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The Most Neglected Ingredient in Business Growth

Written by: Sam Allman

Article Overview: Some 96% of all businesses fail within their first eight years. Owners who have survived great challenges know that some crucial elements protect them from fire damage. Too many, unfortunately, have neglected one element. That void can be lethal to a business. The most neglected ingredient promoting business growth is leadership.

The Most Neglected Ingredient in Business Growth

Some businesses succeed despite random inefficiencies. Vigorous economies, like ours today, allow such success. Indeed, “success covers a multitude of blunders.” However, weak economies and tough competitors test the mettle of a business. Those challenges, like the refiner’s fire, consume those businesses that harbor gross flaws, even while they burn the minor dross out of the better ones. “Success covers a multitude of blunders” only short-term.

Learning from history, we can count on refiners’ fires to rage, sooner or later, through every business. This article suggests some “fire insurance” ideas that the more profitable businesses apply.

Some 96% of all businesses fail within their first eight years. Owners who have survived great challenges know that some crucial elements protect them from fire damage. Too many, unfortunately, have neglected one element. That void can be lethal to a business.

The most neglected ingredient promoting business growth is leadership.

Why is it so neglected? Usually, simple ignorance. (Not ignorance as in “stupidity”, but as in ignoring known truths.)

Some owners and managers ignore leadership because they lack management experience. They’re cracker-jacks at selling or great at “doing the business”. But, they spend less than 10% of their time “building the business.” (They should spend 90 percent of their time on “building”.)

Other owners and managers have sufficient management experience, yet ignore one fact: a company’s effectiveness cannot rise even one degree above the quality of its own leadership. These managers deny that the tone for the entire business is set by them. Rather, they shift any blame to the products, suppliers, customers, or employees.

They like to cite the results of a recent survey. About 50 percent of employees said they only put enough effort into their work to just hold onto their jobs. And 84 percent said they could work better - - if they wanted to. These managers focus on that phrase, “If they wanted to . . . .” They know this kind of employee, and there are very few people today that want to work hard. They’re not motivated!”
The managers are correct that it’s the old “motivation problem”! However, they’re not correct about the source of the problem. They think it’s the employees. In fact, it’s the leadership.
Leaders are largely responsible (notice: not entirely responsible) for their employees’ level of motivation. As proof, I present these very same employees in their personal lives. They cultivate families, buy homes, plan vacations, take on large projects, continually learn, and serve in voluntary organizations. Few are lazy by nature.
If that’s true, what mysterious power invades their souls, mornings while driving to work? What power washes their motivation away by the time they check in? And, why doesn’t that same power attack managers?

“It’s the economy, stupid!” The answer turns out to be the ”economy” of the workplace – how the managers structure the whole work environment. Some unwittingly reward bad behaviors. Some push employees toward goals that mean little to them. Too many owners micro-manage the work processes, as well as the results they want. Most expect results that employees haven’t heard, let alone understand. Altogether, many managers are undermining, rather than undergirding, their employees’ self-confidence. That is de-motivating at its best!

People are naturally motivated to push themselves towards goals that they have chosen -- goals that fit what they value. Too many managers don’t learn to mesh the company’s goals with the employees’ innate goals. A leader is continually challenged to influence employees to apply their natural motivation on the job. A manager who lacks that influence suffers a severe leadership handicap.

This is not to say that the most effective managers find this easy. In every business and with every senior leader, a wide gap exists between the highest demands of the office and the native abilities the leader can supply. It’s the law of supply and demand, again. Good leaders feel inadequate, because they are inadequate. Fortunately, all managers can learn to become inspiring leaders.
For example, owners lacking the ability to influence employees are found to wail, “If only I could hire the right people . . ..” Granted, hiring extraordinary people is one solution, but few businesses can afford to have that wish granted. Until that “ideal day”, more productive managers use this strategy. They search, to uncover the unique powers of each employee.

They look deeper into the characters, competencies, and goals of their present employees. While investigating them, they honor this principle: “Different people develop at different rates, and the best motivators are always on the lookout for hidden capacities.” They remember that --

• Albert Einstein was four years old before he could speak . . . and seven before he could read.
• Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school.
• Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor, because he had “no good ideas.”
• Werner von Braun failed ninth grade algebra.
• Haydn gave up on making a musician of Beethoven, who seemed to be a slow and plodding man of no apparent talent.

Some research suggests that every human being is a genius in some form. (Howard Gardner of Harvard University) The manager’s challenge is to find the form of each employee’s genius. Doing so, leaders produce optimal results through others. Leadership takes advantage of synergy.

In my experience, 99 times out of a 100, it’s more expedient to sharpen the leader’s skills than to wait until one can hire wholly self-motivated employees. (Besides, an “ignorant” manager can ruin the best in others’ motivation.)

“The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.” (Walter Lippman)

Great leaders provide systems and leadership that inspire ordinary people to produce extraordinary results. In our training seminars, owners and managers learn how to inspire employees to work more effectively. They, also, help employees feel happy at work, and loyal to the company. Happy and loyal employees yield happy and loyal customers.

A business short on capital can borrow money, and one in a poor location can move. But a business short on leadership has little chance of survival. Leadership is the neglected ingredient of business success without which a business cannot thrive.

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Article Tags: blunders, business growth, cracker jacks, doing the business, dross, fire damage, fire insurance, inefficiencies, insurance ideas, management experience, mettle, multitude, phr, products suppliers, profitable businesses, promoting business, refiner, refiners, stupidity, vigorous economies



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