Never give up, act decisively, share the numbers, and lead by example to build a stronger, more resilient firm.
After more than 55 years of working in my own and others’ privately-held businesses, there are certain mantras I have grown to live by. Maybe some of these will be helpful to our readers.
Here are a few of them:
- “If you never give up you never fail.” I have already gone on the record with my complaints about the “failure mentality” that seems to be preached constantly these days by supposed “entrepreneurship experts.” They advocate failing early, failing often, and that all successful people fail with their first business, along with a bunch of other nonsense that gives people the idea that failing is normal and great. But I have a different idea. Mine is to never give up. The stain of failure is not a badge of honor. I don’t want to be tainted by it myself. When you work in a tight-knit industry or community, no one ever forgets your failures. And they won’t trust you the same way they will someone else who hasn’t had big failures in their past.
- “There is always something you can do.” This one has been critical to me and I use it in every aspect of my life. It goes along with one of my late father’s favorite mantras: “Decide. Act.” Make a decision. Act on it. Paralysis and inaction are rarely the path to success. You have to keep trying new things to get through whatever mess you are in. And there is a big difference in experimentation and failure that I think deserves some attention here. Experiments don’t all work out. But you don’t fail until you stop experimenting. Otherwise you are still on the path to success.
- “HR problems, if ignored, will either mushroom or go away.” This may seem obvious but it again lends itself to taking action if you really understand what I am saying here. “Going away” refers to the person who is unhappy about something. They may be a good person and someone you do not want to lose. But ignore their problems and they will go away. Not good. “Mushrooming” obviously refers to things getting worse. We don’t want either of these things to happen so we must take action on all HR problems.
- “A key to business is driving demand beyond your ability to supply it.” I will live by this mantra. It’s at the heart of how you get better clients, better projects, better fees, and get paid faster. When I hear people tell me that “word of mouth is the best marketing,” I know that they are doing nothing marketing-wise. Of course it is the best marketing, but what gets you word of mouth if you don’t have any clients in the first place? My experience is that 95 percent or more of the companies in this business are not doing all they can or should marketing-wise. They almost all need to spend more on it long enough that being able to get good clients, projects, and fees is never a problem.
- “Your people can’t solve the problem if they don’t know the numbers.” That is just one reason I believe in being an open-book management firm and sharing the numbers with everyone. How else can they be part of the solution to the problem if they don’t get to see the numbers that tell you how big of a problem you have, and why? The numbers are the gauges on the production machine. Any machine takes gauges to know if it is operating as it should.
- “Do what you don’t want to do first thing every day.” What you don’t want to do is often the most important thing as well, in my experience. It is crucial, not only to accomplishing what you need to accomplish, but to actually feeling good at the end of the day.
- “Practice what you preach.” This is THE single most important mantra for leadership. You will not be effective as a leader nor will your leaders be if they don’t set the proper example. This is absolutely fundamental for leadership.
These are just some of the mantras I live by. I’m sure there are others but I am out of space! If you have some that YOU live by, drop me a line with them. We would love to hear from you!
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Mark Zweig is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com. |