Getting from good to great - part one

I have been reading "Good to Great" by Jim Collins (see side bar for details). I know that many people have already read it and that many people believe it to be a great book - and so do I. However, I've come across quite a few micro-businesses whose owners say, "Too corporate for me - can't apply here - we're way too small", or "Very American and not culturally relevant to a European business." I accept that the evidence base for the book is (a) corporate and (b) North American; however I believe the messages can be applied across the board - and here's my (first) stab at that - I'll be writing more on this next week too.What's it all about?
In case you haven't read the book, the brief summary is that Collins, together with an army of researchers analysed organisations that had successfully made (and maintained) the transition from being good performers to outstanding (great) performers. He compares these organisations to others that either (a) fail to make the transition or (b) fail to maintain great performance. He then presents the evidence and "allows it to speak for itself". I find it truly compelling, because it isn't business-school theory, it's what's actually happened in real life - draw your own conclusions.

Having the right people on the bus
Early on Collins points how much effort leaders in the good-to-great companies put into getting the right team of people around them, prior to defining strategy, vision and all that other "stuff" that we're told we ought to have, but so few small companies never quite get around to doing. He draws the analogy with a bus, in that:

• You can decide where you're going and set off in that direction, and then as you go along sort out who's on the bus and who's capable of doing what, etc, or...
• You can just spend time not going anywhere, but just loading the bus with the right people - and then start your journey.

The leaders of the good-to-great companies took the second option and this is quite interesting to me. The benefits this option provided the leaders could be summarised thus:

"With the right people on the bus it doesn't matter in which direction you go - the people on the bus are there for the experience - they're there for the ride, not to reach the destination. If you define the direction first and then find you have to change direction en-route you're far more likely to upset people who got on the bus because of the direction it was heading, as opposed to the company of the fellow passengers."

Collins makes a better job of course, but I'm sure you get the picture. This set me thinking about micro/small business, who necessarily don't have very big buses, what do they do?

Minibuses for micro businesses
Many speaking businesses are "one-person bands" and it's very easy to dismiss all the above as being not relevant. "Bus, what bus? All I have is a bicycle and I have to load it, ride it and repair it all by myself".

There are two things wrong with this statement. First, you don't have a bicycle, you have a minibus, you're just choosing not to fill the other seats and second, you don't have to do everything yourself.

Let's go through this one by one and I'll tell you some of the passengers I selected for my bus:

Bookkeeping
Apart from an accountant who does your annual tax returns, etc, do you have a bookkeeper to keep everything in order on a monthly basis? Worth every penny in my view. Keeps my accountant's fees reasonable, as the accountant is getting pre-prepared data and also my time is kept to a minimum as the bookkeeper prepares the quarterly sales tax returns, (VAT in the UK, TVA in France and UID in Germany). Question: how do you know you've got the right bookkeeper on the bus? Answer: He or she has to be someone you like doing business with and they must have the same software as your accountant for seamless transfer of data between the two.

Telephone answering service
Totally necessary if you want to have uninterrupted time to write weekly articles - like this one - or write a blog, book, develop new products, etc. Remember: you're running a business, not just reacting to the market. That means you must have time to do 'stuff' on the business and that means you need someone to answer the phone. Of course, you can have a voicemail system, however I believe it's important for a speaker's business to have a live human being on the end of the phone - so that's what I do.

Master Mind Group
A small and very powerful group of professional friends. People you trust totally and with whom you are totally transparent. Go easy - select carefully. Keep it small and don't rush into any relationships.

Power Brokers
Everybody knows people who are "well-connected". Get close to these people and their network. Find out what you can offer them and offer it freely to them and their network. You only need a couple of these people - they are very powerful.

People you don't need: big egos, people who know all the answers, people who are unreliable and people you simply don't like. You're driving this minibus. It belongs to you. You get to choose who boards and in what direction you're driving, so for goodness sake make sure you fill the bus with people you like and with people who'll get on with each other.

Enjoy the journey.

That's it folks for this week - as usual, your comments welcomed and appreciated, particularly with reference as to what you'd like to hear about. I do get quite a few emails by the way, and I read them all, so please don't feel shy about getting in contact.

Best wishes for the coming week.

Chris Davidson
Editor, Professional Speakers Journal
editor@professionalspeakersjournal.com