ful of key individuals, so each individual’s strong performance is essential
to the success of the overall enterprise. In some instances, an individual’s skills can be very effective but
also static, while the needs of an enterprise will change over time. Managing these moving targets is tough and
rarely perfectly achieved. Now, we are
talking about people and it would be
foolish to suggest a constant change
of personnel. Clearly, many people
are quite adept at handling additional
responsibilities, but as an enterprise
grows, the issues may require a higher
degree of specialization that is often
best sourced from outside the organization. Many private companies tend
to be sorely deficient in managing the
people/skill/task alignment, so a lot
more can be done on this front.
One of the best examples involves
a leading organic foods company that
missed a substantial growth opportu-
nity by keeping the same vice president of sales for more than 10 years;
during this time the business grew, yet it completely neglected to ex-
pand into conventional stores because its sales staff didn’t have the re-
lationships or expertise to develop those high-growth retail accounts.
Consequently, its competitors entered these stores with less difficulty
and carved out a more than $30 million market that this company
could have led. The scope of this article isn’t sufficient to offer specific
solutions to this issue (there are volumes written on the subject), but it
is sufficient to indicate that growing private businesses need to have a
process for regularly reviewing needs, identifying the best possible
people (internally and externally) and motivating them properly.
4. Stay Informed and On Top of Trends. Many business leaders tend
to get wrapped up entirely in day-to-day issues, which causes them to
miss important developments and ideas that could materially affect
their enterprises, both positively and negatively. Implicit in the culture
of the “CEO as a superstar,” he/she is supposed to “know everything,”
even though there are not enough hours in the day to distill all the relevant information and then absorb it. Some business leaders also make
the mistake of believing they know everything there is to know about
their markets, which can lead to strategic stagnation. Conviction and
leadership are clearly good attributes for a business leader, but not at
the expense of sound market-based judgment.
(continued on page 56)
