most part, this is a good thing. One of the advantages of wearing a lot of hats is that you can show up at a meeting or tackle a problem from various perspectives. If you are in a sales meeting, your production manager “hat” can keep you from giving away the store in order to get a customer. In a procurement decision, your sales “hat” can keep you from paying too much for materials. And through it all, wearing your CFO hat can keep your business solvent. Some even argue that wearing a lot of hats enhances the creative process.
At best, you are cross-pollinating each of your tasks with a little wisdom and experience from other fields, which makes you better at all your “hats.”
But successfully wearing many hats, like effectively multi-tasking, isn’t necessarily a skill you are born with. It is, however, a skill you can learn and refine. Since there is no way to escape it, you might as well enjoy it without becoming schizophrenic. Here are some tips:
1. Inventory your hat rack. In his classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey explains how to consciously define and nourish each of the roles you play in life. The same logic applies within your business life. Don’t just think of yourself as “entrepreneur” or “business owner,” but delineate all the separate roles and think through how you approach and perform in each.
2. Pick the right hat(s) for the task. This is especially important if you are engaging with someone who has the luxury of being focused on a specific task. First, you have to meet them where they are. If it’s a production issue, you’ve got to show up in your COO or production manager hat. But then try to imagine who else on your virtual “team” you would bring to the meeting. The head of marketing? The CFO?
Take a few moments and look at the forthcoming meeting from that perspective. What are you watching out for? When would you insert a comment? When would you kick yourself in the shin for saying the wrong thing? It’s a simple mental exercise that can bring tremendous leverage to meeting preparations.
3. Know when to fold ’em. If you really detest a task, or you’re just not very good at it, then outsource. Wearing many hats may be good for your brain, but you naturally are going to be better at some or enjoy some more than others. Don’t sacrifice your performance or the results of your business by clinging to tasks that you shouldn’t be doing. Leverage what you do best that may be two hats or it may be 10 but then hire out the rest.