Reinvention or Extinction
If you’re a small business owner, there is an excellent chance that you’ve reinvented yourself at least once in your life.
When you think about it, there was probably a moment, an inspiration, an event, a conversation, or a pink slip, that caused you to start that new journey. And if you’re a small business owner, it’s also a safe bet that you’ve discovered you must keep reinventing your business, too.
All of this reinvention can never stop, because every day the marketplace becomes less like a destination and more like a moving train.
Indeed, the Hobson’s choice for small businesses is reinvention or extinction.
Let’s talk about reinventing your business, yourself, and the fact that there should also be a balance between the two.
In his book, Creative Approaches for the Cost Effective Organization, Steve Martin says there are five generations of corporate growth:
1. Work. The entrepreneurial stage.
2. Sell. Focus on sales growth and market share.
3. Cut. Focus on efficiencies to drive the bottom line.
4. Buy. Acquiring assets to reach the next level.
5. Think. All actions are proactive as intellectual and financial resources focus on knowing the next best step, instead of guessing.
While you’re reinventing your business, don’t forget to do the same for yourself, because each generation of a company’s growth requires a different kind of manager.
But while you’re making sure that your personal intellectual growth isn’t behind your company’s progress, don’t get too far ahead, either.
Unfortunately, there is no corresponding natural law to help keep your personal reinvention matched up with, and parallel to, that of your company. Consequently, keeping your personal intellectual growth in sync with your business requires constant attention and honest self-analysis.
Personal reinvention doesn’t mean you go from being a surveyor to being a surgeon. It means that instead of being intimidated by technological advancements, you actually become a visionary expert on how to leverage new capability.
It means you go from knowing nothing about how an earthquake or a military coup d’etat on the other side of the planet could affect your business six months from now to being pretty good at identifying local as well as global threats and opportunities.
Perhaps the best example is when you’re able to delegate tasks that you once trusted only yourself to do to the capable staff you’ve hired.
Sometimes, circumstances require you to reinvent yourself whether you’re ready or not.
When that happens, you can choose to be a whiny victim or embrace the change.
But remember this: Only owners who embrace change can run and grow successful businesses.
Write this on a rock… Reinvention or extinction the choice is yours.
Jim Blasingame
Small Business Expert and host of The Small Business Advocate Show
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