Category: Company Cultures

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The Isolation of Ownership

Bottomline First: Owners don’t really have anyone to talk to about their problems. Reach out to those in your care.

Outside of a preacher in a small church, I don’t know of a more lonely calling than a small business owner.

I will often ask them, “Do you know what your friends think of you?”

They look at me with stunned incredulity since I had only met them a couple of hours earlier and know none of their friends.

I proceed to tell them, “Your friends think they have it made, they think you come and go as you please, hire people to do what you don’t want to do and write it all off on your taxes!!  They think you have the Life of Riley!”

Then they say, “You know, you are absolutely right!”

And I assure them if they try to convince their friends just how hard it is owning a business, they think you are pulling their leg!

And THIS is during the GOOD times!  The loneliness is only getting worse in the economic environment of the day!

Many times business owners will become overly friendly with their employees to cope with their isolation knowing they get the day-to-day stresses with which the owner is dealing. But that becomes a management problem within the business and makes it almost unthinkable to furlough them when times get tough.

Business owners are seen as “having it all together” not only by their friends and the public at large but also by their families.  I can’t tell you how many times I have interviewed a business owner during an analytical survey of their company who was showing a loss on their P&L only to discover he (or she) had not told their spouse. And let’s be honest, men, we are more guilty of this than our sisters-in-business. That stinkin’ EGO of ours gets us in trouble and then cuts off the support we so desperately need!

So to you advisors of these stalwart but hurting heroes of our economy, reach out to them! They need to know there are people and places that can be safe for them to unmask their pain.

Bankers, attorneys, wealth advisors, CPAs, insurance agents, consultants, accounting firms, HR firms – any trusted advisor in their life can just BE THERE for them and let them know it is OK for them to share anything that is bothering them.

If you are in a role they might not feel comfortable due to the business relationship (like their banker), try suggesting they might want to talk to a friend of yours.

As Charles Dickens wrote in the Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of time…”  We have been brutally snatched out of “the best of times” and forced into what is arguably “the worst of times.”

As a man of faith, I would that all men and women would seek guidance from the Creator of us all to lean into Him and His wisdom for our individual and corporate deliverance.

Let’s all be there for each other as we walk through the valley of shadows.

Ralph Watson

Ralph Watson has a varied and extensive career spanning 45 years of increasingly responsible positions in both sales and operations in a very diverse mix of industry specialties, including food processing, textile and apparel, financial services, and professional management consulting.

 

 

Ralph served as a Senior Executive Analyst with a number of international consulting companies focused on the family-owned, privately held market where he distinguished himself as one of the top analysts in a highly competitive field.  In early 2014, he personally coached 10 businesses in Europe.

Ralph C. Watson, Jr.    404.520.1030

Ralph.Watson@BeGreaterFaster.com

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Identify Toxic Entanglements: Adapt or Disengage

‘Show me a good crisis manager, and I will show you someone who creates a crisis to manage.’

Warning – Toxic Person

It’s Saturday morning. I just received a text message from my friend Faith. She forwarded a message from a colleague she calls ‘Hair-on-fire.’  The text she received was sent at 4:45 PM yesterday, Friday, surfacing another crisis.  ‘Hair-on-fire’ strikes again! Fortunately, Faith was engaged in another activity, so she didn’t see the text and wasn’t drawn into a last-minute waste of time.  As I mentioned in my post last week, this colleague has a habit of creating a commotion late on a Friday afternoon.  Just imagine, it‘s the end of the workweek and you’re ready to ease into the weekend.  You may have plans for the evening, anticipating some well-deserved fun and relaxation.  As you’re making the transition to ‘personal time,’ you’re assaulted with an urgent issue that requires you to revert to ‘working mode.’  Instant psychological whiplash.  I call foul!  This behavior strikes me as manipulative and narcissistic.  It appears that “Hair-on-fire” uses this tactic as a control mechanism to manage her matrix team.  From my experience, she probably believes that being a good crisis manager will result in recognition by senior management.  Early in my career, I learned something about crisis management. My most important takeaway was: ‘Show me a good crisis manager, and I will show you someone who creates a crisis to manage.’  This topic is of great interest to me.

