Like many business owners today I attend a large number of seminars, conferences, workshops, meet-ups and networking gatherings in search for answers to my business’s issues. Yes, as an experience veteran of many battles fought in the market, I also need to look under every non-traditional ‘Rock’ for the answers to some of the questions I have with how business is done today.
Unfortunately, there are still many of the over 50 yr old business executives who still attempt to take the Old School way of managing their business which shines a light on me that I share those attitudes..for which I do not.
Over the past few years I cannot count the number of times I have heard someone with years of experience in their field of expertise speak out in a seminar on New Ways of developing business or business practices to say…
…I am way too busy to stop and learn this process my business needs. Where can I go to having someone do this for me?
In a recent PodCamp I attended I took note of the question an over 50 executive asked…
"I now realize how important podcasting is to improving my business, but I out of all the things I have to worry about in by company I am not interested in learning how to podcast or live stream our events. Is there someplace I can go to find someone to do this for us?"
Old School View Point
As I looked around the room I saw in the eyes of those dozens of business people attending the two reactions to her question forming…those who rolled their eyes in knowing the probability this person is going to get scammed and those in the room who are interested in taking full advantage of her lack of interest in knowing what exactly the person she wants to hire is doing.
And then of course..I then get the whispers from those sitting around me and know me asking.. "Do you feel the say way? My answer is a profoundly NO!
These type of statements tell a lot about the person, the executive and the business who feels it not important to know what it is going on in their business. In this particular case how the question was asked said more than it was intended. It said:
- Yes, I confirm that everyone over 50 years old is too old and stupid to learn anything new
- I am not interested in anyone who does this work, just need someone to do the work.
- Can you quickly tell me who I can get to do the work so I can get back to my chamber of commerce gathering?
These business managers who take this attitude of keeping the actual work at arm’s length reflect badly on the thousands of corporate warriors who do not share these individuals’ attitude towards today’s new world of business. There are many experienced executives like myself who know the importance of having more than an understanding of a process and are interested in actually how to do the process so they can bring it into their business effectively.
We can only thank goodness the days of delegating knowledge on how to do something to someone else is over. It has been proven over and over that the major reason many companies today have not been able to hold up to competing in their market is because their ownership or management do not have an understanding of what their business really does..or who is doing what.
Business executives today HAVE TO HAVE, at the very minimum, a basic knowledge of how everything in their company is done and engrain into their behavior an interest in learning how to do everything needed to make their business successful. The more the leadership of a business knows about every function done by every employee the stronger the decision making can be and the more likely the business will be successful.
Years ago, someone in the C Suite could pass down initiatives to their underlings to bring into the company a new process they saw a competitor using and get away with not knowing what it is their people are doing. There are still executives not interested in knowing the details on what it takes to produce what their company sells or knowing how it worked. That method of operations never really worked but was adapted as a way for managers to not get their hands dirty and maintain an image of being above that part of the business.
The newspapers today are filled with reports of executives being fired because they lost touch with what it was they were an executive of. When the root causes are drilled down to it is found that business executives who look for solutions but are not interested in learning how to solve an issue usually have other things on their agenda that saps the time out of their day and life. Lackluster time management and the inability to make the right decision on where to spend their energy is one of the problems many Old School managers have with moving into today’s highly competitive business world.
Business owners, executives and managers of a business today need to develop the attitude established by successful business people who understand the importance of knowing completely their business’ operations. There just is no way around it.
If you don’t know how something is done in your business then how do you know how to manage it? Hopefully, these managers like the one at PodCamp this weekend will make time to attend a seminar on the importance of business operations. That seems to be more of what they need than Podcasting.
Let me know how I can help
