Company Of Wolves

It is important for new businesses, new start ups, first timers particularly to forget any preconceived ideas you had about starting a business. Then you can start with a blank piece of paper and you and others can write your strategy and business plan on it. There is competitive rivalry for scarce resources and also for customers so strategy and tactics are important and getting advice and suggestions from experienced professionals can help. The founders and family of existing businesses can also help by providing core values that endure over time, give continuity and a long term perspective. Talking and listening in early stages will do no harm. It will increase your competence and performance in communication which is very important.

Decision making and referring back to decision trees may help oversome mistakes in future. Perserverance through strategic thinking and tactical management, continuous personal development, kaizen, action research are some of the ways to keep the business going. Day to day management may take up all your time but it might help occasionally to look at the long run because all inputs are variable and change is possible if need be. The pressures for change are both internal and external. You may need to make performance improvements through changes in operational cost and efficiency, and perhaps in received wisdom. It may not be true wisdom. Changes in attitudes, behaviours and motivation, knowledge and skills constantly need updating. Externally change is necessary to remain competitive to keep up with technological advances and the process of globalisation. Demographic changes, tastes and social attitudes are also continually changing in an economy that is increasingly demand driven.

You should get rid off and guard against pride and complacency and taking success for granted and corporate anorexia. Corporate anorexia according to Evans is the delayering the company of its most important parts and delayering the memory, history and conscience of the middle management who are wrongly considered as superfluous. It also means the delayering of the means of perpetuating the company and responding to shocks and unpleasant surprises. Retaining the core competence of the company is the best policy. Look after you key personnel, find success and then find happiness again.