The Server

So why would you start a business?

Freedom to pick your own working practice?
You don’t want a boss?
You want to be your own boss?
To do something you enjoy or have a passion for?

Well, yes, all of these idea’s are great reasons for being the boss, but what I’ve noticed more and more is that many bosses (or entrepreneurs) I know are in fact almost held hostage by the business or organisation.

What I want to talk about briefly today is how these people end up in this position of being held hostage and more importantly what they can do to set them are there businesses free.

So what are the statistics? Not good, I think. Something like 80% of new businesses fail within the first year, and then of the 20% that survive that first year, 80% of them fail within five years. So 96% will fail! That’s not a good statistic!

But what about that 4%? Well some may say that they may be the worst off! How many of the bosses or owners of those 4% are actually trapped within that business? The life is literally sucked out of them! The day to day problems, people who don’t do there job, supplier issues, cash flow issues, systems problems, the list goes on and on.

But how does this happen, and what can you do to get out of this cycle and to do the things that made setting your business up in the first place worthwhile? How do you escape the “prison of the founders”, not the best name I know!

So the first point would be to understand what I like to think of as “the server”. Now we all know what a server is, but not many of understand how they work, right? So this can be seen within a new business. What do you do when you run up against a challenge, say technology, well you hire someone in or your source someone to solve that problem. Now the business incorporates this new solution, and grows up around it, and of course becomes to rely on it. This of course can happen for many different areas of a business, but the point is the same. The control is lost, and the system, programme or person becomes the controller. So point one… no servers! I don’t mean literally, I mean, avoid allowing one aspect of the business to control or to allow one person to hold all the information on “the server”, keep the control and understanding.

So briefly, how do you go about keeping the control? Well, when you run into a problem, you must take the time and effort to learn something about how the solution works, so you at least have the ability to log-in or check-in from time to time on it. I would go as far as to say, you should bring in a third party (mentioning no names, but I guess you can see where I am going with this) who would be up-skilled and learn the new systems, and routines, so you as a business have a fail safe if your initial source is lost or runs into problems. For minimal investment, you therefore gain an expert in your business, and you loose “the server” effect and remain in control.

There are many more prisons, such as micro-management, that we will discuss shortly, but lets leave it there for now. As ever your feedback and comments are welcomed, this is to spark conversation and debate, and not an instant fix.