5 Lessons Batman Can Teach You About Successful Business.

If I had to pick the two subjects I know best, I'd choose business strategy and Batman.

To the untrained eye, these two subjects seem entirely unrelated. Some of you may even think I'm an idiot for reserving space in my brain for the Caped Crusader. That's OK. I don't mind. By the time you're done reading I know you'll be hitting up your local comic book store for some more Gotham-based enterprise wisdom.

The secret ingredient is Bat Bucks.

Why? Because he's Batman (also sensible reasons).

There are several reasons both Batman and business are worth mentioning in the same breath. Surprisingly, none of them involves Bruce Wayne and his Wayne Enterprises boardroom. None require dead billionaire parents or a dedicated butler, either.

If you're a business owner or leader there's a wealth of strategic insight to be gained from following the ways of Batman. Here are 5 reasons adopting the ways of Bat-business can help unlock organisational success.

Bat-Lesson 1: Tech is mega important.

There are two things you need to know about Batman. Firstly, he's a billionaire who dresses as a bat and beats up escaped mental patients. Secondly, he has gadgets and gizmos aplenty (just like the Little Mermaid, except the brooding is over dead parents instead of human legs).

Look at all that sweet, sweet tech. Eat your heart out Bill Gates.

An innovation a day keeps the sharks at bay.

Since way back in 1939, tech has been a cornerstone of Batman's crime-fighting success. At every stage of his career, he's used technology to overcome his obstacles. Whether it's a bat drone designed by Lucius Fox, or a batch of Shark Repellent Bat Spray cooked up by Alfred, Batman always has a technical solution to any challenge.

Unless you're a marine conservationist it's unlikely that sharks are a regular problem in your workplace. That doesn't mean the forward-thinking approach to tech which led to the Shark Repellent Bat Spray isn't valuable to you.

You can't future-proof a business with yesterday's tech.

I've worked with dozens of businesses, and am connected through my peers to dozens more. During the pandemic the organisations I knew of personally which failed had one thing in common. None of them invested in their technology ecosystem and IT infrastructure.

When it comes to the tech your organisation relies on you must be proactive. If you're waiting for problems to arise before investing in IT to solve them your business will always be vulnerable, and you'll forever lag behind your competitors. Be it cybersecurity or Cloud services, if you're not creating robust strategies built proactively you'll inevitably fail.

Look at it this way. Batman probably seemed paranoid when he spent weeks devising the perfect chemical formula for repelling sharks. However, that investment of time and finance was the only reason he escaped his first shark-inclusive caper with two legs.

Bat-Lesson 2: But not as important as skills.

Yes, Batman wouldn't get very far without his utility belt. However, he's not stupid enough to rely on gadgets alone. The Bat Spray won't repel many sharks if the person using it lacks the skills to aim the nozzle properly.

Shark Repellent Bat Spray is 100% real. Google it.

Aiming Bat Spray at sharks is the least skilful of Batman's activities, too. Over the decades he's dabbled in everything from high-speed driving to advanced biochemistry. Smoke bombs and grappling hooks are all very well, but it's the decades of martial arts training and unrivalled tactical knowledge that make Batman a force to be reckoned with.

Building a culture of skills improvement.

I don't know about you, but high-speed car chases and fistfights with clowns don't come up often in my day-to-day life. I also very rarely, if ever, have to rely on my knowledge of advanced biochemistry. This is lucky because I don't have very much experience in either of these areas.

What both Batman and I have learned is that even the most advanced tools aren't worth much in unskilled hands. Your organisation could have the most cutting edge IT infrastructure in your sector. All that advanced functionality will bring next to no business value if your organisation lacks the skills base to utilise it. 

Effective and thorough training plans and hiring practices and essential, even in the age of digital enterprise. It's vital you ensure you're cultivating relevant skills bases in your workforce, and that any new hires are adding to this shared knowledge pool.

Case in point, here's Batman doing some Kung-Fu. Do you know how long it takes to learn Kung-Fu? A long time. It's difficult.

Bat-Lesson 3: Determination is key.

There are two things Batman would never do. One is to use a gun. The other is to give up. Unless you're a professional hitman, you should follow both of these rules.

Even though he knows the Joker will break out of Arkham sooner or later, Batman treats every fight with him as though it will be the one that locks him away for good. This is because Batman knows there's no such thing as 'done'. There'll always be another criminal to lock up and one more elaborate clown-themed trap to disarm. Batman never lets this deter him, no matter how bleak things seem.

