Running it Like A Household

Some of the deepest secrets of success in entrepreneurship are there for us to see. Very obvious lessons we got since childhood. Most of us were raised within a household and we have seen how the unit was run. Today, we continue to stay in a household, and some of us are household managers now. How are we running our households? What are we learning? Right, see below what I think are some of the lessons we should be applying in our businesses.

Leadership:

As a household leader, you are responsible for all the household operations. You have the duty to provide, protect and grow the household. One of the jobs is to ensure that everyone is happy. You will make sure that all household members have their own duties to help you do yours effectively. You will have to pay attention to the physical, mental and social well being of every household member. If you don't own a home, you must ensure that your relations with the landlord are always in a positive state (Pay the rent on time). When a household member is sick, you have to cater to their health needs. When a household member is hungry or thirsty you must quench that. When neighbours are giving your household problems, you have to step in to resolve any conflicts. There is more that you are expected to do as a household leader. Then when it comes to business, supplier management is like managing a landlord, client relationship management is like managing visitors at home, stakeholder management is like managing relatives/friends while industry participation could mean participation in church or extended family matters. Have you ever noticed how some business leaders run a company with a toxic work environment when they have a very good and hospitable home? It means they fail to learn from the household.

Customer Service:

Look at many homes, we have embraced hospitality to the extent of pretending to love people whom we don't really love just to make them feel good. Why? It is in us, we have been taught to treat our visitors well so as to maintain a good image for our household/home. I am yet to find the real answer as to why we have very poor customer experience in that Company X building because when you visit the home of each employee you will be treated as a king/queen. My assumption is that many employees or entrepreneurs do not treat their companies as homes. Why are employees not treating their companies as homes? It is because their leaders are failing to convince them that Company X is their home, a lesson they should be learning from running their own household. Start up entrepreneurs, LET'S TREAT OUR YOUNG COMPANIES AS OUR HOMES, SIMPLE.

Operations:

SEE PIC ABOVE

As a household leader, you must teach your household team to be more responsible. Everyone in the household must be aware of what is going on. You can never run a household alone, you need help from the household members. If you want operations to run smoothly, empower your household members to know how things are done in your household. In a household, we have different departments and each department has its own purpose. For our household to function properly every department must be performing at the highest level. There must be strict adherence to certain practices that enable all the processes in a household to be as efficient as possible. The same applies to your business, every department must be performing in order for the organisation to deliver of its strategic goals. As you lead the operations, your duty is to ensure that each department is better placed to serve the organisation. For instance, if you are in retail, the procurement department can be in trouble if we do not have enough goods to provide to our customers, because shortages in certain product categories will affect our sales and ultimately the overall performance of our company.

I can go on and on but it is clear that the lessons we get from home can help us deliver on important assignments in the world of work only if we take time to pay attention.

Brian Mahuni (CoachBM)?is a Senior Market Researcher, Business Consultant & Career Coach who helped 2,000+ professionals to get meaningful employment & 50+ companies to grow their businesses! Currently running own Business & Career Consulting Firm, BM Consultants.

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