A thesaurus search of “toxic” reveals synonyms related to poison, something to be avoided.  As with any poison, exposure to toxic people should be minimized whenever possible. How do you know you are dealing with a toxic person and how does one cope? Exploring this matter further will help us become more productive and effective. It will help you create a healthy workplace.  The starting point is to identify toxic people by their behavior.

ATTRIBUTES OF A TOXIC PERSONALITY

  1. Takes no responsibility for their actions – puts the blame on others
  2. Manipulative
  3. Never apologize
  4. Judgmental – highly critical, will negate your self-esteem
  5. Make you defensive
  6. Will not support you
  7. Inconsistent
  8. Narcissistic – Must be the center of attention
  9. Do not listen
  10. Negative outlook – never a positive word, project their emotions on you
  11. Never admit defeat – never wrong
  12. Will not go out of their way for you
  13. Present a victim’s mentality – emotional blackmail
  14. Always have ulterior motives
  15. They are mean – say things to hurt you

If you label someone as a ‘Drama Queen’ you’re dealing with a toxic personality.  They don the victim role to manipulate you into doing things for them. You dread being with them as they drain you of your energy, creating mental exhaustion. These encounters make you feel bad or disappointed by your inability to cope.   Toxic people are like vampires sucking the life out of you.  The best advice I’ve heard is to be empathetic but don’t necessarily hang with them. Set boundaries.  Don’t feed the beast by becoming engaged in their drama.

I find it difficult to understand why anyone would let toxic people into their life. I must be blessed as I cannot think of any truly toxic people that are part of my business or social circle. Sure, there are people I know who may exhibit one or more of these traits from time to time, but I cannot say that I have any toxic entanglements. It may be due to my experience, or maybe it’s my filters. However, there are people close to me who frequently deal with these personalities.  Fortunately, I can help friends, family members, and associates work through and detach from these people.

Faith, for example, has no choice but to work with ‘Hair-on-fire,’ as they are members of the same team.  Faith must adapt and cope with the situation.

Although it’s not the focus of this article, it must be very difficult if the toxic person happens to be a family member. They might not be able to change but you can do things to minimize the stress they create. Limit your time with them or end the relationship.

It is said that you become the average of the people with whom you most frequently associate. This refers to your behavior, your physical condition, professional success, etc.  If you understand that toxic people are made, not born, you know their behavior may be contagious.   I am fortunate that I attract people like me. I am generally a positive, and optimistic person by nature.  Although I don’t have toxic people in my circle, I do interact with them from time to time.  My experience is my shield, my intuition is my internal warning device. Toxic behavior is a big red flag. I find that life is too short to become entangled in their pathology.  If you recognize any of these attributes in your behavior it might be wise to seek help to nullify them.

For Further Information:

Dr. Karl Albrecht.  He has a short diagnostic you can access online which will help you determine if you were in a toxic relationship.

“Nine things toxic people always do and what to do about it” Coert Engles – IDEAPOD

“Six traits of highly toxic people“ Dr. Samantha Rodman, Talkspace, April 19, 2018

 

Thank you for visiting our blog.

I hope you enjoyed our point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox.  Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read.  Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.

Jim Weber – Managing Partner, ITB Partners

 

Jim Weber – Managing Partner, ITB Partners

 

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Adopting the Entrepreneurial Mindset in Your Company Culture: Accept that Failure can be okay.

Welcome to the world of an entrepreneur.

The concept that failure can be okay can be so difficult to absorb. Do we really need to experience a failure to learn and succeed? Maybe not, but tried and true success does come with bumps and bruises and lessons learned from the experience of failure. What is the “entrepreneurial mindset?” According to a common misconception, an entrepreneur is a bold, risk-taking, rule-breaking individual with the reputation of a riverboat gambler. Why would you want that in your company culture? But, in reality, an entrepreneur is confident and decisive, understands risk clearly and knows when to challenge the status quo. Above all, an entrepreneur truly believes “Anything is possible.”  An entrepreneur is not just an individual associated with a business startup. It’s common to find them scattered throughout any business or organization, thus the term “corporate entrepreneur.”

