Stolen from Tim Keane's blog:
So as we think about entrepreneurship, it probably helps to think about our goals. When I was a kid, children wanted to be firemen or policeman or airplane pilots.
When asked today a lot say “I want to be rich.”
That’s a sad comment. Last time I checked, I didn’t think that greed was a virtue.
Living a life of meaning is. And to me that means competing – and winning – in business – with an eye toward the purpose that we strive for.
The question before us today: What’s a visionary company? Here’s a list to consider.
Most of these, to an entrepreneur, seems ordinary. But to large bureaucracies, it seems pretty extraordinary.
1. Visionary companies solve real problems for people.
2. They create wealth for themselves, their employees and their communities
3. They bring hope to their workforce
4. All of their employees see a dashboard of financial results every month – and understand them
5. Everyone understands the companies’ belief system – and signs on to it.
6. There are clear statements of “thou shalt not” -- boundary systems that give everyone the freedom and responsibility to apply their full knowledge and ability to daily problems.
7. They are outstanding executors of strategies for growth
8. They have excellent interactive systems for coaching, mentoring, providing feedback, for everyone in the company
9. They have a growth metric – one measurement of success – that focuses the attention of the entire enterprise. Ours was increasing business from current customers.
10. The entrepreneur knows that if clarity of purpose, accountability, and responsibility begin to fade in his organization, then politically gifted bureaucrats begin to rise to positions of power and spread like noxious weeds. The best always have a weed whacker handy.
It’s always all about the people.
Every time I look at a business opportunity – several hundred a year – the people in the business are key to success.
– Not the idea;
– Not the technology;
– The people.
– Because the successful entrepreneur provides leadership and the ability to attract other great people.
– And to lead them in a way that gives them the opportunity to contribute fully and completely and to realize their own dreams.
So why don’t entrepreneurs work for big companies? What makes people want to do their own thing?
1. The quality of leadership in any company is absolutely critical for the company to get maximum benefit from the contribution of every employee. How much has been written about this? Jim Collins, Good To Great is just one example. It seems sad that entrepreneurial leadership in large corporations is so exceptional that a book has to be written about how leaders who lead achieve great results.
2. Poor leaders use information as power, manipulate the very people who have offered them their most precious resource – their time and attention – and do it all to avoid the very qualities that make corporations worth working for – accountability and achievement in a higher purpose.
3. It’s not an accident that every country singer on the planet is required to write a song called “Take this job and shove it” or some variation thereof before they’re allowed to buy their first Stetson.
4. Some entrepreneurs left where they were because they felt underutilized, underappreciated, under-everything, and in the face of a great idea, decided that was their opportunity. Many of you did.
And a lot of people admired you when you pulled it off.
What is the point of all of this?
One of our biggest challenges in entrepreneurial ventures is growth. Growing means
– turning one-off activities and disparate tasks into a series of routines
– that run well and lower the costs and increase the quality of outcomes
– and begin the process of sustainable growth
And, if we have learned from the non-entrepreneurial climates we’ve been exposed to, we can work that experience to our advantage when we set out to do this.
Why?
Because we can best achieve this with a group of motivated, dedicated people who believe in the company and its vision.
So to achieve sustainable growth, we ask ourselves:
· Do we engage our teams to create processes that both bring out the best in people and build efficiency?
· Does every employee see the company P&L every month? Do we discuss the big challenges with them?
· Do we have a belief system that everyone supports?
· Do we have a real dedication to training and education?
· Do we give people responsibility?
There’s a great Harvard case called Altex Aviation. In it to aspiring entrepreneurs bought an aviation operator at a small airport. The company was command and control oriented, had what appeared to be weak employees, and was failing. They paid $100,000 for it.
The new owners immediately – within weeks – made each little unit – gas sales, flight school, maintenance and so forth – an independent business. They helped people learn how to manage their new responsibilities. They really lost no one. They became profitable, grew sales from $2MM to $30MM in eight years, and sold the business for $3MM. That’s a thirty times return in eight years.
Their employees, and the employees of great entrepreneurial companies say:
The best leader I ever had was a person who…
· Listened to me
· Helped me make a valuable and lasting contribution
· Cared about my success
· Let me do my job the way I thought it needed to be done
· Let me make mistakes
· Coached me and saw potential in me
· Challenged me
· Taught me
· Gave me the confidence to hire people better than me.
