BUSINESS WHIMS & WISDOM: The 5 Mystery Myths of Business
Although I am not a sportsman but I often perceive business venturing like playing games. Beyond practices and the skills, you need also the right spirit to win. I am not good at defining what spirit means within this context but I know it is not scientific; it is something like a charm, an aura or a presence. You may call it luck if you like.
Nonetheless, I am a business student, a teacher and manager of people, situations and resources with reasonable academic and practical experience. My practice experience as a manager has obviously multiplied geometrically since I started teaching business education and through which I have interacted with a lot of people. Many of them have vast experiences and I have learnt from them an enormous practical facts and wisdoms that concretise my theoretical framework for conducting practice-relevant business and management researches.
This article addresses some native theories, innate perceptions and popular assumptions that prevent would-be business owners on the one side and owner- managers on the other from making the most and boldest moves towards their start-up businesses or from initiating growth and development strategies for their growing concerns.
Therefore, the objective of this article is to affect perceptions and create in individuals and businesses who found themselves at the crossroads of making those important decisions that should culminate in the foundation of their start-ups or crossover to the next level of their venturing.
Followings are a list of the five commonest myths touted by experts and supported by opinion leaders and business texts but the reality is that many times, common wisdom is required to dislodge the myths.
- THE MYTH OF CAPITAL
Depending on what the proponent wants to achieve, some say capital is the single most important need of businesses to succeed. This is probably the weakest and perhaps most criticised business assumption. Time and events have proven that many businesses have succeeded with little or no initial capital outlay while the highly capitalised ones fail.
- THE MYTH OF IDEA
Next is the strongest ideology and argument, which is the myth of idea riding on the back of the failure of the myth of capital. It is claimed that when the idea is right, the capital will always follow. Be that as it may, many brilliant ideas have become wasted along with huge capital funding provided to support them. So what happened? I wonder as much as you do.
- THE MYTH OF PEOPLE
From time to time, people have been referred to as the best resources of any organisation, they make but can also mare the system. Therefore businesses are as good as the skills, attitude and commitment of their people but we have seen also how well educated, very experienced and committed managers plunged the resources of their organisations and ruined the same entities made by them or someone else all in the name of growth and expansion or in defence of their market positions.
- THE MYTH OF THEORY/KNOWLEDGE
Today is a knowledge era and we all admit that superior knowledge based on sound research makes innovation happen. Science and technology have fused to create unprecedented change in the history of man but even knowledge and technological businesses do oft fail also. It is therefore not out of place to admit that well capitalised, ideated business entities managed by good people who are versed in modern business are nevertheless not completely insured against failure.
- THE MYTH OF GEOGRAPHY
External business environment has been analysed by frameworks proposed by Michael Porter, Ansoff and some others; they are significant for explaining why businesses fail or succeed in different markets and places. For examples PESTLE analysis presupposes that business should succeed if those environmental conditions are right and western states like the USA and EU nations strive to create such comfortable environment for their people and businesses. Despite that, the biggest business failures in history have occurred in the US and Europe.
INFERENCES & CONCLUSION
All of the factors above are very important for businesses to succeed; in actual fact, they are business fundamentals that cannot be done without but events have proven that businesses still fail despite them and that is what makes them seem like myths on the one hand and mysteries on the other. It is usually difficult to explain why some businesses failed despite their rise and reign but such is the nature of mysteries. For example, how and why did AIG fail in America or how did Access bank in Nigeria eventually take-over Intercontinental, its own creditor of many years.
Perhaps it is useful to say that, beyond the idea, resources and know-how, one critical factor that helps businesses and their owners stay out of troubles is their mastery of the risks inherent in the business. That also differentiates between smart and reactive business managers but for either of them; games often change. This is a caution!
The smart one knows the signs of the risks and can tell the time or severity of their impact. He is guided by intuition and can decipher the direction of market forces and changes in environmental conditions.
After all said, the introductory statement seems true; business venturing due to its myriad of choices in the midst of uncertainties can be likened to gaming. Beyond practice experiences and the skills, owners and their managers need also the right spirit to win. This is why it is difficult to fault the advocates of ethical business dealing and CSR as value adding superior strategies for creating goodwill and business success.
The gains of ethical dealing and responsible venturing are long term but they create a condition of immediate goodness, an aura of luck and unusual opportunities which only humanity can explain with deeper details beyond logic and science.