|
There can be a multitude of
factors for a business succeeding or failing, among
them:
o Viability of their product
o Quality of service / support provided to their clients
o Appropriateness of their financial management strategies
& practices
o Ability of leaders to grow with their organization
It could easily be said that success requires consideration
of all four of these factors plus a great many other
factors. In this article, I will leave the exploration
of the first three points to others who may be more
qualified to evaluate them.
The person who starts a small business from scratch
must be an entrepreneur. He or she must be the kind
of person who is prepared to get in there and role up
their sleeves. You must be the bookkeeper, the salesperson,
the administrator and yes, the service provider. In
other words you are the business and the business is
you. In fact, this is one of the reasons individuals
go into business for themselves, to be their own boss.
However, as success is achieved and the business grows,
the skill sets required of the owner / leader change.
As a growing enterprise you, as leader are now called
upon to become:
o a better communicator, to facilitate providing direction
to employees
o more focused on the long range strategies of the organizations
than the day to day tactics
o able to delegate tasks
o the promoter of teamwork among employees
For many this change in role is too much. Why, because
they have not grown with their organization. They wake
up one day to find their business has grown and they
have not, and become frustrated. The trick is to grow
as your business grows. To take care of tasks as they
arise. A few ways to do this are:
o establish a personal development program for yourself
and allow yourself the time to complete it
o develop the people you have working with you to make
the day to day decisions while you focus on the long
range strategy of your company
o document all roles and responsibilities within your
company
o ensure that you have an appropriate and realistic
program in place to develop people to fill each role
within the company
If you have a clear plan and process to accommodate
the concepts in the preceding paragraph, congratulations,
you are positioning your self for success over the long
haul. If you don’t, what are you going to do about it,
starting today?
Gordon Newman is President and Founder of The Newman
Learning Group Inc. an organization dedicated to providing
value add solutions to improve the bottom line performance
of organizations.
back to the top
|
