Feeling disillusioned? Feeling overwhelmed and apathetic? How about ‘out of control’ as if you’ve lost your way. Having a hard time finding focus or solid ground on which to stand?
Welcome to the next generation of business!
Most small businesses can relate. For so long, business leaders and entrepreneurs have relied on their ability to work through problems, to see and create solutions with results where many have failed. This ability is essential to any successful venture and is often the root for why someone would take a leap into leading, running, building, managing, risking, starting a small business.
Has it been too easy?
Unfortunately, for the past 25 years, the solutions for business problems have not needed to be highly precise or accurate. Often, just making a decision created a modicum of success.
The reason solutions could be successful without precision is due to economic wealth being so great that solutions rarely created a negative economic outcome. The economy was so good that it was hard to make such bad decisions that a company would fail. Success seemed fairly ‘easy’ compared to today.
This perceived success has created one of the greatest issues facing business leaders. Whether a leader is leading a small or large company, the issues of the past 18 months have caused each to question their ability to make great decisions, to create great solutions where success does significantly influence the viability of the company – business life or death decisions and solutions.
Can the experts help?
So, the business leader looks to ‘experts’. They look to bankers, economists, the media (unfortunately), accountants, business consultants, operational experts (six-sigma types), lawyers, government, organizational designers, private equity, venture capital, business brokers, etc. Each of these has an interesting perspective, and possibly a facet of a solution. But interestingly, each of these have lost their way as well. None of them have a full understanding of the systemic nature of a business.
They are scrambling to understand ‘what’s next’.
The singularity of their solutions do not work in and of themselves. Since no one idea or person has ‘the formula’ or ‘the answer’, people start to feel lonely, unhealthy and they feel like the outline at the beginning of this post. They start or continue bad behaviors or habits like not reviewing financials, isolating themselves (hunkering down), become passive, become too aggressive; they will do anything they can do to prevent dealing with the real issues.
People are looking for hope. What people need is a new path and a new goal. The goals of the past no longer work. The way decisions were made no longer provide solutions that truly help.
We need to reset our perspective. We need a new direction.
Build a better foundation
Before I describe the First Step and the Real Goal, let’s outline a few of essential required attributes. These attributes are: humbleness, listening and authenticity.
Due to the success of the past, many business leaders have a sizable ego. They believe they are in control, they believe they know, they believe they should be able to figure this out. Stop trying. You can’t. The sooner you realize that, the better. Be humble and open yourself up to ask for help. Be open to the second attribute – listening. Go ask questions and truly listen. Don’t steer, don’t interpret to justify you. Don’t go looking for evidence to support your verdict.
Your motive in asking is to get great information, information not skewed by you (hopefully data driven where possible). If you have too much difficulty doing this or if the people in your business system cannot trust the change in you to open up authentically, then solicit help to show this attribute.
Lastly, embrace authenticity. Be consistent, listen to what people mean not what they say. Ask ‘Why’. Ask’ How’. Say ‘that’s interesting – share more’. Give people freedom to share authentically with you by being authentic with them. Truly hear them, repeat what you hear them saying and don’t, by all means, judge or assign value or show emotion to what you hear.
Just be real. And make sure you tell them ‘why’ you’re asking.
The start is getting real
Let’s get to some more meat. The First Step is – discover and embrace reality. Sounds simple but it seems to be the most difficult step for any business owner/leader to take. It requires the attributes above. It requires them to realize they can’t do it. It requires them to hear stuff (bad and good) about their leadership, outcomes about their decisions, and a potential reality that the company is failing.
This is much like a check-up. Imagine if you walked around all your life without going to a physician. At some point, something is going to happen where you will encounter catastrophic outcomes you can’t control unless you discover reality (go to the doctor) and embrace reality (label your real condition). Doing this activity will either:
provide you with great support that your business and leadership is great, or,
identify where your business and leadership has shortcomings.
The shortcomings may look like lack of sales, lack of funding, lack of good people, lack of customers who understand, lack of bankers who understand, a lack of funders who will not provide money because they don’t understand, lack of completed products or projects, lack of something. Many of these you may be aware of but often, the business leader’s view is significantly skewed and he or she is not aware.
Go and discover reality. Once discovered, embrace it before creating solutions.
The real goal is to be healthy
Keep your eye on an authentic goal – The Real Goal is to be healthy. Too often the goal of the business leader or owner is to be in control, provide and keep the current lifestyle, keep the same status as when times were good. Get past this quickly.
This is about business 101. Provide needed goods and services at a good price with a good experience. Make sure you are viable (positive monthly cash flow) and have a good balance sheet for your company. Don’t rely on the bank or investors for working capital until you are very healthy. Validate the relevance of the goods and services you supply, validate this with your vendors, your customers, your employees. Be humble, listen and be authentic. Define healthy for your business and focus.
Your ability to discover reality, embrace reality and set a goal to be healthy will give you the most important foundation for you now – it will give you a framework for a plan to get healthy. And it will be a plan steeped in reality, a plan you helped create with the people around you, a meaningful plan owned by you and your organization. It will be a well founded plan with options.
