16 minute read
SBT Good Business
from SBT issue 454
SBT
GOOD BUSINESS
BY JESS NEIL
AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH AND CLOSE YOUR BUSINESS?
BY JEREMY JACOBS
SBT GOOD BUSINESS SPONSORED BY:
What is your biggest fear in business? Cashflow, people politics, public speaking? If you could take a magic eraser to Sunday night dread or pre-presentation tummy turns, how would that impact your day-to-day experience of work?
If professional failure and success held the same value for you, how would that change the shape of your business? What might ideas and innovation look like in that space, and perhaps most importantly, what kind of team would you build in that environment?
The great resignation of 2021
represented a tidal wave of personal and professional re-evaluation, triggered by polarising politics, global social justice movements, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the inevitable, yet drastically accelerated shift to more flexible ways of working. The 2021 Indeed Workplace Happiness Report found that second only to pay, lack of happiness was the leading reason that those surveyed considered quitting. The role work plays in our lives has shifted drastically over recent generations; we are now more driven than ever to seek work that provides us with a sense of identity, purpose, alignment and fulfilment. Despite countless management and leadership studies indicating that happier, healthier teams produce tangibly better results, even by the traditional metrics of profit, productivity and presenteeism, many businesses still don’t seem able to move beyond the fear that prioritising people over profits might lead to catastrophe. As we stand at this inflection point,
Good looking ahead to a future of hybrid Business working, a metaverse of connectivity, and the slightly ominous new normal, what are the simple, foundational principles that teams of the future must embrace? How can we ensure that greater connectivity does not come at the cost of meaningful connection, and that our health, happiness and fulfilment, are the drivers of our decision making, as we shape this new working world?
Safety and Trust
If our long-term goal is dismantling the outdated ideals of the status quo, we should start by taking a sledgehammer to the pillars of hierarchy, paternalistic professionalism and fear that uphold it.
Fear has a nasty habit of permeating down through an org chart, leading us to approach people management from a position of mistrust and breeding feelings of existential dread in our teams.
Fear is an extraordinarily powerful motivator for both action and inaction. Human beings are hard wired for survival and our ability to process and respond to perceived threats is a vital part of that mechanism. When facing what our brain interprets as a life-threatening situation, our bodies’ automatic fear responses kick in. This triggers a range of physical and hormonal responses: accelerated heart rate and breathing rush oxygen to major muscles to enable fight or flight, or a decreasing heart rate and restricted breathing forces us to freeze or flop to minimise the risk of physical harm.
When it comes to life and death decisions, there is no question that our brain is designed to support our survival. However, in the relative comfort of the modern working world, in interviews, presentations, or when facing down professional failures, why do we so often find ourselves responding from a place of such heightened fear?
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us that after safety, belonging is the next most fundamental human need. Over the span of human evolution, establishing connection and cooperation has increased our chances of survival exponentially, making the desire to find belonging and acceptance in social groups an instinctive human need.
With all this in mind, it becomes clear that what is required of us as leaders, as we build the teams of the future, is to create a sense of psychological safety and belonging in our organisations. We must inspire and empower our people to fulfil their potential, without leveraging their basic human desire for safety and acceptance. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to grow, change and adapt, in both function and structure, in response to new information and evidence. We have the power to do things differently, and in doing so to tread down new neural pathways, that lead us to the extraordinary potential that lies just beyond the limitations of our learned fears.
Culture and Communication
A healthy, happy organisational culture is one that is founded on clearly defined and deeply engrained, shared core values. Your values should be the unambiguous boundaries that define who you are, and who you are not. These values should be supported by a set of behaviours, that act as practical, tangible examples of how you work. It feels important to note here that an unwavering emphasis on living up to shared values and behaviours should never be conflated with a requirement for homogeneity. Sharing values is not about being the same, thinking the same or even agreeing. In fact, the greatest test of how well a team lives its values, can be how quickly and kindly it can resolve conflict.
At the heart of a values-led culture is effective communication. Assuming that you have done the foundational work of building a team that is representative of the community in which it exists, or the customers that it hopes to serve, the next step is building a framework for communication that allows for the effective flow of ideas and information. Diversity has very little value if the individuals in a team are not supported, empowered, or rewarded for bringing their unique experiences to the table. If you do not have mechanisms in place to keep unhealthy power dynamics in check, and to hear the perspectives of the introverted, societally marginalised, or more junior members of your team, then there will be blind spots in your organisational outlook, leading to poorer decision making, and worse outcomes at every level.
The extent to which your team feel safe to bring all of who they are into your organisation, will be directly proportional to your willingness to lead by example. Perfection doesn’t exist; but consistently showing up for them, being honest, vulnerable, empathic, authentic and accountable for your actions, is a great place to start.
