After our recent columns dealing with opportunities during a recession, an associate noted that everything I discussed was basically just good business, just that the recession is providing an atmosphere of justifiable urgency.
And he was, of course, quite correct. There is very little new in the area of management that has not already been written about ad nauseum. The issue is not one of quantity of information. So what is it that ultimately underlies good, effective management?
Talk with any seasoned and successful businessperson and they will tell you that the key is not in the knowing; rather it is in the doing. Esoteric discussions are great ways to enjoy lunches and cocktails, but as one of my entrepreneurial friends is fond of saying, “That’s not what feeds the bulldog!”
So if knowledge is commonplace and readily accessible, and action is what is required, why then do so many companies fail? For simplicity sake, let’s not even discuss the obvious requirement of correct action, as this is a retrospective evaluation, valid only after all the results are in.
As these results must include some learning also known as experience, then every active pursuit has some degree of success.
The problem lies in the nonactive pursuers, that great majority of managers for whom the status quo is their little haven of false security.
These folks simply lack the courage that any venture into the unknown requires. They cower in the knowledge that every change is an unknown. They doom themselves and their employees to a life of failure at worst and mediocrity at best.
So how does one develop an attitude, a spirit of urgency and action? Anecdotal observation indicates that it cannot be developed, at least in adults. An attitude of urgency and action directly implies a possibility of failure and the ability to deal positively with failure is something that is learned in one’s youth.
Reading biographies of successful business people almost always points to some positive influence in their young lives who somehow conveyed to them that the important thing is the effort, and effort means doing.
Have you ever wondered how Olympic-class skiers can go down vertical walls with no apparent concern for their health and well-being?
How about the skater performing a triple jump or the skateboarder doing something that can’t even be described? Do you think that when they fall and crash that somehow it hurts them less than anyone else?
Hardly, but when you chat with them, the fear of failure never creeps into their conversation or if it does, it is always referenced as a part and parcel of their positive development. They have fallen many times and have learned that falling is not synonymous with failure.
Not getting back up might be.
This same rejection of fear is a necessary ingredient for every successful entrepreneur. Before you decide to pursue the great American dream of owning your own business, take some time and really ask yourself if you are capable and willing to handle the fall.
John F. Riddell Jr., director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Growth-Hamilton County, writes each Tuesday about entrepreneurs and their impact on companies and the marketplace. Submit comments to his attention by writing to Business Editor John Vass Jr., Chattanooga Times Free Press, P.O. Box 1447, Chattanooga, TN 37401-1447, or by e-mailing him at business@timesfreepress.com
