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As a business owner, you know what it’s like to lie awake at 2 a.m. Maybe it has happened when you are excited and full of new ideas for your business. More often, it’s because you are worried about issues you will face the next day. Sometimes, it’s because you just woke up with the solution to a problem. I’ve experienced all those emotions about my businesses over the years. Awake at 2 o’clock? is where I share them with you, and hopefully help with answers that will let you sleep.
John F. Dini, CExP, CEPA
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Small business owners are the Hunters of the 21st century. We are 3% of the US population, and yet we create over half of all American jobs. As Hunters, we may not be inclined to manage by the numbers or stick to systems. Are you a Hunter or a Farmer?
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How prepared are you to exit your company?
The Assessment breaks down the four major categories of exit readiness; Finance, Planning, Operations and Revenue/Profit.
Tag Archives: promotion
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Resisting Technology
A substantial number of business owners are still resisting technology. Clearly, they can’t be doing so in the expectation that it will go away. The only possible rationale is that it could hurt their business. One laggard in adopting technology … Continue reading
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How Much Does that Gorilla Weigh?
How much does that (fill in your preferred number here) pound gorilla weigh? I always refer to an 800 pound gorilla, but I’ve heard others use everything from a 400 pound gorilla (which is pretty close to their real size) to … Continue reading
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History Begets Attitudes
History begets attitudes. I’m back from my biannual depressurization trip. This time it was to Central Europe. As always, I assess new and different things through a business owner’s eye. We visited five countries (Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary), … Continue reading
4 Responses to History Begets Attitudes
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Employees Who Make Bad Choices
Employees who make bad choices in their personal lives usually create problems in the workplace. Should you take their issues outside of the business into consideration when hiring or assigning responsibility? The legal answer of course, is “no.” Employers are … Continue reading
2 Responses to Employees Who Make Bad Choices
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I had a small family business with one employee. She was very loyal to us as a family and came to work nearly every day (which was an important part of the job because we were very small and very dependent on each other). She could manage herself and her work load very well. The customers loved her, she knew the business, understood the risks involved and – probably most importantly – knew when to ask for help and when not to. She always got the job done and did it well. She started on a part-time basis and then moved into full.
After she became a full-time employee, I began to see the horrific choices she was making in her personal life (because she would come and talk to me about them – often for long periods of time). Her issues began to dominate the office started causing more and more problems for me. One day, our work was interrupted because someone showed up to repossess her car….but how do you fire someone for that? And through it all, she still came to work every day, got her work done and the clients still loved her.
I tried to create boundaries to manage the drama, but probably didn’t do a great job of it, and it had a fairly negative effect on our relationship. I also had a hard time getting support from the other family members for terminating her because she did such a good job with her work and knew the business so well, and was so loyal to us and the company. In many ways, she would have been very difficult to replace.
It was a difficult situation that really had no good answers or solutions. In the end, it was resolved because we had to close the business for reasons that were completely beyond our control (and had nothing to do with her).
Closing the business actually solved a number of problems that had been brewing beneath the surface and threatened to make families dinners rather painful, but I can’t really recommend it as an effective or ongoing problem-solving tool.
Using the analogy between a handful of European countries and the population of small businesses is a great vehicle for driving home your argument for the importance of history in forming the attitude of a business, John. In so doing, you’ve offered a real thought-provoker to business owners/leaders. You’ve also given them an approach to open a conversation about company history and attitude with their employees. Thank you.
Thanks Doug.
John:
As usual – the master at work with your observations! Happy you are scheduling some depressurization time! Will use this nugget of wisdom on a client today!
Kelly H.
Nice article!