Leadership, Business And More Leadership

Fix The Leaks

Scroll around the web and search for help on how to improve your business models.  There are countless opportunities floating about the web that provide worthwhile suggestions which offer great examples to apply.  There is no lack in the libraries of helpful tools.  If this is true, then why do so many business models continue to struggle so seriously to succeed?  A business mentor once told me that systems are great, it is when you insert the people that they get all fouled up.  People screw it all up.  Systems of success work just fine.  It is the people that step in that run it off the road.  Business models struggle because there are people in charge of the command post that manages them.  There is not enough of the good leadership required to help those failing business models win.  Leadership and business go hand in hand.  Unfortunately, there is enough leadership only to own and operate one...yet not enough leadership to produce success from managing one.

The gap to success shows up when the leadership has been exhausted.  The storehouse of stock that produces the best leadership finds the end of its rope.  It is discovered that there are limits to how much leadership can be applied to the business model.  Once that storehouse of leadership becomes all used up, the business model begins its slow decent into a failing spin that seems to take forever to complete.  Failing business models can operate for a very long time in this type of mode.  It is painful to watch, painful to manage and painful to approach every single day.  It will wear out the leader and eventually destroy the good they ever dreamed would come out of their business model experience.  They become bitter and discouraged.  Most business owners show signs of this truth in small pockets of the decision-making they do.  Discouraged bitterness finds its way to the surface where the most challenging obstacles tend to appear.  The leader quits leading and begins to start following.  More leadership is needed when the fire gets stronger, not more following.

A business model that is facing some serious obstacles that are distracting the model away from success does not need its leader to stop leading.  It needs its leader to start leading with more success.  If your model is struggling, begin to concede.  Conceded to accept that your leadership needs to improve and increase.  Without this quiet move, your business model is at risk to continue to fail.  If you do not increase your level and volume of leadership, your business project will drain your money, your energy and your spirit.  It may well be doing that very thing right now.  Get it together.  Start to work on improving your leadership skills.  Leadership and business go hand in hand.  They are in many ways the same thing.  If your business model is struggling, it is safe to assume that your business leadership is struggling as well.  When I describe business leadership I am not referring to control.  A lot of business owners are demanding and in control.  That is not exactly the kind of leadership I am describing.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Being in control sucks when your business model does not get it.  Most owners cannot see this effect.  Most businesses are afflicted by it.  It is the result of lost leadership.  The owners are truly lost with their leadership exhibits.  They are displaying the wrong stuff.  Their business results are revealing it.  Blinks are happening.

Know Where Your Leaks Are

I like to see the blinks that others do not see.  Once I find someone who can learn how to recognize little blinks, it is fun having them stand beside me and describe when they recognize them.  The art of managing blinks can be a very satisfying process.  Most leaders miss the little blinks in their models that are occurring.  The leaders get so wrapped up with the war of managing their business models that they cannot see the trees through the forest.  When this happens, each tree that blinks cannot be seen by the leader who is trapped in the thickness of the forest of business thoughts.  Leadership gets lost.  Leadership begins to run around in tighter circles and seems to be chasing its own tail.  Business models that are failing are the ones performing this kind of circle running.  A lot of energy is being spent to achieve repairs applied to things that should already be completed.  The business model is littered with too much to do that is not producing enough of what should be coming out.  The leadership becomes compromised.  It becomes exhausted, too.  What is worse, it needs more leadership to survive.

I have found myself in this unwanted position plenty of times in my life.  It is an awful place to be.  I hate it.  It can destroy a persons self image, and does.  It can blind a leader from the things that must be seen and recognized.  It can distort the truth and mislead the signals to the paths that must be taken.  It can drain the energy from the leader that needs to be strong.  Operating a failed business model can be some very trying stuff.  Clarity becomes distorted.  Decisions become skewed.  Relationships fall apart.  Finances spin out of control.  The business model begins to wag the dog.

I have spent the better part of the last sixteen years being hired to repair broken business models.  Three of them to be exact.  Two of those three business models had only one leg in the grave.  The third one had both legs in the grave.  All three have pulled out of the grave and have won their troubling battles.  I cannot report that it was fun.  It was not.  Each of them found plenty of garbage to manage every single day.  Every single effort of repair required baby steps to endure.  It is a tremendous example of the need for extreme patience.  The owners are the worse of the obstacles I faced.  They were in that position for a very good reason.  They operate incorrectly and believe they are operating well.  They are and were the largest challenge in the effort to repair.  They lacked in proper leadership skills.  To this day, they will still not admit it.  They are now modified in their efforts to lead yet will not actually admit they have made huge changes in how they operate.  That same business mentor once told me that the greatest American affliction is denial.  He claimed that denial is the source of almost all problems.  The owners of those three business models were the epitome of denial.  My most challenging work on those three projects was to get the owners to turn when they did not believe they needed to turn.  Denial was in the way.

If your business model is failing, accept it.  If your business model is being lead by you, accept it.  Stop playing with denial.  It is delaying your way back to success.  There is one thing I know about money and success, I would much rather have it today than three years from now.  It is tremendously better to have it right now.  To believe anything else is likely a part of some kind of mental sickness.  Cure that sickness.  Start to repair what you need to repair first.  Get straight to the source.  Go straight to your own mind.  Begin to work on developing a better sense for business leadership that is far more effective than the ones you are using right now.  Change the way you are going about your business efforts.  They are not working.  Change them.  Get help.  Find better leadership to use as your models.  Select winners to help you learn how to win.  Do not get into their way when they offer suggestions.  Truthfully and willingly try them out.  You might be surprised.  Most are.

Learning can be fun.  Leaders that have any salt at all never quit the learning process.  They spend more time on learning than they ever spend on teaching.  They definitely spend more time on learning than they ever do on controlling.  They are great artists at submission.  They are better artists at serving.  Leadership and business are very much the same thing, they both need more leadership.

Until next time...