The Secret to Thinking Like A Business Leader
By VICKY BROWN
If you’re anything like me, you have had those thoughts daily. You know, something comes up, you’re faced with a challenge or (yet another) problem, and the choices to fix it are so limited. You only have two ways to go, you can make this choice or that choice.
Someone decides to leave the company, well all you can do is replace them right? Or a client is constantly hounding you, and demanding more and more – all you can do is figure out how to get them more, right?
Well, it turns out that adage of ‘don’t think small’ applies to all sorts of situations in your business. Yes, you need to have a big, and I mean big, vision for your future – so you know where you want to go. But aside from that, you need to be prepared to put on your ‘big thinking’ hat all the time.
I heard a great Richard Branson story. When he wanted to install seat back video in all his Virgin Atlantic planes- (you probably don’t remember this, but back in the way back, there wasn’t onboard personal video. Nope, if you were lucky you got an onboard movie…they would drop down the screen, which was all the way in the front of the section, and aligned with the middle row, and project a movie on it. If you were lucky your seat was positioned in a way so you could actually see the screen.
But, more often than not you had heads and/or seat backs in the way – or someone left their window shade up so the picture was so washed out you couldn’t make out anything anyway. I wouldn’t call it a luxury viewing experience.
Anyway Sir Richard decided Virgin Atlantic would be different, and each seat would have seat back video. Well, when he went to the bank and asked for a $10 million loan to get the installations done, they turned him down. So, instead trying to hammer away at the banks he went a completely different way.
He went to Bowing, told them he wanted to purchase 10 planes (which he was going to do anyway), and he added that he needed seat back video in all of them. Then he went to the bank, and they were happy to loan him $2 billion dollars to purchase the planes.
So, he got the 10 new planes, the bank loan and seat back video. Everything he wanted, because he was willing to use bigger vision and see the whole picture.
And he was willing to throw everything in the air. You see, smart business leaders understand that sometimes you have to trace your steps backward a bit, to find a longer road.
When you’re facing a problem, don’t limit your thinking to the specific elements of that problem – expand your field of vision.
“… When you’re facing a problem, don’t limit your thinking to the specific elements of that problem – expand your field of vision.“
Let’s go back to that client that is constantly hounding you and being demanding. Sure you could make yourself super stressed out trying to figure out how to give them more and more. Or, you could take a step back and look at the whole picture.
Are they actually the right client for you at all? What about your services, maybe they’re trying to get from you what they would get from an on site employee. Perhaps they should scale back on the services they’re getting from you (go with a different package perhaps), and use those funds to hire a part time person onsite to be a liaison and handle the needs they have that are impossible to do as a consultant or outsourced service provider.
Now, I know that might mean less revenue for you in the short run – but in the long run it will free up time and resources you can put toward a more profitable client, that’s a better fit for your services.
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And what about that employee that leaves the company. Sure, your first thought might be “I have to replace them right away”; but stop – take a breath, and think about the whole company. What if, instead of replacing them, you took a close look at their client list. Are all of those clients a good fit for your business? Maybe not – maybe you’ll find that some of them are under legacy pricing agreements, or they take an outsized amount of resources to support, or it’s just a bad fit. Well, what if you terminated those contracts, didn’t replace the departing employee, and divvied up the rest of the accounts among the remaining staff.
Sure, you might be losing some revenue, but all revenue isn’t created equal. And you’ll have the offset of getting the cost of salary and overhead back, on the employee who is leaving.
So the next time you’re faced with a business problem; think like a Business Leader. Take a step back, and look around at the whole picture. Put everything in play, you’d be surprised what kind of solutions you can come up with.