# The three hats every business owner wears, even alone [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-08 updated: 2026-10-08 language: en reading time: 5 min topic: Organization source booklet: [The Three Hats](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/three-hats) Even a one-person business has three separate jobs, and when you do not tell them apart the urgent wins, production takes everything, and the other two hats get dropped. Every business, including a business of one, runs three different functions: someone drives production, someone organises the flow, and someone builds and maintains the foundation. When you do not tell them apart, you decide by what is urgent, and the urgent thing is always production, so the other two get neglected. ## Why you work hard and still do not get anywhere Almost every small-business owner wonders at some point why they put in so many hours and still feel stuck. The answer people usually hear is to work smarter, which is not really an answer. According to the booklet, the useful answer is that you are running three completely different functions inside one head without separating them. So one of them always gets dropped, and it is nearly always the same one. The difference between a one-person operation and a corporation is not whether the three functions exist. It is how many people wear them. ## Three hats, not three people The booklet calls these functions **hats**: a role a person takes on, even if on the same day they also take on the other two. The **Product Officer** controls the business and runs it so that production comes out. This is whoever decides what gets closed today, who looks after the next client and what can wait. The question this hat asks is what went out today. The **Organizing Officer** supports the Product Officer: lines production up, gets the team ready for what they are meant to turn out, and makes sure plans actually get carried out. Its question is what is holding up the output. The **Establishment Officer** builds the foundation and keeps it in shape: premises, people, training, files, lines of communication, supplies and equipment. Its question is what has to be in place before any work can happen. There is no sequence here and no ranking. All three run at the same time, and in a small business they sit on the same head. Suppose a garage owner has two mechanics. He wears all three hats, while the mechanics wear production only. The moment he is under a car with a wrench, all three hats stop together, because nobody else is holding them. Or take a freelance graphic designer. Designing, she is the Product Officer. Choosing which project goes first, she is the Organizing Officer. Writing a contract template, she is the Establishment Officer. The trouble is that the third one happens about once a year. ## It holds even when you are alone The natural objection is that this sounds like something for big companies. The source says otherwise, and says it plainly. Even with a single person in the business, that person still needs some idea of organisation and something like a board of posts, meaning a map of who does which job. In the source's view, the same principles apply to a small household appliance and to the biggest oil company in the world. So you do not need a team to use this. You need to tell apart the hats that are already on your head. Now the opposite case. A market stallholder has nothing he would ever call organisation, yet he follows a fixed unloading order every morning, so he opens before the neighbouring stalls. That is an establishment hat, even if he has never named it. Headcount does not decide whether the hats exist. It only decides how many heads they are shared across. ## Why the urgent always wins This distinction is not a sorting exercise. It solves a very real problem. Without names for the hats, you decide by whatever is on fire, and what is on fire is almost always production. The client who is waiting beats the template nobody wrote. That is how a small business can wear one hat out of three for years. From the inside it feels like running in place, even while working extremely hard. The booklet puts the feeling simply: running all day while nothing ever gets easier. The cause is not the amount of work. Every hour goes to one hat, and whatever would have made next week lighter gets pushed back again. It is not laziness and it is not being bad at management. Time was simply never set aside for the other two hats, so they never happened. Once each hat has a name, you can ask a question that is impossible without the names: “which hat am I in right now,” and right after it, which hat you have not put on at all this month. ## What the booklet adds This chapter of the booklet comes with two exercises: a spot-it exercise and a do-it exercise. From there it teaches you to see which hat you neglected this week, and exactly what to do about it. Hard work in one hat does not replace the other two. It only hides how long they have gone unworn. - [The Three Hats](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/three-hats): Three names for three jobs, and a diagnosis that tells you which one is missing in your business today. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/three-hats-one-business-owner) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/three-hats-one-business-owner)