When I was in a corporate job many years ago, a senior management was over-heard saying “Shows Poor Judgement”.

Digging a little deeper, the senior manager, was commenting about someone who had chosen to leave the corporate environment to start their own business. Unfortunately, their startup, like many startups, was not successful. So, the person concerned was applying to return to corporate. For a steady job.

Apparently, in the senior manager’s mind, leaving corporate showed poor judgement.  At the time, I was confused. There are so many factors which affect whether a start-up is successful or not.

Thirty years later and with 20 years’ experience of running my own business – from being a start-up to now operating a steady state company – a few thoughts emerge.

Six competing ideas  

1. Risk taking. Steady state corporate ladder climbing.
versus
The entrepreneurial mindset looking for an edge.

2. Money mindset. Turning up to do good work. I’m getting paid well.
versus
Helping customers doing excellent work, getting paid profits as well as wages.

3. Personal experience. Functional silo skills.
versus
Mixed and broader skills.

4. Growth mindset. Someone else will guide me.
versus
Self help.

5 Bias. Personal experience trumps all other experiences.
versus
There must be another way.

6. Right or possible. I’m right. You’re wrong.
versus
I want to at least try… see if I can.

What’s interesting on reflection here is that there is no right or wrong. It is just different, depending on the environment in which you are in.

In the corporate world it pays to be an expert, do your job well and then you get recognised for it.

In running your own business, that’s necessary but not sufficient for success.

We all know what we have to do.

We need to help our customers to be successful. How do we do that on a sustained basis?

We need to create processes that ensure delivery is successful first time every time. How do we stress-test process so that we know they will perform reliably?

We need to build a team around us, to lean on and to share the load. Who we select to be around us is critical too. What happens when we mix with the wrong crowd?

Discipline is needed

Pulling this all together, irrespective of your chosen route of corporate life or owning a business; for success to occur requires discipline. 

The discipline to do the work needed. Nothing is for free.

The discipline to do the right thing, even when nobody is watching. That’s our value system in play.

The discipline to focus on the right things, and avoid being dragged into low value, time wasting activities. The social media channels will hate me for saying that.

Life is a marathon, and even at all-day-walking pace, rather than a sprint, it speeds by.

What is important to you?

What are the important things you want to do in your business?
What are the important things you want to do with your time?
Failing to choose a focus and build your plan, is allowing the minutiae to steal your life away, one second at a time.
Is that what you want? Or do you have a better plan?

To learn more, you can read:
The Money Tree – Chapter 13: Scripting – “Ask your POWER questions; Find out what if? Narrow the focus; Prove the benefits”, pp. 83-96
How to Make More Money Than You Know How to Spend – Chapter 18: Stop making me guess – the germ of an action plan; translate strategy into implementable action, pp. 301-307
Or listen to my podcasts:
Podcast Ep04 – How to Make More Money Than You Know How to Spend
Podcast Ep05 – The Money Tree

Steve Wood is a management consultant who helps business owners to achieve their own roaring success.