Morning,
Do you sometimes feel that no matter what you think has to change in your business to be even more productive and successful, you just can’t seem to make the changes required?
It’s as if there is some invisible powerful force stopping momentum – as if there is some little guy in the basement pulling levers to drag things back to where they were. We should all run down there right now and find the little bugger and beat him with an old Toronto Maple Leaf jersey.
In these shrinking and tighter markets, if we want to compete and grow, we need to change and we can’t wait.
What’s really going on, from my experience working with client management teams and CEOs, is it seems they don’t have a culture of focused action to improve. For example:
- They never have the resources, time, money and people to make changes. Working harder, doing the same old stuff is their only answer and people seem to like that solution even though things don’t get better for the business.
- Creating the collective discipline and will to stay at any initiative long enough to figure out what to do as you go, is always difficult and so frustrating to those who want change. Usually they don’t take an initiative far enough and never finish the projects. Instead, they jump into another one that sounds good.
- Finding a leader in an established company with courage, guts, willingness to think and act like an entrepreneur is rare. Most get sucked into operations and problems as time goes on and the business loses its creative energy. (When those types are found they usually leave to start up their own enterprise. The organization and existing culture drive them out.) Leaders need to have a structure in place whereby they analyze the business issue from an objective and truthful point of view, find a new perspective, engage a team in figuring out what to do, implement and test, learn and adjust.
I sometimes think that even if God showed up and engaged everyone in some business vision, most would look for loop holes in the presentation. Businesses need more than analysis and a vision – they need serious execution and learning.
I just went to the Cottage Show in Toronto a couple weeks ago, and “it is big”! Starting in May, over a million go North every weekend. I visited a lot of those booths and I wondered as a business advisor, how all those businesses make it, including the very big companies, for I saw some of the most important fundamentals of business being ignored.
Yet you can spot the ones that have learned how to execute on the 3 fundamentals that work and get results:
- They engage you in an issue or challenge you have
- They have a compelling offering and story and tell it pretty well
- They act like a truly trusted advisor, not an unwelcomed bore
So it is possible to grow and change a business because you have figured out what people need or want, you know how to connect or engage a market and your organization is effective at delivering on your compelling offering in an effective, trusting way.
Actions:
If the guy in the basement is winning, it’s probably time to consider a few serious moves:
- Start preparing to sell the business or
- Shake up management – find some fire in the belly entrepreneurship somewhere orGet off your butt – look in the reality mirror and this time look hard at business reality. Then go all out with focus on what’s missing and needs to be done, and maybe even burn a few bridges so you can’t go back.
- Create a culture and a structure to follow that ultimately improves the business and results. You have all that it takes to take the business to the next level and you can find the resources, leadership and the will. No excuses. While your competitors are being cautious, cheap, pessimistic, and have little vision, you can be thinking out loud. Is that all you’ve got?
- Maybe find a mentor/coach or some catalyst who has a proven structure that you and your team can be accountable to. Intentions and flip chart meetings between your team eventually lose steam. If nothing else, get working on those 3 fundamentals I talked about previously (engaging your market, having an offering that matches the market and a compelling story to tell everywhere and organize your business so you act like a trusted advisor and not an unwelcomed bore).
It would be sad and terrifying to find out that the little guy in the basement is you. Let’s wake up our businesses and be part of guiding it through the transition that is required.
Also, don’t forget this April’s complimentary teleconference Strategy Coffee Huddle: Monday, April 19th @ 11 am EST, especially if you are in a family business. Click here to register.
Engage with Tom Deans, author and successful businessman. You’ll hear how to protect your family wealth and protect your family relationship – the principles apply to any business.
Click here to register.
Make it a good week,
Kevin D. Crone
CEO
Dale Carnegie Business Group
BusinessNext Inc.
Offering Dale Carnegie Throughout Canada
Tel. 905.826.7300 / 1.800.361.2032 ext. 223