There is no shortage of business advice about how to get off to a fast start during the New Year.

Not so fast.

The Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar, is generally credited with offering this advice to his generals: “Festina lente.” That is, “Make haste slowly.”

The last three months of a calendar year are usually committed to achieving end-of-year goals amidst the multiple distractions of a holiday season.

For many business leaders, the month of January offers the best time to assemble an organization’s key people and have them discuss key issues that must be addressed.

For example, “What is our core business?”

Not so fast.

Years ago, ServiceMaster’s board members and C-level executives met with Peter Drucker who, at the beginning of their discussion, posed that simple question. Twenty minutes later, he had been informed that ServiceMaster actually had several core businesses:

o Disaster Restoration, Janitorial and Carpet Cleaning (ServiceMaster Clean)
o Lawn Care (TruGreen)
o Pest Control (Terminix)
o Home Warranty (American Home Shield)
o Furniture Repair (Furniture Medic)
o Home Inspection (AmeriSpec)
o Maid Services (Merry Maids)

The folks from ServiceMaster seemed pleased to have responded so well to Drucker’s question. “Obviously you don’t know what your core business is.” They were shocked by this response and asked him to explain. He did: “Your core business is training people to do what most people do not want to do.”

What is your organization’s core business?

Not so fast.

“Festina lente.”