As the media touts the failing economy more and more vociferously, business owners seem to be pulling in their horns more and more. This means lay-offs, staff cuts and belt-tightening. That translates into owners and managers getting more involved in the day-to-day operations. Often times the result of this is that leaders take their eye off the big picture in favor of micro-managing the details. My conclusion is that the results of this action can be much more devastating than any so-called economic slow-down. We spend end up spending so much time working IN our business that we fail to work ON the business and cause our own personal economic crisis. Peter Drucker said that on the average one hour spent planning is worth 5 hours of execution. Are you spending enough time planning? Do you need to take a step back and look at the big picture and identify some contingencies? Read my recent article on No Time to Plan.