University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Clockwork
Book

Clockwork

Design Your Business to Run Itself

Mike Michalowicz
Portfolio, 2018
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Well Structured
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

Entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz provides a simple, well-structured, easy-to-follow guide to building a small business. He urges fellow entrepreneurs to stop doing all the work and making all the decisions. In seven steps, he shows you how to hire and develop a team, so you gradually can delegate your tasks and decisions and leave your staff to run the business day by day while you design it for efficiency and impact. For any stressed-out entrepreneur working crushing hours for no apparent reward, he offers an organized, realistic path to success that doesn’t require sacrificing your friends and family.

Summary

Most entrepreneurs never break free of the chains that enslave them and their businesses.

Entrepreneurs in the United States work longer hours than their employees, and commonly take no vacation. Instead, entrepreneurs should approach work systematically, prioritize more effectively and spend more time doing what they love.

As an entrepreneur, you probably believe you must work harder and suffer more than anyone else to succeed. Habits form and, in an instant, you’ve worked five years with little to show. You’ve chased opportunities and put out fires, but failed to organize your business. This approach can consume you and keep you from ever getting ahead.

Stop doing things. Spend more time thinking about and designing your business.

Determine where you are now against the “4D Mix”: 

  1. “Doing” – In this phase, you do everything because you have no employees. About 80% of US businesses never break free from this. 
  2. “Deciding” – When you hire staff, you still make all the decisions, making yourself...

About the Author

Co-founder of Profit First Professionals Mike Michalowicz also wrote Profit First and The Pumpkin Plan.

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