Business Advice, Smorgesborg And Consensus...All Come With The Same Mask.

Do Not Be Afraid To Change Your Selections

I love to eat.  Food is usually something I can do without much hesitation.  I love to eat.

Potlucks can be a bit scary to attend, but a smorgasbord...now that is another story.  I love to eat at a good smorgasbord restaurant.  I love to have all of those wonderful choices.  I can eat foods that are good but ones that we rarely prepare at home.  It offers us a chance to go eat some good stuff that we do not usually serve in our home menus.

We have gone to smorgasbords with other couples.  We have watched them eat the same stuff they usually prepare at home.  It quietly surprises us at how they select the foods they choose to eat because they know them the best.  If a meat and potatoes guy eats a lot of meat and potatoes, that is what he selects at the smorgasbord.  He passes up on the quiche, the vegetable wraps and the baked salmon.  On his plate is two large slices of prime rib and a huge pile of mashed potatoes and dark gravy.  He had almost the very same thing last night at his home.  The only difference between the two was his steak at home was ground round and the mashed potatoes were baked and smashed with a fork just before he buttered them up to eat them.  All else was essentially the same level of choices, maybe a bit of some upgrades added.

I have also eaten at smorgasbords with large groups of people.  I occasionally ride with large groups of guys on Harley bike trips.  With a group of people like that out on a day ride it is best to keep the meal stop short of a couple of hours.  The best way to do that with large groups is to hit a smorgasbord facility.  That way the order taking process goes much quicker.  Everyone just gets up and goes to retrieve what they want to eat.  It saves a lot of time.  It provides for less confusion.

With a large group the smorgasbord experience has an additional benefit.  Someone describes something they just ate as being an excellent choice.  Then someone else confirms that view with their take on how good that same item was.  Once a third person shares this same view, everyone else begins to go get some of that wonderful stuff.  Consensus takes over.  A low choice item just became the days hit.  Soon it becomes the favorite item on everyone's plate.  Large groups provide this interesting dynamic.  Consensus draws power.

Business development operates much the same.  Business leaders practice exactly what they know.  They continue to do the things they know how to do.  If they know nothing about book keeping and accounting, they usually have crappy data and poor financials.  They stick closely to what they know.  If they routinely eat meat and potatoes, they stick closely to meat and potatoes.  The only time they hire a good book keeper is when they are sitting around a group of their business buddies and hear how some of them have found a great temp agency that has helped them clean up their accounting ways.  Now with consensus working overtime, they get in line to do the same.  Consensus and smorgasbord activities wear the same masks.  They both perform exactly predictable.  They slip on the same look over the face of all types of business affairs.

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Do Not Be Afraid To Change Your Selections

When a business owner is given some good advice they usually treat it like they treat a smorgasbord line up.  They select what they are most familiar with choosing and stick to the things they know the most.  Rarely will a meat and potatoes business owner load up his plate with quiche and fruit salad.  He might try the bacon quiche if all of his buddies wow that dish with unbelievable accolades.  Otherwise, he will remain steadfast to continue to select what he is most familiar with doing.  He will eat the prime rib and mashed potatoes and continue to feel like the king of the mountain.

If his friends hear about his trip to that smorgasbord and they describe how good the ham and shrimp pasta was the last time they went there, he will blow their suggestion off as if he did not hear what they said.  Most business leaders practice this kind of leadership when good business advice floats around their ears.  They wear the same mask they once discovered to understand best.  They stick closely to mashed potatoes and prime rib.  They have no desire to risk losing their shirts to doing something they know nothing about.  They can evaluate prime rib just fine.  How can you lose with prime rib and mashed potatoes?

I see business owners do this very same kind of thinking when their prime rib and mashed potatoes do not work well anymore.  They stick closely to the things that they know best, even if those things do not produce enough profits to survive anymore.  They essentially decide to guarantee a loss.  It happens far more than most business owners are willing to admit.  They stick to choosing the same things they know because those are the things they are most comfortable in doing.  This is true even when their direction is headed for the failure line of the business they own.  In fact, most business owners headed for that failure line will actually grip tighter to those familiar ways when the going gets tougher.  Their increased insecurity will react in the very wrong ways.  They will do a bunch more of the same things that are destroying their chance to change how they manage the corrections they need to inject.  They will actually load up their plate with more prime rib when the doctor tells them their cholesterol is out of control.  It is an amazing thing to witness.

If you own a small business and you are struggling with some levels of success try tasting some new dishes and wait long enough to see if they help your numbers become more healthy.  The next time you decide what to do with your business techniques, try eating the quiche once in awhile.  Experiment with the ham.  Try the fruit salad.  Skip the chocolate cookie fudge and eat the raspberry bread pudding.  Become more equipped to try other methods in the smorgasbord line.  Do not always wait for the consensus to arrive.  You do not need a group approval to correct what is going wrong with your business model.  You can decide to eat other things all by yourself.

Business owners get all wrapped up with silly things like practicing stuff they are most familiar with doing.  They slowly become trapped by those little things and never experience other choices that may do better than they ever expected.  Become willing to try out new things.  Keep an open mind to good advice.  Try out that advice once in awhile.  Give new ideas a healthy chance to be eaten and felt.  Taste them honestly and work their ways into your management style.  Become diverse in your rounded knowledge.  Have a strong enough mind to select what others may not be willing to try.  Some of the best discoveries to success came from someone doing what others did not see.  Be very careful with your consensus reactions.  It is just fine to be a bit of an individual.  I have received a lot of criticism for eating quiche and bread pudding.  But I know a lot more about how good different foods can taste.

Your business should be able to say the same thing.  It should be able to describe so many different ways to make growth happen.  It should be able to recognize each dish of marketing on the vast table of business success.  Get outside of the box of prime rib and mashed potatoes.  Try wearing a completely different mask once in awhile.  Maybe your numbers will find a new path upward?  Who knows?

Until next time...