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"Every battle is won or lost before it's fought." Sun Tzu, June 29, 2009
This review is from: Duck and Recover: The Embattled Business Owner's Guide to Survival and Growth (Hardcover)
In this volume, Steven S. Little provides what is described as "the embattled business owner's guide to survival and growth." In fact, his insights and suggestions can be of substantial assistance to anyone who has a number of business concerns. The title refers to a situation in business that is analogous to one in sports when, for example, baseball players on defense crouch while awaiting a batter's response to the next pitch or when linemen on defense in football await the next snap of the ball: "It puts them in the best position to release a focused, explosive movement when the time is right." Think of a company that is fully prepared to respond quickly and effectively to a threat (e.g. a competitor's advertising campaign promoting a price discount) or to an opportunity (e.g. to enter a market the competition has vacated). In The Art of War, Sun Tzu suggests that every battle is won or lost before it is fought. Hence the importance of preparation. "You should put your organization in a similar position right now in order to focus your potential energy. And effective duck now will enable you to focus your potential energy."
In which areas do organizations tend to be most vulnerable? Little identifies four.
1. Not focusing on root causes: "Don't allow symptoms to distract you from treating the real trauma." Symptoms can usually be grouped and usually reveal a pattern that indicates causality. They do not occur in isolation. They are not self-generating.
2. Not prioritizing areas that need your attention: "Whatever your bent, that area of expertise and comfort in your business is probably pretty well covered. Too often, it is the area you haven't paid attention to that needs your attention now." More often than not, prioritizing involves identifying a sequence of action steps. For example: turn off the water, repair the broken pipe, and then clean up the mess.
3. Not putting new and recent problems in proper perspective: "Whatever the crisis du jur is, be sure that you are able to frame it properly. Is it really the most important thing for you to address today, or is it simply the most unsettling issue you've dealt with recently?" Urgency, not familiarity or novelty, should determine area or problem on which to focus.
4. Not knowing how to apply tourniquets: "You should know that in business, as in first aid, the decision to apply a tourniquet could cause you to lose that arm of your business forever...In which areas of your business do you have the experience and the expertise to apply tourniquets? As you look for ways in which to stop the bleeding, remember that crudely applied devices can produce unintended and deleterious consequences."
At one point in his narrative, Little cites an old saying "that is both conventional wisdom and common sense: `Revenue is vanity, margin is sanity, but cash is king'...Margins matter, but more often than not, the cash created by a better bottom-line matters more. With these principles in mind, you should be able to ride out any storm. Things are going to be bumpy, but that's hardly a secret. If you keep your head down but your mind open, the duck phase [i.e. an immediate and prudent response to a crisis] will probably position your organization for the smoother recovery phase ahead. In order to duck effectively, be sure you develop...a sound cash management monitoring system, encompassing all of the relevant data, a realistic understanding of which customers are worth the effort to retain an organizational environment that fosters TRUST in the people who work with and for you, a diligent effort to create a crisis plan that is written, communicated, and regularly updated, a well-rounded team of objective, expert advisors, and a comprehensive marketing strategy that puts you in the best position to seize the inevitable opportunities created by change."
Near the conclusion of his book, Little focuses on seven specific areas in whuch sustained growth companies "look for innovations, evolutions, and revolutions that lead to growth, no matter the industry in which they compete nor economic environment to which they must adapt: a strong sense of purpose, outstanding market intelligence, effective growth planning, customer-driven processes, using appropriate technologies to achieve a decisive competitive advantage, attracting and retaining "the best and brightest" people, and seeing the future more clearly.
Years ago, Andrew Grove (former chairman and CEO of Intel) observed, "I'm often credited with the motto, `Only the paranoid survive.' I have no idea when I first said this, but the fact remains that, when it comes to business, I believe in the value of paranoia. Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. The more successful you are, the more people want a chunk of your business and then another chunk and then another until there is nothing left. I believe that the prime responsibility of a manager is to guard constantly against other people's attacks and to inculcate this guardian attitude in the people under his or her management."
That said, when quoting Mark Twain, Steven Little offers another perspective: "I am an old man and I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." Presumably other troubles did, however, and therefore it makes sense to be ready to react and respond if and when they do occur. For Grove, that is the only way, not only to survive but also to conquer.
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