 

UNDERSTANDING YOUR COMPANY CULTURE

Can you describe your company culture? Are your employees able to articulate it in simple terms to your customers, prospects and the business community? Culture is the personality of your company, which flows from the work environment, mission and vision, values and goals. Some traits are subtle, beneath the surface, while others are

very prominent.   Do you see any traits of the entrepreneurial mindset in your culture? Are you comfortable with risk? Do you minimize failure? Do you make decisions quickly? Above all, do you show extreme optimism when developing a new business model, evaluating a new product or considering change against the status quo? By shifting your culture to reward entrepreneurial thinking, you tend to become more creative and innovative. Employee morale, in general, tends to rise with a more positive outlook toward risk, failure, and difficult situations. Stress levels trend downward when you migrate toward “anything is possible” and a “no fear of failure” mentality.

Some cultures in this industry tend to be steeped in conservative and deep traditions of doing it a certain way and not moving toward change as quickly as other industries. That could be attributed to the unique skill set of the gas and welding business. Knowledge is often home-grown and self-taught. There are no classes in the universities or trade schools on selecting the right gas blend for a welding application, creating solutions to manage cylinder inventory,

understanding a customer’s need to go bulk, troubleshooting a frozen liquid cylinder and on and on.

If you’re looking for reasons or justifications your culture might need an adjustment, consider these:

  • Are you working harder for smaller efficiency gains? How much more cost-saving can you squeeze from your existing business model?
  • Is our cost to acquire new customers and market share rising per unit? How much more revenue growth can you get from the same business?
  • When you compare strategies with your closest competitor, is it getting harder to differentiate? If any of these hit home or you just have the intuition that change is needed, read on.

 

INTRODUCING THE MINDSET INTO YOUR CULTURE

 Depending on how deeply you want to embrace entrepreneurial thinking into your culture, here are ideas and levels

of commitment to consider. The flow is in order of go lightly and start small to go big and be bold.

 

Basic Knowledge and introduction

 Introduce the concept throughout your organization in short training workshop(s) and involve employees in feedback with ideas on how to implement and to what level.

“Homegrown” Champion

 Is there someone in the organization who exhibits traits of an entrepreneur? Consider them for a special assignment and/or add duties to their existing position where they teach and/or mentor others on thinking the entrepreneurial way. This could also be an opportunity for career advancement.

Recruiting new talent

Is there a vacant position you’re recruiting for? Add heavy emphasis on entrepreneurial thinking to the skill set in the search. Open it up to any position—sales, admin or operations.

 “Celebrate failure”

Find an opportunity to make a point of minimizing a failure someone in the organization has made. Reward them for

trying and missing. And then look for the next opportunity to celebrate another failure. Obviously not trying to fail but releasing the tension of trying something new without fear of retribution if it fails.

Create an “Entrepreneurship” Department

 Develop a new department tasked with innovation, ideas and new business model opportunities. This is a big one; you’re all in when you go this route.  But, why not.  The rewards can be significant innovation and creativity are key to driving success. Everyone stands to benefit by adopting one or more traits of an entrepreneur, and when the mindset works its way into your company culture, positive change will follow. Confident and clear decision making, no fear of failure and the belief that anything is possible are characteristics of a winning team. Throughout the company, no matter the skill or position, learning to think like an entrepreneur is bound to lead to a more enriching work environment and ultimately to more success with your business strategy.

Seeing the positive in failure

We began this article with the concept of tolerance of failure, which is central to the philosophy of entrepreneurship.  I’ll leave you with a few quotes on failure from well-known individuals who never let it get in the way of their success:

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

Albert Einstein

“I have not failed; I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Thomas Edison

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” Tony Robbins

 

John Tapley

John Tapley is a business management consultant and entrepreneur with expertise in new business startup, innovative business growth, and marketing strategies and digital/social media marketing.  He has significant experience in all facets of the industrial gas industry, both domestic and global.  He is also a mentor at the Entrepreneur and Innovation Institute, Georgia State University.

John can be reached at: John.Tapley@itbpartners.com and (404) 314-8106

Thank you for visiting our blog.

Jim Weber – Managing Partner, ITB Partners

I hope you enjoyed our point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox.  Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read.  Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.

 

 

 

Jim Weber, Managing Partner

ITB PARTNERS

Jim.Weber@itbpartners.com

North Fulton Business RadioX Interview, September  26, 2019

Author of: Fighting Alligators, Job Search Strategy For The New Normal