We’ve all seen them. Strutting the office like a displaying peacock. Assured of the fact that no one else could do the job they do. It would be impossible. And therefore they are indispensable.

How wonderful. How wonderful that if they got run over by a bus this afternoon the small business’ vertical pipeline would come to a standstill because they were no longer able to carry out their work.

Ah yes you say but you have to think of No 1 first, yourself.  Make yourself indispensable and that small business will need you more.  And they will pay you more and love and nurture you.

Well let me tell you how it is from the small business perspective: They hate “indispensable “. They loathe “indispensable “. If there’s one thing they can’t abide, it’s “indispensable “.

Why? For the very same reasons that you love it.

Indispensable means leaving a hole when you’re not there.

Indispensable means blocking the pathways of progress for anyone try to move through you.

Indispensable means someone focused on themselves and not on the business, motivated by self interest and not by the ability to develop their subordinates. Paranoid and negative, insecure and moody. A small business pain in the arse.

Make yourself indispensable?  No. If you really want to impress the boss, spend your time making yourself totally dispensable. Coach your subordinates to improve their skills. Encourage them to believe that you will look to promote them at every opportunity. Praise others at meetings. Give credit to the person whose idea it really was. Work hard to ensure that your role continues smoothly even if you are not there.

Share the secrets of your success. Have you ever heard a TV chef say “this is my favourite recipe but I’m not going to tell you what it is”?  Of course not.  TV chefs can’t wait to share their favourite recipes.  In fact they are passionate to make sure you try them and get them absolutely right.  And that’s because they know that if the recipes work for you, you will follow them to the end of the earth.

So shed the attitude of a follower and become a leader. Leaders rarely fail.  Small business leaders rarely fail.

Don’t make yourself indispensable. Make yourself invaluable. There’s a big difference.

Employee appraisals time comes round so fast and is such a thankless task. I’ll tell you why.

You are a small business. You have no HR department. You get frustrated with how much effort you have to put into employee appraisals compared to how much you get out. You’re doing all the work and not the employees that it is designed to help.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone and I’ve got a suggestion for you that will take the pain away.

You see, your employees will never be as passionate about your small business as you are. Not even the really motivated ones. Unless you give them half the company, why should they be? It’s just a fact of small business. Get over it.

Or give them half the company.

Some of your employees, the bookkeeper, the delivery chap or whoever, don’t want to be passionate. They just want an income. And then at five o’clock they want to go home and do something else. Does that mean that they can’t be good employees? Of course not.

For five years I slogged away with employee appraisals, spending endless nights planning and preparing. It was always such a battle to get some of them to open up.  I was the one making all the running.  I wanted them to develop and succeed more than they did.

And then one night, a flash of inspiration changed my thinking on employee appraisals for good:

Put as much effort into employee appraisals as each employee puts into themselves.

In other words, if an employee is giving you 100%, give him 100% back.  If he’s giving you 30%, give him 30% back.

Ridiculously simple. That way you focus your time on employees who most want it, waste less time on those that don’t and – more importantly – you’ll get more sleep.

How simple is that.

Of course, you still need to think about making employee appraisals useful and rewarding, but that’s another story….

How many employees do I need for my small business startup?

The small business startup process can be a daunting one.  So much to do so little time.  And even less help.

Whether you are starting your business on a shoestring with only a reluctant spouse to call on or an ambitious startup with plenty of shareholder cash in the bank, you will inevitably be shorthanded.  Voodoo’s First Law Of Small Business states that: “No matter how many employees you have, you will always need more”.

Don’t worry though. This is actually a desirable outcome for a number of reasons;

- At the outset of a small business startup, it is impossible to know exactly what roles you need to fill.  Much better to stay short and allow new positions to evolve, to make themselves known to you.

- It’s getting harder and harder to get rid of unwanted employees.  Better get it right in the first place.

- Your investors will demand it.  Nothing will spook a shareholder more than seeing lots of managers rattling around your shiny new premises looking busy.

- I ran my own brewery for 12 years.  It took me ten of them to establish a team that I was truly happy with.

So in other words, always make sure that you have less employees than jobs.

Good employees don’t grow on trees. So try to avoid gorging on the low hanging fruit because the riper stuff is just out of reach.

You’ll only get tummy ache.