Freedom and Flexibility
In a traditional business model, c-suite executives are usually considered the most valuable members of an organisation. As such, they are often afforded remuneration that is representative of their value, alongside the trust, freedom and resources that they need to thrive in their roles. If we had the courage to extend these privileges across our teams, it follows that engagement, job satisfaction, productivity and general wellbeing would likely improve proportionally.
Happy, healthy teams are built on foundations of fairness, trust, respect, and above all, kindness. In establishing core shared values and making a commitment to leveraging trust over fear, leaders create space to offer their teams true freedom and flexibility, allowing them to determine, when, where and how they work, and trusting them to get that work done.
The words trust and transparency are thrown around so often in the context of organisational culture that they risk losing tangible meaning when it comes to day-to-day decision making. So, let’s explore a specific example: In a truly diverse team, what constitutes a major life event, worthy of taking leave, will be entirely different from one person to the next. Birthdays, religious celebrations, mental or physical health issues, births or deaths will all have completely different impacts on the lives of each member of a team. There is no HR policy robust enough, or leader experienced enough, to make a fair determination about what does or does not warrant granting someone the time off that they feel they need. Freedom and flexibility mean saying; “Take as much leave as you need, whenever you need it. I trust your judgement and your commitment to our values, and think you’re better placed than me to balance your own needs with those of the wider team. I’m here if you need any support.”
The antidote to fear in leadership is accountability. Embracing your own power in values-driven leadership means being truly accountable for supporting those members of your team who share your organisational values, to thrive. It also means taking equal accountability for kindly and compassionately supporting those who do not, to find opportunities that better suit their needs. Offering freedom and flexibility doesn’t mean allowing people to take the mick, it means rewarding those who don’t with the trust that they deserve.
Visionary Leadership
If your values are who you are, and your behaviours are how you work, then your vision is what you are working towards. Great leadership is about painting a picture of what success looks like, so compelling and clearly defined that it acts like North on a compass, allowing every member of the team to orient themselves and their decision making, and see exactly how their contribution slots into the bigger picture. As a leader you must seek to collate the ideas and ambitions of your team into a singular unifying set of bold objectives, coaching, inspiring and empowering them with the feelings of safety and freedom needed to dream, innovate and create. French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry perhaps described it best when he said “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
Jessica Neil SevensEdge
About the Author
Jess Neil is a coach and consultant with over 15 years’ experience in pursuing her own professional utopia, achieving extraordinary success and catastrophic failure along the way. Through SevensEdge, Jess inspires her clients to dream about what meaningful success and fulfilment would look like for their teams, supporting them to translate their vision into simple, actionable strategies, empowering them to align their actions with their purpose and reach their true potential more quickly.
hello@sevensedge.com www.sevensedge.com
Instagram: @jessicaamyneil / @ sevensedge LinkedIn: Jessica Neil
At what point do you say enough is
enough and close your business?
Jeremy Jacobs, experienced entrepreneur, consultant and mentor talks about closing his business of 13 years after Covid caused a 97% drop in revenue overnight. He discusses the first thing you need to consider when closing, why failure is always an option - and why mental health and well-being should be everybody’s priority.
On the 1st of September 2021 I stood on Hove Lawns walking my dog, Biff, exhausted, frustrated and upset. That was the moment I took the decision to close my business after 13 years. Covid has destroyed my business. The business I started with my parents in their kitchen. The business we had invested all our time, energy, and love into making it work. A business that had, to us, been incredibly successful. If you run or have ever run your own business, you will know how challenging it is. It can, if you allow it, take everything you have physically and mentally. Running a business is a choice. Yet it can feel, like it did for me, that it wasn’t, and I felt I had to keep on going despite the negative impact on my physical and mental health.
The problem with the hustle culture
We live in a culture of “hustle” and “the grind”. Social media is awash with messages of people who are working harder, smarter and better than you. We’re continually pushed the message that if you’re not working 70+ hours a week, you’re not a good business owner. You will never be successful. Yet conversations around burnout are common, more so during the pandemic. It’s no wonder people are questioning
Good their life, career, needs and wants. It’s Business been dubbed the “great resignation”, and people are quitting their jobs to go and find work that makes an impact, has purpose, and allows more freedom and flexibility. This is good news. The world of business is changing for the better. We must be honest with ourselves that this kind of life is not sustainable longterm. We all have our breaking point and mine came on that day in September. Since then, I have learned a lot about myself and business.
Here are the most important things I learned.
