Top 10 Lesson in Leading a Business

Here are the Top 10 lessons I’ve learned in leading businesses for the past 25 years. Thought you might enjoy the list. I'd love to hear any thoughts or reactions.

1.   Point of View. At 30,000 feet, most any company can look beautiful and orderly. On the ground, many businesses are actually just a chaotic mess. Some are profitable in spite of it. Look closely enough to see what’s really there.

2.   The Team. Nothing ever goes to plan. Surprises lurk around every corner. Things are constantly breaking, and assumptions turn out to be wrong. Having the right leadership team in place that know their objectives, have command of their budget, and know how to execute mitigates these risk. Lack of such a team makes every day feel like a fire-drill.

3.   Processes. If there is no clear system of processes for decision making, the company performance is seriously internally constrained. Applying band-aids to systemic problems is not helpful. Neither is duct tape to a broken process.

4.   Growth and Scale. Sales are great - but without a corresponding investment in infrastructure, growth is not sustainable. Bringing order to the chaos of growth is very hard work - and requires disciplined behavior that few leaders actually have.

5.   Strategy vs. Execution. While consultants may offer thoughts on strategy and breakthrough innovations, the fact is that most businesses are just trying to get to the end of the week - and are not organized to even optimize the people, processes and technology they already have. Rarely is the problem having a strategy - most of the time, it’s a lack of execution and the absence of process minded leadership.

6.   Forecasting. Forecasts and predictions are exercises in guessing - and guesses are typically wrong. Precise spreadsheets are maps of a world that never existed and will never come to fruition, even if the numbers are hit. However, we do it anyway - it gives us a target for which to aim - and that has real value.

7.   People ARE the Business. Business is about people and people follow leaders not because of how smart they are, but because they genuinely care and create an environment for learning, collaboration, problem solving and professional growth. If you want to make a business great, get to know the people.

8.   Innovation. Every business has a collection of moments that changed the course of their company’s fate. Almost all of them — on the surface — look absurdly risky, if not downright crazy. But these crazy ideas drive innovation.

9.   Respect the Team. The client will only respect you as much as you respect your team. Any leader who is disrespectful to their team will have significant client issues. People can’t offer a level of customer service or experience they don’t ever receive at work.

10. Humility. Being an expert at something doesn’t make you an expert in anything else. If something you’ve never done seems “easy,” or “simple,” or “obvious,” it’s not, you just don’t know why yet. Have humility and tread lightly, especially when it comes to areas outside your circle of competence.