I’ve long believed that all value is created at the point of exchange, the finite time services and goods are exchanged. My learnings for more than 20 years have been geared at how to close the gap where it matters most. This blog will study all kinds of concepts, ideas and strategies around this focus – why the gap is widening, what can be done to bridge the gap, and what the economic impacts are of a focus on customer value.
The First Step - The Real Goal
Feeling disillusioned? Feeling overwhelmed and apathetic? How about ‘out of control’ as if you’ve lost your way. Having a hard time finding focus or solid ground on which to stand?
Welcome to the next generation of business!
Most small businesses can relate. For so long, business leaders and entrepreneurs have relied on their ability to work through problems, to see and create solutions with results where many have failed. This ability is essential to any successful venture and is often the root for why someone would take a leap into leading, running, building, managing, risking, starting a small business.
Has it been too easy?
Unfortunately, for the past 25 years, the solutions for business problems have not needed to be highly precise or accurate. Often, just making a decision created a modicum of success.
The reason solutions could be successful without precision is due to economic wealth being so great that solutions rarely created a negative economic outcome. The economy was so good that it was hard to make such bad decisions that a company would fail. Success seemed fairly ‘easy’ compared to today.
This perceived success has created one of the greatest issues facing business leaders. Whether a leader is leading a small or large company, the issues of the past 18 months have caused each to question their ability to make great decisions, to create great solutions where success does significantly influence the viability of the company – business life or death decisions and solutions.
Can the experts help?
So, the business leader looks to ‘experts’. They look to bankers, economists, the media (unfortunately), accountants, business consultants, operational experts (six-sigma types), lawyers, government, organizational designers, private equity, venture capital, business brokers, etc. Each of these has an interesting perspective, and possibly a facet of a solution. But interestingly, each of these have lost their way as well. None of them have a full understanding of the systemic nature of a business.
They are scrambling to understand ‘what’s next’.
The singularity of their solutions do not work in and of themselves. Since no one idea or person has ‘the formula’ or ‘the answer’, people start to feel lonely, unhealthy and they feel like the outline at the beginning of this post. They start or continue bad behaviors or habits like not reviewing financials, isolating themselves (hunkering down), become passive, become too aggressive; they will do anything they can do to prevent dealing with the real issues.
People are looking for hope. What people need is a new path and a new goal. The goals of the past no longer work. The way decisions were made no longer provide solutions that truly help.
We need to reset our perspective. We need a new direction.
Build a better foundation
Before I describe the First Step and the Real Goal, let’s outline a few of essential required attributes. These attributes are: humbleness, listening and authenticity.
Due to the success of the past, many business leaders have a sizable ego. They believe they are in control, they believe they know, they believe they should be able to figure this out. Stop trying. You can’t. The sooner you realize that, the better. Be humble and open yourself up to ask for help. Be open to the second attribute – listening. Go ask questions and truly listen. Don’t steer, don’t interpret to justify you. Don’t go looking for evidence to support your verdict.
Your motive in asking is to get great information, information not skewed by you (hopefully data driven where possible). If you have too much difficulty doing this or if the people in your business system cannot trust the change in you to open up authentically, then solicit help to show this attribute.
Lastly, embrace authenticity. Be consistent, listen to what people mean not what they say. Ask ‘Why’. Ask’ How’. Say ‘that’s interesting – share more’. Give people freedom to share authentically with you by being authentic with them. Truly hear them, repeat what you hear them saying and don’t, by all means, judge or assign value or show emotion to what you hear.
Just be real. And make sure you tell them ‘why’ you’re asking.
The start is getting real
Let’s get to some more meat. The First Step is – discover and embrace reality. Sounds simple but it seems to be the most difficult step for any business owner/leader to take. It requires the attributes above. It requires them to realize they can’t do it. It requires them to hear stuff (bad and good) about their leadership, outcomes about their decisions, and a potential reality that the company is failing.
This is much like a check-up. Imagine if you walked around all your life without going to a physician. At some point, something is going to happen where you will encounter catastrophic outcomes you can’t control unless you discover reality (go to the doctor) and embrace reality (label your real condition). Doing this activity will either:
The shortcomings may look like lack of sales, lack of funding, lack of good people, lack of customers who understand, lack of bankers who understand, a lack of funders who will not provide money because they don’t understand, lack of completed products or projects, lack of something. Many of these you may be aware of but often, the business leader’s view is significantly skewed and he or she is not aware.
Go and discover reality. Once discovered, embrace it before creating solutions.
The real goal is to be healthy
Keep your eye on an authentic goal – The Real Goal is to be healthy. Too often the goal of the business leader or owner is to be in control, provide and keep the current lifestyle, keep the same status as when times were good. Get past this quickly.
This is about business 101. Provide needed goods and services at a good price with a good experience. Make sure you are viable (positive monthly cash flow) and have a good balance sheet for your company. Don’t rely on the bank or investors for working capital until you are very healthy. Validate the relevance of the goods and services you supply, validate this with your vendors, your customers, your employees. Be humble, listen and be authentic. Define healthy for your business and focus.
Your ability to discover reality, embrace reality and set a goal to be healthy will give you the most important foundation for you now – it will give you a framework for a plan to get healthy. And it will be a plan steeped in reality, a plan you helped create with the people around you, a meaningful plan owned by you and your organization. It will be a well founded plan with options.
It will be a plan that will give you hope!
–Ken