It’s your decision but consider others
When you run a business by yourself, closing is hard. You will have suppliers, customers and people that depend on you. It’s even harder when you have people working for you. You may have a partner, family, friends and loved ones that will be impacted by your decision to close. There are a lot of people to consider.
My advice is to have conversations with the people you trust as early as possible, don’t deal with it by yourself. You need to think carefully about who you tell and when. I made sure I prioritised my team and smaller suppliers and customers first, those impacted the most by my decision. Be prepared for potential backlash and difficult conversations, yet be considerate of the impact, take time to listen and understand their concerns.
When telling friends and family, some will reflect their own fears back at you in their response. Some will ask “what are you going to do?”, “how will you cope?”, “what’s the next move?”. I didn’t know or want to think about that in the early stages, I just had to take it a day at a time. I had to be clear with them that I was focussing on the closure for now and I would deal with that later.
The most important thing I learned is that the decision is yours and yours alone to make. You can listen to other people’s views, but you alone must take it.
Finally, your circumstances, legal and financial obligations are unique to you. You should seek the advice from trusted legal and financial experts before making or executing any plans to close.
Failure is always an option
There’s this quote I hear being said often, “failure is not an option”. It was made famous in the film Apollo 13. In the film, the flight director for the mission, Gene Kranz, says the line (he never said those words in real life). I can see the intention behind the saying, it was meant to motivate the team to succeed. He was in a highly stressful and precarious position, he was responsible for many lives and a very expensive, public operation. In this scenario, failure was not an option. Most people reading this article are not running businesses with this level of intensity. For me, this highlights the culture around success and failure. It suggests the idea of failure as something that cannot and should not happen. Success is glamourised, failure vilified.
Those who have been around the block in business will know that failure is inevitable and a critical part of growth and success. You cannot have innovation and growth without failure. As business leaders, we must have the humility to look at ourselves, put aside our ego, admit mistakes, and learn from it.
Yet the business world acts like failure
rarely happens. I am not going to sugar coat it but there is a lot of BS out there. Mostly on social media. People showing us a false or heavily edited picture of their business and lives. They make it look easy and fun. Truth is, it isn’t all the time and it’s not often people share the true, full spectrum of their lives.
The issue with success and failure
There is nothing wrong with being successful. There is nothing wrong with failure. The true definition of success is to achieve an outcome or an aim, failure is the lack of success. Where we trip ourselves up is what we make it mean about ourselves and our abilities.
When we are successful, we big ourselves up and give ourselves a pat on the back, we go onto social media to share our wonderful news. But when we do, we feed our ego. This makes it harder for us to accept failure. The fall is greater. This isn’t to say your achievements and successes shouldn’t be celebrated. Absolutely not! Celebrate, but remember that you are a fallible human. It’s a tricky balance but it allows us to exercise humility and more willing to share our failures.
On the flip side, the problem with failure is we make it mean something about our skills, knowledge, or abilities. We say or think “I am bad”, “I knew I couldn’t do it”, “nothing ever goes my way”. Whatever your version is, it’ll be something negative that will leave you feeling disempowered at best or giving up, slipping into a depressive state, or suicide at worst. It feels uncomfortable to bring up the subject and it’s important to acknowledge that this is the real and true cost of failure for some. For me it’s critical to have open discussions around the subject of failure to normalise it, to allow people to speak up without fear of judgement or ridicule and not suffer in silence.
Build a business around your life, not a life around your business
If I was given the opportunity to go back and do it all over again, what would I do differently? The most important thing would be is to build a business around my life and not a life around my business.
The idea of success seems to be about wealth creation, big revenues, big teams, big houses, big cars, luxury holidays and status. I used to think like that, I wanted it all. Then I got older and thought “hold on, is this what I really want?”
Yes, I still want to create and build a business, I still want to achieve success, but my version of success is very different from what I wanted only a few years ago. It is possible to do business differently, to positively impact the lives of ourselves and our teams. To have better mental health, more time with family and friends, doing things that we love, having a better work life balance.
About the author:
Jeremy Jacobs is an experienced entrepreneur, business consultant and mentor. He started his career in digital marketing. He left that career to start 2 businesses including a food manufacturing company with his Mum which ran successfully for 13 years. He now works as a mentor and consultant for a wide range of businesses including start-ups and solo entrepreneurs. He has an MBA with Distinction from University of Sussex.
He is the host and founder of “How Not to Run a Business” podcast, launched to normalise conversations around failure, mental health and what it takes to be an entrepreneur/business owner. The aim is to help people achieve success by understanding the mistake/failures and subsequent lessons of others.
Personal website:
www.jeremyjacobs.co.uk
LinkedIn:
www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyjacobsuk
Instagram:
