The Hole Story
There was a guy at the beach in Cape May who would dig a hole, a very deep and elaborate hole, every day. It took him over two hours, with a moat, and walls, and depth enough for him to be up to his chest in it. He had three kids, and at one point they started playing football. He yelled, “Hey, stop playing football, we’re digging a hole!” Eventually, the kids would get in this ginormous hole and the rising tide would breach the walls and fill the hole.
I went up to him in the surf and asked why he did the same thing every day.
“It’s the only hole I’ve got,” he said, deadpan. “I only know how to dig this one, and I do it here, in Wildwood, in Seaside—wherever we go.”
“Why?”
“For the kids.”
“But your kids are over there, in the water.”
“Well, eventually they’ll get back to the hole.”
I find a lot of consultants digging their own hole. They are successful, in that they have a lot of business. But the business is killing them, as sure as that rising tide will breach the sand walls that have been overcome for millennia.
Here are some factors to honestly ask of your business model:
1. Are you too labor intense? Are you performing tasks that have no qualitative bearing on the outcome of the project, but you simply ALWAYS include them because you think you should? Most consultants can eliminate about 30 percent or more of their implementation labor in my experience (which is why you never want to bill by the time unit).
2. Are you charging too little, so that you’re making what you’re earning by constant work instead of working smart? When is the last time you thought about charging a lot more for what you accomplish?
3. Do you have a poverty mentality and take on every piece of business you can, no matter at what fee and at what length, because you would never turn business away, even though you don’t really need it?
4. Are you sufficiently delegating tasks to client personnel, or are you afraid to do that?
5. Are you subcontracting the “leg work” and repetitive tasks to others, or are you paranoid that they won’t do it as well as you can?
Make sure you’re not showing up and digging the same hole every day. The kids really don’t want to be in it, it’s repetitive work, and the tide will ensure that you’re building nothing of lasting value.
© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.
Dan Weedin
That’s a great story and reminder for us.
I do have to say that at first it sounded like a story you made up to make a point. Thanks for the pics to illustrate. I guess this might go in the “you can’t make this up” category! I don’t know if you ever saw the movie “Holes” but it sure reminds me of it.
Graham Franklin
Guilty as charged
Thanks for underpinning the email Alan
Alan Weiss
All of my stories are true.
Tim Wilson
Alan,
I will never understand beach behavior. In full disclosure, I’m not a beach person. I could never understand why someone wants to work will on vacation. Digging a hole is work in my book. I rather be in a lounge chair sipping on a Margarita.
Here’s a factoid for you, Robert Wright author of The Evolution God took 14 years to write. Although I’m guessing you already knew that, as I would expect he would have mentioned it in the introduction.
Alan Weiss
I had no idea that book took 14 years. I write a book in 3 months. I concede that his are more researched and erudite, perhaps. but is that work a factor of 56:1? I doubt it.
To each his own on the beach. I read, hit the surf, eat, and regard how fortunate I am.