Passing The Baton: The Value of Routine

Passing the Baton features a series of “letters” sent from Terry Corman, outgoing CEO of Firehouse Image Center (Indianapolis, Indiana), to his son, Ted Corman, who will be leading the business into its future. This series of communiques offers thoughtful views of a business undergoing generational transition, glimpses of the company’s history, and strong views to the realities of leadership. 

An essential tool in a small businessperson’s daily routine is the use of lists. The human brain is forgetful, and your business day will be one interruption after another. Only by creating and constantly updating daily to-do lists and long-term projects lists can you keep your promises. And you must keep your promises.

Aviation is the finest example of the necessity to keep lists. There are checklists for every action in aviation, and those to-do lists save lives.

From the annuls of history is the fact that during WWII, more than 15,000 young Army Air Corp soldiers died from training accidents. Training accidents! It took until a few B-17s crashed in training until a checklist was created. Now, every pilot, every time, uses checklists at every stage of aviation.

Your grandfather, my dad, flew 25 missions out of Sudbury, England, in a B-17. He suffered through two bad crash landings in a shot-up B-17. But he and Virgil, the pilot, used the newly minted B-17 checklist every time they flew.

As a small business CEO, you have projects to complete, changes to manage, and promises to other employees and to yourself to keep.

Don’t trust your memory. Write those promises down on a sheet of paper or in an email to yourself, and put them on a to-do list.

I know you will.