One day a lion went hunting with fox, a jackal, and a wolf. After hunting for a long time, they killed an adult male deer.
Now the question arose as to how the game would be divided among four. The lion was very direct in approach, “Divide the stag into four parts. The first part is mine as I am the king of the jungle; the second also is mine since I am the judge in this case; and the third should be given to me for my part in the chase. The last part is for you both. You can share it equally.” Frighten of the Lions might, the team of animals did not dare.
Dear friend, is not this the kind of temptation that many startup entrepreneur face? Temptation to satisfy self with the lion share and especially when one has a wrong estimation of the value he or she is bringing into the startup team. Egotism is a common attribute of startup entrepreneurs that eventually lost the business early.
Let me make it clear that an entrepreneur organises, operate venture, and assume much of the risk. An entrepreneur is a system thinker. She has focus on both the business processes and the team who makes the venture processes work. She is a leader of people and manager of materials. When a person focuses only on herself, skill and finance, then she is a self-employee passing as an entrepreneur. The sense of “it is mine and I can do it, as I like” makes organisation difficult to retain associates and qualitative workers.
In my quest for system development and interaction with entrepreneurs, I see this pattern of poor leadership skill that compelled partners and workers to move out of venture in anger to startup another venture. Although many of those who moved out commit the same error and the circle of business failure continues.
Some time it is difficult to notice early that your team have lost interest in the enterprise but are around until they find alternative. In some organisations, the line manager’s poor leadership skill and self-centre attitude can frustrate your best workers out of the enterprise. There is a pattern I have seen among many businesses both that indicates people are no longer committed. Follow me to view the pattern as I describe it below.
The closing time is 5PM.
At 4:00pm, everybody is clearing the desk because it is just an hour until the highlight of the day. They were clearing the tables because they did not want anything to impede their progress when leaving the building.
At 4:30pm, they move away from the desk, going around to different section of the offices and strategically saying goodbye in attitude. They will do that because they do not want to do relationship stuff on their way out but rather do it on company time.
At 4:50pm, they visit the rest room to pee on the company’s time.
At 4:55pm, they are changing shoes and ready to put on “track shoes” because the race is set and on the mark like sprinter.
At 5:00 pm, everybody is gone. You look into the office and car park at 5:10pm to see that everybody is gone. It is so amazing! How could people leave at the same time so fast?
Let me balance it, leaving office at close time is not bad but the attitude of everybody wanting to escape the unpleasant environment speaks volume of a dysfunctional system.
This type of scene is one among other indicators which shows that people are not motivated in that organisation. Conversely, when people work for a happy place they will likely put in extra time for success of the venture. Why do church workers sacrificially work and business firm workers rush out? This could be because it is “Our Church” as against “My Company” in business world.
There is need to change the game in business too. There is need to put value on people who show up to help fulfil business objective. The promise must exceed salary package and move on to a place that help workers fulfil potential. There is need for new corporate promise for team members.
In the recent time, I looked at banks performances in Nigeria and discovered that among the top three performances is one that spread reward and profit sharing from Managing director down to lowest officer in the bank. It also has one of the lowest turnover rates.
In this generation, entrepreneur must become game changer who influence people, gives hope, and reward appropriately the team that makes success happen. Where there is a high turnover of employees is likely an entrepreneur with an attitude of Lion share. In such organisation, succession and continuity is always difficult to achieve.
Victor Mamora
