The story is told of the CEO who calls his CFO to authorise the travel and associated costs of an expensive training programme for some core members of his team.  Aghast at the high cost for the programme, the CFO remarks, ‘we are spending all this money to train them.  What if they leave our company even after we have spent all this money training then?” The CEO was calm and responded, ‘Ah, but what if we don’t train them and they stay?’

Adaptive thinking, compelling yet versatile leadership, and the notion of a learning organisation are all concepts that are becoming critically pertinent in operating and growing a business – and they are becoming more so now more than ever.

All of what a business is is an entity that provides a particular solution to the needs of a category of people within a society.  How a business chooses to provide that solution can be what distinguishes and especially profits a business – from the expertise and competencies of your team, to the detail of service delivery, to the form and content of leadership of a business.  These should, must perhaps, be adaptive.

They must be adaptive because societies are dynamic.  The people that form societies, i.e. your clients, evolve.  Thinking, wants and needs, all adapt and as all of these adapt businesses need to also adapt to make themselves relevant to the needs of that society – the what, why and how of what you do in a business needs to be constantly examined because of this.

The biggest challenge is that whilst most businesses believe they understand this, they often fail to practice and actualise what that actually means for their business.  This is not surprising.  It is not surprising because change is difficult – and yet change is needed.  To change what, how and why you do what your business does is first of all a lesson in humility.  It is second of all a tremendous exercise in self-examination, and thirdly it will mean an uncertain transition period.  And I think this is why there is so much resistance to change – because it requires all of us to do different in new ways – ways that we are not familiar with and we all know that unfamiliar territories are as daunting as they are risky.   But nothing that will grow will do so without a transition period. Metamorphoses.

Perhaps what we need to do as businesses in seeking to apply change so that we can thrive is to simply view change as a growth path.  Without change we run the risk of not growing.  With change we also run the risk of not growing.  But we have tried to grow without change and we are not growing.  Therefore we are more likely to grow if we do change because the status quo is not giving us the result that we want.  Simpler?

The problems of today are caused by the solutions of yesterday.  And what many businesses continue to do is to provide the solutions of yesterday to today’s more advanced, stickier problems.  To be relevant in business, we need to be more open to change, we need to be responsive to change, and we need to actually seek and want to change.

This often requires new learning.  It often requires bringing in a third party to support you in identifying and then structuring the business change that you need along your value chain; and it will then require instituting new work processes, new ways and means – and ultimately it will begin a process of individual and organisational learning. 

It is this new learning that actually has the power and the potential to exponentially grow a business.  The future is not a place we are going, it is a place we are creating.  When a business takes a decision to change, to really change and be more acutely responsive to the needs of their clients and stakeholders, that business has started a process of creating a new future.  We don’t create a new future by doing the same thing the same old way.  We create a new future from new learning out of an observation and real understanding of what society and our clientele needs from us, and by taking a decision to work with that new learning through the development of better more responsive products and or services, better and more responsive ways of working, better and more responsive systems and processes.

The success of that change process is implicitly linked to the core leadership and management team understanding the need for change, desiring and buying into change.  You cannot play lip service to change and grow.  This speaks to the wider notion of the ability of a leader to inspire her team to see the need for change, to want change, and to execute new change processes, thinking and doing as they daily execute their tasks. This ability, the ability to inspire, to motivate, and to support your team to see the positive externalities of the change you need even before that change occurs, is what stands you out a leader.  Taking people to a place they have not yet being, and getting them excited about arriving there.

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It was apparently Dr Martin Luther King who said you don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step – and as I sat with a group of 70 odd women global leaders at a meeting convened by Vital Voices in Johannesburg, I completely understood Dr King’s words more so than ever before.

Of course Dr King was probably remarking on the civil rights movement which he led in the United States.  He was probably remarking that even though a dream may seem far off, our responsibility is to take the first step in doing, and as I conferenced with these 70 remarkable global female leaders, it became blatantly obvious that each one had travelled a road, each one had travelled a road less travelled and that each one had created a path rather than followed a path.  For each one had dreamed a unique idiosyncratic dream.  A dream that rendered them weird and obtuse, but a dream that they could not but pursue even though they may not have been able to see the whole staircase from the outset.

All of these women are doing remarkable things in their communities.  They are making positive change in their societies, and some are doing so with tremendous danger to their lives as they tackle social and cultural taboos.  In fact what they are doing in their communities is so peculiar and pioneering that their voice represents a vital voice in their communities and societies.  Much the same way that the Suffragettes were a vital voice the in late 19^th century, and Billie Jean King remains a vital voice in women’s sports and tennis in particular, all of these women stay true to their own authentic voice and calling, even though they may not have been able to see the whole staircase, even though they may not know the end of where they are going and how they will reach the destination, they carried on, knowing that a desired destination had to be reached.  Further, they have refused to stop until that desired destination has been reached.

So it is in business.  Sometimes as an entrepreneur and CEO, you may not know how or if that dream is possible.  You may not know how and even if you will achieve that dream, but soldier on you do and soldier on you must because it is only in throwing in the first pebble that a ripple forms and the ripple effect begins.

But then of course therein lies the ingredient for leadership and legacy, for when you dream an original dream or are gingered in calling to a new path, you begin a transformative journey for society and for yourself.

As the new year rises many are pregnant, optimistic and euphoric with a new business vision, even as they may speculate if they will get to the top that business staircase that they are commencing in 2019, wondering if the goals that they set will be, can be, successfully implemented. 

But goal setting and goal execution is a journey and a process – not just an exercise completed in a workshop and which, as if by magic, comes to life and completion without any disturbances.  Setting the goal is one thing (it is in fact one very commendable achievement, for many do not even bother to do so, preferring to go with their ‘gut feeling’) and executing the goal is another.  The former speaks to the genesis of a thing.  It speaks to an aspiration.  It speaks to an idea, a noble ambition.  The latter, goal execution, to me speaks more to the hunger for achieving that aspiration. 

It is the hunger and the ambition for an aspiration that keeps you working at 3am to deliver on a report even though the fees for the service may not be as appealing as you would like, but yet you understand that growth is a process – this piece of work could potentially stand you in good stead for the next, bigger, project.  It is this hunger and ambition that keeps you investing in your business and your brand through deliberate and meticulous attention to detail in doing the work that you do and doing it to the best of your ability even though you may not see the fullness of the result that you would like yet.  It is this hunger and ambition that causes some (and many later) to begin to notice and positively respond to your business service and product, becoming the net promoters of your business even whilst you pay less attention to the acclaim and focus of service and operational excellence.  It is this hunger and ambition that keeps you climbing the staircase even though you cannot yet see the top of the staircase. 

Many of us may not yet see the whole staircase, we may not yet see the expected end that we desire, but we must be kind to ourselves.  Rome was not built in a day and so long as we take the first step, the second, third, fourth and fifth step to the attainment of our business dreams and ambitions, we are making the necessary inroads.

Have big dreams.  You will grow into them.

Written by: Ruka Sanusi

It was the late Anita Roddick, Founder of the Body Shop, who said “nobody talks about entrepreneurship as a survival skill, but that is exactly what it is – and what nurtures creative thinking”.  A survival skill.

Entrepreneurs are especially vulnerable to uncertain times – not readily assured of a monthly salary, even though saddled with monthly costs and expenditures of running a business.  All such incidences can make the times and seasons uncertain.  And it can be tough.  But in all honesty, all times are uncertain, for we all live in the present, for and in the moment.  Today, or in a particular season, a business can enjoy increased sales and better client engagement – and even then it doesn’t mean that the business future we desire is certain.

The Price and the Prize of Entrepreneurship

The price of entrepreneurship is uncertainty, and the prize is a vision fulfilled, success even in the midst of uncertainty.  Much of the process of entrepreneurship involves tremendous risk taking.  Risk that is buoyed with competency, skills, ability, networking, service excellence and good fortune.  It is often the uncertainty in those moments that fuel your drive to success – and I think that is what Anita Roddick meant when she said that the survival nature of entrepreneurship fuels creativity.

Uncertainty, the fuel for the drive to success

It has often been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it.  In other words, create your own certainties.  What are those things that you are certain of in your business?  Could that be your expertise?  Could your certainty be the collaborative, adaptable modus operandi of your organisation?  Whatever your certainty is, it can enable you to better anticipate Black Swans – that rare, high impact and unpredictable calamitous event with extreme consequences.  We can’t predict calamities, but we can develop the resilience to cope with them.

How is that resilience developed? Ah, that question goes to the heart of why a business exists, and how that why is servicing how a business is operated, and, critically, knowing how to look uncertainty in the eye, knowing its limits. 

Imagine the amount of businesses across west Africa that were affected by the Ebola crisis of four years ago.  One such business was the The Radisson Blu which had just opened in Freetown.  The city’s only international hotel chain, its owners I imagine looked forward to a surge of business.  There was a scarcity of high quality international hotels in Sierra Leone, and the Radisson Blu was tipped to take extreme advantage of the increasing amount of business travellers coming into Freetown – from mining companies, to UN and NGO staff, to professional services firms.  Recently refurbished, the hotel was ready for business.

And then Ebola happened. 

A major exodus of nationals and expatriates followed, as did an extreme decline in business travellers.  Even nationals who might have enjoyed an evening meal or Sunday lunch with the family at Radisson Blu shied away – prompted by the dangers of inadvertent exchange of bodily fluids from every day human contact.

Staring uncertainty in the eye, the GM of Radisson Blu was decisive.  Committed to his position as a leader, when everyone was leaving Freetown, he stayed – instilling trust, loyalty and confidence in himself from his team as he did so.  He commented that the uncertainty of what might happen at the end of each business day made business unpredictable.  With the extreme dip in business, Radisson Blu was even forced to consider the inevitable – laying off the very staff they had invested massively in through hospitality and wellness training. 

Deploying the support of unions, the issues at hand were discussed with staff and everyone agreed to remain in their positions whilst taking a salary cut.  What that rendered was tremendous team spirit, motivation and increased loyalty.  And when the international public health and disease control experts came into Freetown to manage Ebola, many checked in to the Radisson Blu.

There is something to be said for strong leadership and best practice – those standards and practices that govern how an entity or a professional service is operated.  Deciding to deploy those standards in the operations of your business from day one, or as early as possible, stands you in good stead.  Whilst others may think you are creating unnecessary bottlenecks for your business in an already unfriendly business climate, best practice can stand you out in the long term.

For Radisson Blu, I imagine it must have been this best practice that comes from being an international chain committed to certain operational standards that rendered them the first choice hotel for those health workers, international reporters and international administrators that flew into Freetown to respond to the Ebola crisis. 

We can’t always prevent uncertainties – otherwise they would not be called uncertainties – but we can develop our resilience and capacity to cope better with them.  And we can do this through a process that I call “paying attention to the way you pay attention”. 

One trait that I constantly see in many of the terrific business leaders that I come into contact with day in and day out is courage.  Courage can be defined as many things.  Indeed it is defined as many things, but I guess one definition that really resonates with me is the definition of courage as the willingness to be afraid and to act anyway.

Life requires courage, and being a business owner requires great courage.  Courage denotes going against the grain.  It denotes grappling with fear and uncertain; and most of all it denotes conquering the fear and choosing to execute that which you feared you would not and could not.

But courage in of itself should not be hurriedly celebrated, for not all seemingly courageous acts are gallant.  Brexit might be an example of this.  Though brave to go against the grain in asking voters to reconsider the cost and the price of being a member in the European Union, leaders of the Leave Campaign surely demonstrated courage.  What we are now being told is that their very advocacy and courage was filled with many untruths – untruths which perhaps misled many voters.  The courage that I speak of then is that which JF Kennedy advocated for when he said effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

Still reeling from a recent business odyssey in South Africa , I think of courage perhaps more often now than I ever did.  Every time I think of what some of the business leaders I interacted with set out to do, the circumstances in which they set out to do it, and then the friction which they must have endured and faced because what they sought to do went against the grain, every time I think of all of this I think courage. And I also think ‘no ego’.

For me personally I am gaining a better understanding and the ramifications of the positive externalities of courage with purpose and direction in the leadership of a business; as I am the negative externalities of ego, even purpose with ego, in the leadership of a business.

Two years ago, I had the privilege of being invited the Dell Women Entrepreneurs Summit in Cape Town – the first to held on African soil.  A global summit for highly successful women entrepreneurs and CEOs from all over the world, I was astounded at the ‘ease’ of the summit.  From Americans to Japanese to Brazilians to Europeans and to South Africans, these highly successfully women in business exuded no airs and graces, no arrogance nor pride, no egotism nor superiority.  We were all there to learn, full stop.  I sensed a great thirst for knowledge, a greater thirst and desire for unity and oneness.  It was not about who they were, nor the label on their handbags and shoes – it was about purposefully escalating to the next level for their businesses and for themselves, and doing so with like-minded people.  I had never felt so welcomed, and so inspired, to dream and to do better.

But as I dug deeper and read the bios of these amazing women, I was, quite literally, gobsmacked.  There is no other way that I can describe it.  My company included millennials, courageous millennials, who are running multi-million dollar businesses flanked by a sole, dogged desire to deliver a valuable product and or service to society – and yet eager to do better, to do more purposefully.  Women CEOs in their late 40s and 50s who had gathered courage to leave well paying jobs with global corporations to start a business, businesses that are improving the lives of all those who come into contact with their goods and services, whether that is a technology business, a social enterprise, or even a public relations business that seeks to gravitate women entrepreneurs from ‘unknown to expert’. 

At that conference, Ashish Thakkar, one of Africa’s celebrated business leaders, was a panellist and speaker on day one and one of his tweetable quotes was: if you do good, you will do well.  Ashish Thakkar’s story in of itself is one filled with courage.  Born in Leicester after his parents fled from Uganda in 1972, Ashish’s parents moved back to Africa, this time to Rwanda in 1993.  A year later the whole family found themselves engulfed by the genocide, and then moved back to Uganda in 1994.  The only snag is that by this time they had lost everything – again.  Exasperated by their plight, Ashish, at 15, dropped out of school and started a business. 

Self -labelling himself as a refuge and school dropout, Ashish Thakkar, having now built a $1bn global corporation, wants to help struggling entrepreneurs– as he once was – to connect with funders. He says for him success is defined by the number of lives you are touching. 

From millennials, to the business elders, to the amazing women of DWEN and to Ashish Thakkar, my SA business odyssey was a lesson in courageously tying purpose to profits, and doing so without ego.

Guest Blogger
Ruka Sanusi is Founder and Principal of Alldens Lane. Ruka is a management consultant with a unique focus on providing advisory services in the areas of business strategy, business operations and business transformation. Read More…