You need to apply the same level of dedication and willpower to your business. Yes, you may not have an endless cycle of criminals to lock up, but there'll always be another sale to close, client to on-board, or quarterly target to beat

Stay checked in.

Giving up doesn't have to mean quitting. We've all worked with folk who have mentally 'checked out'. Their bum fills a seat, but everyone can tell they're going through the motions. Soon enough their output starts to suffer, and they end up leaving the team on a low note.

No matter what's happening, staying determined is key. Of course, this isn't easy. We're not all lucky enough to have cast-iron determination forged in the fire of our parent's grizzly murder. However, what we can all do is take a leaf out of Batman's book. 

Make every effort to stay determined, driven, and focused. This means not resting on your laurels in the good times just as much as not panicking in the bad. There will always be ups and downs on your business journey, but without a bit of grit and determination, it will end far sooner than you'd like.

Batman keeps fighting, even though crime makes him do a sad face sometimes.

Bat-Lesson 4: Innovation always wins,

If you're not familiar with movies or comic books beyond Christop Reeves and Adam West, you'd probably assume Superman would kick the absolute crap out of Batman if they threw down. You'll be surprised to learn that you're 100% wrong.

Across multiple mediums, Batman has smacked Supes around like a ragdoll, reducing him to a blubbering pile of Kryptonian bruises. How? Batman knows how to innovate.

Un-punchable problems.

For all his power, Superman has one main strategy; punching things really hard. In the superhero world punching things really hard usually gets the job done. Fighting Batman is a far-from-usual situation, however.

How dare you?!

Batman's penchant for innovation has allowed him to trump Superman time and time again. Whether it's setting up red sun lamps to dampen his power, lacing a Batarang with Kryptonite, or pulling some mind manipulation, Batman has used outside the box thinking to render Superman's really good punching powers useless.

No box lasts forever.

Punching things works until you come up against a punch-proof problem. The same can be said of your industry. The old way of doing things works wonders until the day it doesn't. Think how many sales teams are still trying to use scripted cold calling in 2021. Do they have a good reputation for customer service? Are they industry leaders? Exactly.

Never let your business fall into a rut of trying to punch through un-punchable problems. The wheel may not need reinventing, but we can all agree rubber tires made travelling much more comfortable. Be like Batman: recognise when the time has come to leave the safety of the box. Innovate.

Now imagine Superman is your competitor and that glowing green Batarang is an automated solution to a process your staff have done manually for years.

Bat-Lesson 5: Invest in your sidekicks.

If there's one name that's never far away from Batman, it's Robin. Whilst their relationship over the years has bordered on questionable, without the Boy Wonder the Caped Crusader would have died several times over.

Batman knows he can rely on Robin, despite the overly revealing green Speedos. By putting his trust in Robin, Batman has created for himself a reliable, dependable partner in anti-crime.

No such thing as a Robin shop.

Here's the thing about Robin; he wasn't an 'out of the box' sidekick. It took Batman years of dedicated training and patience to get Robin's vigilante skills to a level where he wouldn't be an embarrassment. When Batman met him, Robin was a rudderless circus child whose only skill was trapeze-based acrobatics.

Despite how good Batman is at business wisdom, there is no excuse for making a teenager dress this way. Or anybody dress this way.

Yes, acrobatics is a good skill for a crime-fighting vigilante. Acrobatics alone do not, however, a hero make. It was the hours of time Batman invested in mentoring Robin that made him into a crime fighter worthy of squaring off against the likes of Penguin and Mr Freeze.

Hiring sidekicks.

When it comes to your staff you must invest in their future with the same care and dedication as Batman does Robin. Every employee who walks through your doors is an investment. The returns on that investment depend entirely on how much time you're willing to put in.

If you take the time to ensure a supportive training, management, and mentoring structure, your workforce will flourish. Batman never expected to pick up a ready-to-go Robin from an orphanage, just as you shouldn't hope for a ready-to-go star employee in a job interview.

To the Bat-Cave!

So there you have it, five bonafide reasons Batman is the kind of business leader Elon Musk can only dream of being.

There are plenty more nuggets of wisdom Batman can bring to your business. These five are the most important, however. Maybe in Part 2, we'll cover important topics like the need for your office to have a fireman's pole.

If you've enjoyed reading be sure to follow me on LinkedIn. I'll be framing sound business strategy with tongue-in-cheek pop culture again soon.

Batman and relevant characters referenced are the intellectual property of DC Comics.