It’s lonely at the top - but does it need to be lonely?
I was listening to Desert Island discs recently and the guest was Richard Osman, the television presenter, producer and novelist, famous for “Pointless”, “Richard Osman’s House of Games” and two bestselling crime novels “The Thursday Murder Club “and “The Man Who Died Twice”.
To the outsider, he gives the impression that he is just a very gifted individual - but he explained that to achieve what he has done was sometimes extremely hard - and at one stage he had reverted to therapy.
Similarly, it can be very hard for business owners - as they say “There are no spectators on that extra mile”
A few years ago, I was a Non-Executive Director of a services company - with turnover of circa £10 million. Their relatively new Executive Chairman had turned the company round, secured some very large contracts and won a high-profile national award - but at a Board Meeting, he mentioned he was finding running the company very hard work.
I contacted him after the meeting and over dinner a week later, I suggested there were two reasons why he was finding it hard going and it boiled down to that expression “a problem shared is a problem halved” First, he was holding Board Meetings every quarter rather than monthly and secondly his autocratic style of management did not encourage ideas from his fellow Board Members.
Board meetings were subsequently held monthly, and I could see he had toned down his autocratic style, which resulted in better input from his Board members - and the company became even more profitable
So, my question to you as a Business Owner is “Are you shouldering the burden of running the company all by yourself or could you unburden yourself with more involvement from Mentors, Advisers or Non-Executive Directors ?"
Tagged as: Business Growth, Business Strategy, Implementation, Non Executive Directors, Strategic Planning
Share this post: