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Thinking Like an Owner

Guest post by: Robert Whipple

Article Overview: Many people fail to keep the mindset of an owner of the business. In doing so, they suffer political damage. This article gives some tips on how to improve your performance by thinking like an owner of the business.

Thinking Like an Owner

You will need to "sell" your change initiatives up the organization, as well as down. Sometimes it's easier for a middle manager to sell new ideas to subordinates than to management. Both are equally important. Do your homework before presenting your program to management. Here are a few tips that will help:

• Understand who has to approve your program and find out the political climate.

• Determine the financial implications of your proposal and make sure you have a compelling business case.

• Pre-release information as appropriate to develop allies in support of your proposal.

• Find out if there are competing proposals in other parts of the organization.

• Do a "trial balloon" with the decision maker so you will have a preview of any concerns.

• Determine the best timing and venue to present your plan.

Despite all these efforts, your program may run into some flack or be rejected. If that happens, you may become upset with management. You might reason, "This is a really smart thing to do for the company, but Management won't approve it. They are clueless."

The antidote to this frustration is to start thinking like an owner. Ask yourself some tough questions like, "If this were coming out of my own pocket, would I really be so supportive?" Another good test is to ask, if you had all the shareholders take a proxy on your initiative would it really pass? In smaller programs, you might test if you are proposing this for the good of the company or for personal gain. Finally, test the ethics of the proposal. Is it immoral, illegal, or dumb? If it doesn't fly, it is time to rework the strategy.

Reasons your proposal may be rejected:

• Upper management may not be acting in congruence with stated values, vision and mission, or there may be a disconnect between how you understand these things and how upper management sees them. There may be things you did not take into account during the analysisphase. This is a signal to step back, assess the issue, and take a different path forward.

• Your pet project may not be aligned with the true vision as seen by upper management. Keep testing for this. Often, higher-level strategies are not as clear as you would like, or they may be clear but just not valid. If your initiative really fits the stated vision but is still rejected, it is likely that a different, hidden agenda is in effect. In this case you need to tactfully try to identify and resolve the problem with upper management.

• You may have failed to get your initiative well understood up the chain. If you haven't done a good job of selling your initiative, why should management buy into it? Before presenting an idea, think of it as a marketing campaign in your political environment. Find allies and understand your foes. Get input so you can counter any arguments. Thoroughly prepare to do battle for your cause.

• Your idea may be too risky in your current environment. If you propose a new gas pipeline that will save millions of dollars on transportation, but it runs over hostile territory, you may be overlooking a thing or two.

• Timing is another drawback. "This is great but the timing is wrong. Come back in a year."

• Higher priority work may push your project to below the funding cutoff. This is frustrating because everyone agrees the project is great, but "We just don't have enough money to do all the things we want to do." Be prepared to swallow hard and think creatively about how your initiative could be modified to lower costs and raise benefits.

• You might not understand (or be privy to) the bigger picture. Sure, investing in a new boiler could save your plant a lot of money, but if a merger planned for next year makes your building obsolete, it isn't such a "hot" project.

If your initiative is rejected, make sure you find out the real reason. Often the stated reason is a smokescreen. "We like the idea, George, but we want to get the Waterman account firmed up before we think about implementing it." Use all your detective skills to dig beneath the surface and you can usually find the fire under the smoke. A key ally in this could be the staff and administration people closest to the decision-makers.

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Article Tags: Change, leadership, ownership, trust



Related Forum Posts
Job titles - [quote:3shpwvxj]In fact, I've had friends tell me that "Founder" is better than "Owner" since it's less possessive.[/quote:3shpwvxj] For myself, I don't care for the term "Founder" [i:3shpwvxj]because [/i:3shpwvxj]it's not possessive. You can be the founder of a company and have sold it - so it no longer belongs to you. However, if you call yourself "Owner" - people know the company is still in your hands. But I don't like Owner, either. I'd prefer President or Director, because one can be an absentee owner, whereas if one is a President or Director, people assume you're involved in the day to day activities. Manager, on the other hand, wouldn't work if its your business, because (to me, anyway) that implies that you "manage" for someone else - like at a restaurant.
Seeking advice on working procedure of Convenience Store Fra - I have some queries about the working of the franchises. How does the relationship between the Store Owner, Suppliers and Corporate works exactly? How does the store owners get reimbursed when they sell commodities like coke in fewer prices than others?
Re: THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD...RIGHT NOW!!! - Success = Thinking (Head) + Heart (Feeling / Interest) + Hand (doing/ action). Success - H3 Robert
Hiring introverts vs. extroverts - Hi Kevin - interesting topic! Thinking back over my career as an entrepreneur and the people I've brought on, most of them have been introverts. The exception usually comes with the sales function (but not always). It's generally hard to be a good salesperson if you are an introvert.
Re: Essential Leadership skills - Vision Values Mission Strategic Thinking Decision Making Communication Team Bonding People Development Coaching / Mentoring / Guiding / Grooming Presentation Thanks Robert


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