Dare to be ‘bad’ at something

 I'm infatuated with this question of why well-intentioned, energetic people following their own instincts end up being part of the problem. People compete against each other on every dimension and work harder and harder and harder. To break out of that you don't need any more competence, but you do need colossal courage to say, if I am going to be excellent at something, I am going to be bad at something else. If I am going to compete on cost and quality, then someone is going to beat me on speed or if I am going to be the best in Financial Analysis, then I have to forgo being the best in Macro Economic Analysis or something like that". However, you must have a little idea of everything that relates to the subject matter as it relates to your dreams.

So, few months ago, my team and I were invited to work with a friend, whose business was plummeting, looking at the exquisite business premises; you would easily conclude that the business is impeccably fine. However, after going through the financials, we realized that not only is the business running on adverse returns, but there is also a very high debt profile on the ‘balance sheet’ meaning the business was highly geared and a bulk of its income used in servicing the debt. The funny part was that the core business of the firm was doing fine and even had a positive Net profit margin.

However, the owner had ventured into other business (subsidiary) with little technical-know-how. After our analysis of the two businesses, we realized that the ‘core’ business was still in its introduction stage and yet making ‘abnormal profit’ due to its technical know-how and market share advantage. In the short-run (after our cost/benefit analysis), we advised that the owner suspends operation on the ‘subsidiary financing’ and focus more on being the best in the ‘parent’s’ industry. About 18 months after, to our surprise, the business wiped out all the negative profit and was heading towards balancing its debt profile.

In addition, the owner was able to learn from his mistake on carnally venturing into the ‘subsidiary’ and had a better approach to running the subsidiary. Once you decide to compete on your own specific area of strength, you need to learn how to work with others to complement your weaknesses. The key to crafting collaborative teams within diverse milieus is to find strategies that increase the metrics of value so that individuals aren't fighting over a fixed pie. When you get people with different objectives, you create more value for everyone, in other words, the sum is greater than the parts. Furthermore, to make sure such collaborations succeed, it's important to cultivate the art of communiqué. You will then realize how liberating it is to talk about what is going on and you can only do that when you risk discussing the undiscussable with grace and care.

To be the best in your area of specialization, you must learn the subject matter so thoroughly that you could explain it to a family member or anyone with no background in the topic. Often you don't need better ideas, you just need to frame them more effectively. To describe a complex article in a simple way, you must really understand it deeply.

Cheers.

Eto’Oluwa