Triangles
Volume 12, Number 26
Issue 574
I’ve always enjoyed analogies involving triangles. Maybe it’s because I remember doing well in it at Douglas Freeman High School in 1979, or maybe I just find it easy to demonstrate how simple concepts often inter-relate, just like the sides of triangles do.
To be a triangle, the geometric figure must total 180 degrees and is composed of three angles. Each angle shares a common side with the other two angles. If each angle is 60 degrees, it is an equilateral triangle.
So, let’s build a triangle. Let’s name one angle “money,” another, “people,” and the third, “time.” Each angle is dependent on each other by reason of it being in the triangle. You can’t have one without the other.
In life, I believe that it takes three resources to accomplish anything—money, people and time. If one of these resources is scarce, the other two must compensate, just like in the design of a triangle. Rarely will you have an equal amount of each (60 degree angles in our equilateral triangle). You will have a triangle that could look silly, like one composed of 110, 35 and 35 degree angles.
I think that of the three resources, the minimum you can have is two on a plentiful basis, but you will have to have something of the third. A triangle has to have three angles. Two can be really big and one can be much smaller. The angles of the plentiful two compensate for a minimal amount of the third—an 80, 80, 20 triangle. So, if you don’t have money, you must have more people and time. If you have no people, you must have more money and time. If you have no time, you must have more people and more money.
Each business has certain resources at its disposal and I think that the primary categories are money, time and people. Each one is dependent on each of the others. They all inter-relate. In the life cycle of a company, if one resource is more plentiful, the other two can be minimized—either by design or by circumstance. From time-to-time, one resource might be plentiful and at another time, it might be scarce. This is the entrepreneur’s paradox—nothing ever stays the same in unlimited quantity for very long. Only planning and an analysis of history will give you clues about how you should design your triangle. It’s important to anticipate how your triangle will evolve and change so you will not be caught off-guard.
There have been times in my life where money has been plentiful and I can do without people and time (money can make up for that). At other times, “people” was plentiful, so money didn’t have to be wasted throwing dollars at professionals. At other times, the resource of “time” was plentiful, so I could go slow and be efficient with people and money.
There are a number of different combinations of how an entrepreneur can adapt within the scope of their unique enterprise with regard to how the resources of time, money and people come together. Sometimes, all of the resources grow and you can equalize them back to 60-60-60 in the equilateral triangle (you can’t go above 180 degrees). At other times, all resources are scarce and you must scramble to get the combined total degrees of 180 degrees and then worry about the combination of the three being something that you can live with.
What if you have a completely weird looking triangle of 160-10-10 with money being the 160 degrees? How do you respond when you have lots of money but no people, or time? Have you been so centered on money that you have no people and no time?
How would you respond if you had a 130-25-25 composed of time (120) but no money and no people? I think that this would be the worst of all for an entrepreneur trying to become successful.
If I were to design my own triangle, I would probably want it top-heavy towards people (110) because I like to inspire, lead and teach, but lean (maybe 30)--by design--away from time (because I work well under tight deadlines with pressure) and since money really isn’t that important except as a measure of respect, 40 for money.
How would you describe your triangle of resources both in what you live with and how you would perform under optimal circumstances?
David B. Robinson, CPA
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