One of the things I've always thought important as you grow a company is self-examination. Not a good feel around your personal places – although that's an important thing to do – but a process by which you look regularly at the challenges facing your firm and how equipped you are as a person to deal with them.
It's only natural for entrepreneurs to try to make the most of their strengths. After all, everything from common sense through to the theory of comparative advantage would lead people, companies and even countries to believe that they should concentrate on that which they excel.
Over the years, both the shiny, positive outpourings of business self-help books and earnest management texts have largely reinforced this idea. After all, one of the bestselling business publications of recent years is Buckingham and Clifton's 'Now Discover Your Strengths' (best said in one of those gravelly faux-American movie trailer voices, of course). However, ever the contrarian, I often think that what you are best at could be the biggest problem you need to overcome as you fight to keep your enterprise out in front.
Neglecting the big picture
The trap we can all fall into is that we become comfortable with the attitudes and skills that we have mastered and which have got us to where we are. In assuming 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', we fail to face up to the fact that these may be found wanting if we are required to work at a higher level or deal with bigger challenges.
A classic example of the failure to do this is so often evident in early-stage firms which, although perfectly positioned and financed, fail to grow adequately. In most, you'll find the same problem – founder entrepreneurs that don't delegate and end up micromanaging those doing the job that they used to do, so neglecting the big picture they must address to get their enterprise to the next stage whilst demotivating those around them and exasperating investors at the same time.
Leaders who rely too much on the same strengths over time may also find that they develop tunnel vision, seeing the same solution to every problem. Arse-kicking bosses turn subordinates into useless ciphers and sycophants. Decisiveness in management morphs into bloody-minded intransigence, whilst caring and consensus-obsessed leaders institutionalise inaction.
Leadership in context
It's also true though, that the value of strengths is also context-dependent - there is a right place and a right time for every behaviour. Much as I admire Margaret Thatcher, I doubt if I'd wanted to have worked directly with the Iron Lady. Even those hardened souls that were her closest advisers criticised her for breaking 'every rule of good man-management', including bullying those weaker in her team, criticising her political colleagues in front of civil servants and refusing to give praise or credit when due. However, growing up in UK in the 1970s, I can be sure her driving, abrasive style was exactly what Britain needed by the 1980s. That said, it also led to her rapid down fall as those who she had cast aside over the years leapt to take their revenge.
Just as Thatcher was single-minded, so many successful entrepreneurs appear successful precisely because they focus on their strengths. Richard Branson has turned Virgin into a global brand by taking on big business Goliaths and winning with the attitude of a hippie David. I say appear because, of course, what rarely hits the headlines is his choice of great complementary and balancing personalities and executers of his vision that surround him on his successful ventures. He also has the skills of distraction that prevent the public lingering on his many failures that would be the envy of the most accomplished magician.
The difference between 'correct' and 'right'
To me, the word that is too often missing from discussions about strengths is judgment. I've sat on boards where every debate is reduced to numbers, as everybody involved in directing the business is desperate to appear rational and in command.
This approach is endorsed by business school academics because they want to get funded, and further reinforced when their MBA students become consultants because they want to prove that they are selling something more than just a model, opinion or even instinct. It's easier to look decisive and business-like when hiding behind a spread sheet because numbers are immutable, absolute – simpler to defend or blame when things go wrong. However it's not where the true value of a business lies.
To my mind, judgment is what matters most, no matter how hard it is to measure. There is a big difference between 'correct' and 'right', and judgement will tell you what it is. Ultimately too, it's judgment that provides balance, knowing when to reign in your strengths and when to let them rip.
Hence the importance of a good self-examination. Unfortunately the judgment that'll tell you what to do once you've poked about in your psyche is elusive, and difficult to learn and master. That's why it is the consummate business skill.
Over the years, both the shiny, positive outpourings of business self-help books and earnest management texts have largely reinforced this idea. After all, one of the bestselling business publications of recent years is Buckingham and Clifton's 'Now Discover Your Strengths' (best said in one of those gravelly faux-American movie trailer voices, of course). However, ever the contrarian, I often think that what you are best at could be the biggest problem you need to overcome as you fight to keep your enterprise out in front.
Neglecting the big picture
The trap we can all fall into is that we become comfortable with the attitudes and skills that we have mastered and which have got us to where we are. In assuming 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', we fail to face up to the fact that these may be found wanting if we are required to work at a higher level or deal with bigger challenges.
A classic example of the failure to do this is so often evident in early-stage firms which, although perfectly positioned and financed, fail to grow adequately. In most, you'll find the same problem – founder entrepreneurs that don't delegate and end up micromanaging those doing the job that they used to do, so neglecting the big picture they must address to get their enterprise to the next stage whilst demotivating those around them and exasperating investors at the same time.
Leaders who rely too much on the same strengths over time may also find that they develop tunnel vision, seeing the same solution to every problem. Arse-kicking bosses turn subordinates into useless ciphers and sycophants. Decisiveness in management morphs into bloody-minded intransigence, whilst caring and consensus-obsessed leaders institutionalise inaction.
Leadership in context
It's also true though, that the value of strengths is also context-dependent - there is a right place and a right time for every behaviour. Much as I admire Margaret Thatcher, I doubt if I'd wanted to have worked directly with the Iron Lady. Even those hardened souls that were her closest advisers criticised her for breaking 'every rule of good man-management', including bullying those weaker in her team, criticising her political colleagues in front of civil servants and refusing to give praise or credit when due. However, growing up in UK in the 1970s, I can be sure her driving, abrasive style was exactly what Britain needed by the 1980s. That said, it also led to her rapid down fall as those who she had cast aside over the years leapt to take their revenge.
Just as Thatcher was single-minded, so many successful entrepreneurs appear successful precisely because they focus on their strengths. Richard Branson has turned Virgin into a global brand by taking on big business Goliaths and winning with the attitude of a hippie David. I say appear because, of course, what rarely hits the headlines is his choice of great complementary and balancing personalities and executers of his vision that surround him on his successful ventures. He also has the skills of distraction that prevent the public lingering on his many failures that would be the envy of the most accomplished magician.
The difference between 'correct' and 'right'
To me, the word that is too often missing from discussions about strengths is judgment. I've sat on boards where every debate is reduced to numbers, as everybody involved in directing the business is desperate to appear rational and in command.
This approach is endorsed by business school academics because they want to get funded, and further reinforced when their MBA students become consultants because they want to prove that they are selling something more than just a model, opinion or even instinct. It's easier to look decisive and business-like when hiding behind a spread sheet because numbers are immutable, absolute – simpler to defend or blame when things go wrong. However it's not where the true value of a business lies.
To my mind, judgment is what matters most, no matter how hard it is to measure. There is a big difference between 'correct' and 'right', and judgement will tell you what it is. Ultimately too, it's judgment that provides balance, knowing when to reign in your strengths and when to let them rip.
Hence the importance of a good self-examination. Unfortunately the judgment that'll tell you what to do once you've poked about in your psyche is elusive, and difficult to learn and master. That's why it is the consummate business skill.
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