Desires & Opportunities

There are as many people as there are desires. And that's a wonderful thing. If you look at an individual standing alone, desires are a wonderful emotion. However, when it comes to a business or a company, we are always talking about a group of people, be it a small group or a large group. And the desires of the members of that group can be quite different. Some of its members may not have any desires at all. Although it is always important to remember that everyone is an egoist, and overtly or covertly embellished by their traces of character is very likely to do what is favorable to that particular person in a given time.

Now imagine a group of people, for example in a company. They are performing a certain set of actions, and everyone is doing it in their way and direction. What will come out in the end? As practice has shown, nothing good.

Here, first of all, it is of vital importance to have a distinction between desires of a personal nature, for example, from the category: "I want to take my family on vacation to the Maldives" or "I want to send my child to the best school in town" from "We need to sell 300,000 units of goods in the next quarter and achieve an EBITDA of +25 million USD vs. the previous period" or "Our company needs to reduce its operating costs by -15% YTD ", etc. Well, you know what I mean. I'm sure you've heard these kinds of desires before, in one form or another, somewhere. Of course, these are two different worlds: your personal life and your business life. But they are all desires in one way or the other.

Whenever it comes to any collective endeavor, activity, project, task, or joint work of several or more people - it all comes down to one question: How can all these desires of separate people be combined "in an orchestra" or a "music band" so that there is no cacophony? But even if it works out, let's assume for the moment, the orchestra or band musicians agree among themselves: Do they have tuned instruments on which they can play Mozart, Beethoven, and maybe even Eric Clapton or the Beatles?

An orchestra or a music band without a conductor and notes would be chaos. Therefore, two key elements are clearly defined action algorithms of all musicians (notes) and the leader (conductor). Your task as a conductor is not to throw your baton at the first misstep to the sometimes wrongly playing musicians in your orchestra, but to give them the notes (business plan, vision, business strategy, and concrete action plan) beforehand and be their compass during the whole piece you will play. In the following twelve alleys of this handbook, we will learn how to do this and what are the basic points to pay attention to.

Will just the musical accompaniment, without the singing, be enough? Maybe. Or maybe it would be better not to play at all and to keep postponing the concert indefinitely. In any case, it's all about opportunities.

Everyone is different, and that is not a new thing. Besides, I did not invent the subject of "locomotives and cars", no matter how offensive it may sound to this or that category of personalities. There is nothing bad or offensive about it. Not all people can be leaders or locomotives or even want to be leaders or locomotives. Often it is a question of responsibility, self-sacrifice, or, more precisely, the amount of time a person invests in this or that endeavor. Sometimes, on the contrary, it can be accompanied by laziness and unwillingness to change something, to be satisfied with what a person already has (a roof over the head, a stable salary, and so on). And again, there is nothing to be ashamed of or bad about this. Some people rush into battle, get into trouble, and impact things dramatically. At the same time, they stumble badly, reaching certain heights. And sometimes they lose everything - their favorite company, their family, and most importantly - themselves. And that is quite scary. And it is certainly not recommended to bring it to such a case.

I want to spend a little more time on desires. It seems to be a natural gift for every human being. It is to be happy when something works and the world around you makes you realize it. For example, your company, your team, or you have developed a new technology, service, or product. There is a market for it, the company is growing and meeting the needs of the market. That's awesome. For the work you have done, you are generously rewarded. Everybody's happy.

Everything depends very seriously on several points: If you create the whole business from scratch and you are the owner of that business - then you are, at least in the beginning, the "blacksmith of your happiness" and a lot depends only on you as the owner. If you come as a hired top manager or employee in an established structure (even in a start-up) - you join a work team with certain algorithms and laws. And your desires should be in line with the wishes and plans of the shareholders, and not only. At the latest during the first interview or conversation, you are obliged to recognize such desires of the same shareholder. The simple truth is this. Following the principle: if you do not like the way another person (owner) has organized the business - create your own business and dictate your conditions in it. But owners are all different, and often successful owners are very complex people in every sense of the word. Working with them can be like riding a roller coaster at Disney World in Orlando.

Now let us return to the subject of "Opportunities" in more detail. Finally, it is always reasonable to ask the following set of questions: Is there an opportunity to realize an idea or desire? Will an opportunity occur at a later stage? And this is where the key question gains into momentum: do desires create the opportunities or do the opportunities create the desires? Or none of the above?

Experience has shown that desire alone is not enough. Some would call it wishful thinking. We are not talking about the desire to fly to Mars, of course, if anyone has such a desire in mind. We are talking about real desires in the context of business: The creation and promotion of quality products, well-established production processes, the absence of corruption, the generation of profit, professional growth, etc. What can be an obstacle to our aspirations in the context of business processes? Absolutely everything - from investors who don’t have a clue about what they want, to you. You may be chaotic in your business management mode. You try to do a thousand things a minute, and in the end - you do not bring anything to a victorious end. You should always start with yourself. We will talk about this a bit later.

The (temporary) lack of opportunities does not mean that you should bury your desires and somehow stop moving forward. Desires may have to be temporarily put on hold or slightly modified. Think of it like parking a car or a bike: You don't ride those 24 hours a day.

Now, let's take a couple of real-life examples: Suppose you have a wonderful idea, a business plan is ready, and banks are willing to finance this idea, but there are no reliable people to implement this idea operationally, and you have no one to help you realize this idea. You can be sure that nowadays, smart, intelligent people and investors will provide financing for smart ideas. However, the bottleneck is here: it is very hard to find suitable, reliable, diligent, and motivated people for the team. We'll have more to say about people and teams in a moment, on the way down at Alley 10 "One soldier is not a warrior."

Another example: You have an agreement with the main shareholder on the main strategic directions to be implemented, but the shareholder refuses to provide you with appropriate financing for the realization of this project. The investor would say: "Go for external financing, pay me dividends in full at the end of this year." I think that this is a situation with which you are probably familiar. In this case, it is most likely not worthwhile doing business with such an investor. Nothing good is going to come out of it. Or maybe the project is not as good as you initially thought? It is also possible that the shareholder is not telling you everything. Maybe the shareholder is going through some temporary difficulties. Shareholders tend to show you only the top of the iceberg, which is quite OK unless it disturbs the related business processes in which you are involved with your heart, sould, and time.

As a result of walking down this alley, the following is a summary:

Separate private desires from business-oriented desires.

First, you must have a clear understanding of your desires and agree with yourself.

Discuss your desires with the shareholder(s). Don't be afraid to have conversations with people you have confidence and trust in.

Know your private and business opportunities and do not shy away from creating those opportunities. Sometimes you are going to have to detour to get there.

Be patient. Not everything will work out in the amount and in the time frame you initially set for yourself. The main thing is to remember where you are going, why, and what you are going for.

The shareholders (investors) will only be showing you the top of the iceberg. Be cautious about drawing quick conclusions. The world is often one of halftones.

Next #Alley 2 follows next week :-)