Thinking about your Company’s Future?

How are you thinking about your Company’s future?

There are two types of company leaders. You are either:

1. Fearing for what might happen OR
2. Steering to what you want to have happen

If you are in the first group, it is very likely that what you fear will occur WILL HAPPEN. If you want to beat the habit of running your company with fear about the future, click here.

If you are in the second group, it is very likely that what you want to occur WILL HAPPEN. If you want to know how to make sure everyone on your team agrees with you, performs at a level not thought possible before and is working toward your vision, click here.

How are you thinking about your own future?

There are two types of company owners. You are either:

1. Not thinking like an investor and therefore not taking the time to think about how you will extract your retirement money from your company OR
2. Thinking like an investor and steering your company to a well understood and defined exit strategy and have implemented a growth plan to be attractive to investors, financiers, employees and especially customers.

If you are in the first group, it is very likely that a Disease, Divorce or Death will do your thinking for you. That puts your investment at risk of not being realized (meaning no buyer can be found for your company) or that the amount that you actually get for your company is substantially less than what it might have done had you prepared you and your company to move toward a specific exit strategy. (Pick one, there are three-four options.) If this is you, click here for more information that might change your life or at least your perception of what might be possible.

If you are in the second group (thinking like an investor) but didn’t know you also needed a growth strategy, click here. If you are in the second group and are in growth mode and are moving toward a Strategic, Financial, MBO or Harvest transition or transaction, congratulations. According to the US Small Business Administration and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, you are in the small minority of business owners who will need/want to retire in the next 3-5 years and have a plan to get there. But ask yourself, are you getting the performance you’d hoped for? If not, click here.

How Leadership Training Helps the Bottom Line

Much has been said about companies needing ‘the right management’ team. But what does that term mean really? To understand the concept it might be useful to know the difference between managing and leadership and remember that it is the people performing the work under the right leadership that make or break the bottom line.

Managers set the strategy and work with staff on the action plan. Leaders set the vision for how this work should be done and where the company should be philosophically, financially and strategically once the project is complete.

Leaders mentor managers by respectfully holding them able and accountable. Managers delegate and work with staff to ensure they have the resources to do the work. Sometimes the best leaders are staff members. Sometimes those people with leadership titles don’t know how to do more than manage, nevermind mentor.

In our work, we’ve found that the hardest thing for manager/leaders to do is to delegate… to stop thinking others don’t do it as well as they do. Many managers think you should be able to show someone something once and then get mad at them the second time when they ‘don’t get it’. People should just know how to change how they work by being told what to do. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but humans don’t work that way. And neither should managers who want to be leaders.

If your management team isn’t getting results and gets more resistance than progress, read this article about how leadership training helps the bottom line.

Not everyone is born knowing how to take on the these two roles.