What Is My Business Future?

The Future Requires A Strong Character

Some owners ask, what is my business future?  What does my future look like in this world of business?  My answer, I don't know.

I do not get up each morning worrying about the future landscape of my business life.  I know I will always be faced with challenges that determine what I need to change and modify in how I do what I do.  I know these kinds of things will always find a serious way to appear.  They have become one of the more consistent things that work their way onto the paths I travel in my business world.  Challenges eventually surface that require my deeper attention in order for me to preserve my success work I plan to do.  That is why business ownership, an entrepreneurship effort, is so considered such a great risk.  Owning your own business is a great risk.  It absorbs all errors and all mysteries into part of its changing world.  The owner wears the goggles that cannot see the clarity of the future path they must navigate.  Owners work much of their future planning on blind hunches that rarely pan out exactly the way it was drawn out.  The future is often made up with a combination of surprises.  What is my business future?  Who knows?

If you are the type of soul that depends upon more security in knowing how your future will pan out, you will not likely be strong enough to own your own business.  Employees like to know what security they have for the future work they decided to do.  They need to successfully assume that where they work is going to continue to operate in the same fashion it already has been doing.  Employees tend to place this part of their work security near the top of their list of desires.  Employees like knowing that their future work environment is not carrying the constant threat of going away.  Owners will never truly get to enjoy that feeling.  Owners may actually work hard to provide it for their employees, but they will never really get to experience it for themselves.  Owners are given the task to face the realities of survival on a much higher plane.  Owners must pay closer attention to the kinds of decisions that influence survival activities.  Owners work on making sure they 'guess' right when they make courageous business decisions.  Sometimes clarity on those tougher decisions is absent.  Good guess work is required for success.  Employees get to escape that whole scenario.  If your tendencies lean toward the security side of this equation, you might skip trying to become an owner.  You may become too disappointed when the reality of this truth finds its way to your doorstep.  The future carries too many mysteries.

We live in interesting times.  Things are not always as they seem.  Rules are becoming more difficult to manage profitably.  Fundamentals are becoming more and more lost inside the menagerie of increased leadership confusion.  Emotions have become a stronger consideration in the decision making models that determine what a business should and should not do.  Competition has grown more fierce.  The intensity of the increase to competitive challenges has become the by-product stemming from the onslaught of one of the most ugly economies owners have ever had to face.  Weakening business models are selling low from desperation and injecting chaos into the patterns of healthy bottom lines.  Creativity is on fire and a lot of it is too wild to be consumer absorbed.  The marketing 'one-ups-man-ship' game is running out of control.  It is getting too expensive to produce a profitable marketing plan.  The 'bigs' are getting bigger and the 'little' are fighting to survive.  The future is looking a lot like a small forest fire.  The winds are picking up and the fire fighters look terribly small.  Owners face this kind of business landscape in their quiet minds.  Employees miss out on all of this fun.

What is my business future?  I work with a very good group of employees.  They are productive and supportive of the team concept.  However, they do not carry the depth of future fears in the same way an owner carries them.  The owner has a deeper, more painful level of fears to manage about how the future will pan out for the business they own.  Employees escape this pain.  Owners quietly own it day in and day out.  There is a difference.  One must recognize this difference if they accept any position of leadership that has anything to do with facing the future of these deeper unknowns.  Any part of leadership that represents ownership is instantly thrown into the unsecured world of future decision making activities.  Security is compromised for these types of leaders.  Security becomes a regular thing that works hard on becoming a fleeting commodity.  Employees hate what this feeling produces.  This truth is usually the number one reason why employees remain employees.  They want to work in what they consider to be a more secure environment.  Owners and business leaders do not get to enjoy the same effect.  Owners and their business leaders must face higher levels of business unknowns.  It is always a more risky territory to navigate.

What is my business future?

Future Success Can Be Easier To Find When The 'Right' Character Is Employed

My business life has not always been spent working from the upper levels of the employment world.  I have been on the bottom rung of the employment ladder more than enough to know that it operates hugely different than the top rung of that employment ladder.  The two worlds think differently.  The ownership and upper management levels have a completely different view of how business should be done than the lower ranks of the employment ladder.  Both sides do not see things exactly in the same fashion.  The most significant difference between the two is on the subject of security.  The lower the position on the ladder of employment the more those people desire security.  Living my life on both ends of this ladder strongly confirms this notion.

The risk takers find their way near the top of the employment ladder.  The people who want more safety from their job security roll down the rungs to the lower levels of the employment ladder.  Although the lower they go down the rungs of the employment ladder, the risk of job loss actually gets higher.  The illusion of security does not always match the reality.

The higher up the rungs of the employment ladder, the more the risks will arrive.  The most risk is obviously at the top rung, in the owners seat.  This is how it works in all business models.  Owners take on the most pressure from the deepest risks.  What is more interesting about this true scenario is that they are also not seen as the ones who take on the most risks.  Rather, they are seen as the ones who get the most pay.  In fact, in many cases the employees actually believe they are the ones who do the most work for the least compensated rewards.  This scenario is a common assumption.  Business owners fight with this human anomaly.  The way they manage this challenge will often times determine how successful they will become.  It is one of the quiet subjects that determine a good deal about how well a business model performs.  I have seen the mismanagement of this single subject kill a great business model, more than once.  Be careful how you manage these truths if you own a business model.  This seemingly silly stuff can eat your model out of house and home.  It can sneak up and destroy every single bit of risky efforts that should be returning better results.  Watch out for this silent killer of business success.  The healthy management of your group dynamics will dominate how well your model will perform.  It will have nothing to do with inventory control, income statements and balance sheets.  Those things are vitally important, but will cave in if the dynamics turn sour.  I have seen great business models fold at the knees of employee discontent.  Owners hate this truth.

What is my business future?  I do not know.  What I do know for sure is that regardless of what ever future landscape an owner must unfortunately face, having a good and healthy employment team that is well groomed with appropriate respect to the human factors of employee desires...will go a long ways to helping that business model weather the rocky seas it will eventually navigate.  Even if the owner cannot out-guess the future, he can develop a strong supportive staff that will easily do the things that will be required to perform as they work their way to manage the rough seas that often times arrive.

If you are an owner and you keep facing the question, what is my business future?  Your clearer answer comes from how well you develop the best staff you can throw at whatever comes alive.  An owner who finally accepts this truth is the owner who has the best chance for facing the worst scenarios.  I consider this process as one of the best ones to use for defending myself against the most risky unknowns.  Work harder on the human factors than you do on your balance sheet efforts.  Your employee strength will be one of the most important assets you own.  Capture this truth in its fullest details.  Get good at people stuff.  Place it higher on the scale of business importance.  Then when you are faced in the future with the plagues buried inside the question, what is my business future?  You will sit back comfortably knowing that your staff is fully prepared to handle anything that the rough oceans can offer.

Get this part of your leadership down correctly.  Your future unknowns will be less intimidating.

Until next time...