Business success is more than leadership
Business success is more than leadership. There has to be a purpose to the things we do in life or it’s a waste of time. At the end of the day, time is all we have. Better still, it’s a waste of an opportunity. Life to me is all about opportunities. I guess that’s why I love being an entrepreneur. So much to do yet so little time.
Earlier this year I was given the opportunity to have my own weekly radio show. The reason for the invitation was because a marketing assistant at the radio station did a search on Google and up popped my name and phone number with my website and some of the content I’d put together over the years.
Once I received the invitation there was the question – now what do I do? Is this something I can use to help other business owners? I think being an entrepreneur and owning your own business is great. No question it has its ups and downs, at times can be stressful, at times it can drive you crazy but it provides a purpose for each day, the opportunity to learn and get better and so the benefits go on and on.
One of the primary benefits I see in doing the show is that each week I get to meet and talk with at least two guests that are in business or help people get into business. The importance of this benefit came home to me when I was reading the story of Kari L Granger. Kari Granger studied at the Air Force Academy for four years and has a Master’s Degree in leadership. With her position in the Air Force Academy she found herself serving in Iraq with her responsibility leading her team to repair damaged aircraft.
The overall standard for mission success in repairing damaged aircraft in Iraq within a certain period of time was 65%. Her maintenance unit was operating with a 58% mission success rate.
The success rate of her unit changed when she got a call one morning at 2:30AM to get a team together, fly into a combat area, fix a broken aircraft and bring it back. It was during that trip that she met the men and women whose lives depended on the aircraft she was repairing. They told her, ‘When these don’t fly, we die.’
Her context changed. She repaired that airplane with bullets flying all around her, flew it back to her maintenance unit and the very next day her team began operating with a mission success rate of 100%.”
Kari explains it best when she says “So there I was, first time in Iraq, officer in charge, first time under fire. I had been studying at the Air Force Academy for 4 years. I had a master’s degree in leadership. And I was scared. You know, the first time I heard the BOOMs, the sirens. And I was hunkered down by the sandbags with my flak vest over me, and I won’t say the words that were coming out of my mouth, but knowing that a leader should be courageous did not make me courageous. Knowing that a leader ought to be a certain way did not give me access to being that way. Six years of leadership education didn’t give me what I needed in that moment.”
That is the purpose of my weekly radio show. Its purpose is to talk to business owners and those that are in business. Each guest has a point of view or perspective on successfully owning and operating a business. They come on the show to share and I love to have them as a guest as it gives me a chance to learn from those that our out in the market and doing it. Fighting the war in Iraq like Kari Granger is not the same as running a business as the chances are extremely high we’ll go home at night. However, after Kari’s experience of being under fire the first time, her maintenance operating units 58% mission success rate went to 100% as she understood that anything less than 100% meant lives were being lost.
What can you do to increase the performance and success of your business? Hear more from your employees, your customers and others around you. If you ask them I’m sure they’ll have an opinion. Whether you choose to take action and increase your success rate will come down to your leadership skills and new information available to you.
Please join me each Tuesday at 10.00am on 105.5 FM and Money 2.0 and hear what other business owners are doing. Perhaps one of their suggestions or experiences will increase your success. If you can’t listen in to the show as it goes to air, you can always go to my website and hear each show – this link will take you there – 105.5FM and Money 2.0.
