Is Your Enterprise Growing Old?

Enterprises are a lot like human beings in their aging process. The longer an enterprise/organization has been around, the more likely it is to show many of the signs of aging that humans display; a bureaucracy that bogs down like rheumatic limbs, slow take up on new tools and techniques, a tendency to quickly pooh pooh every innovation as gung-ho lack of experience.

You cannot take it for granted that the ideas that you espoused when you launched your enterprise are still valid today. Old enterprises like old people insist on the good old days. Guess what! It's a brand new day. However good you might have been with a typewriter, you are no use to anyone today except perhaps in a museum.

As your enterprise grows older as it inevitably will, don't let your mind set into certain patterns. Stay open to new ideas.

Which future is your staff seeing?

Do two People walk hand in hand if they aren't going to the same place? (Amos 3:3)

Many enterprises are not seeing much movement because they are like a cab travelling at right angles to its trailer: leadership is headed one direction, staff in another. Truth is, you may be doing your best to convey the vision but many times, your staff is also doing its best to pursue theirs; real movement starts only when the the two coincide.

The dilemma very often for an enterprise developer is that his staff do not believe in the dream as much as he does: while he is trying to build a life, they are typically just trying to make a living.

Arguably, the most important job of the enterprise developer is to sell the vision to his team. If you want to unleash the potential of a bricklayer, you must help him to realize that his job is much more than laying some miserable bricks, he must believe that he is building a house that will become a home for some family.

It is unreasonable to expect your staff to have your level of passion for the enterprise's objectives if they do not see the same vision as you see.

Sell the vision.