What got you Here won’t get you There

What got you here won’t get you there. What strength got you to your current success becomes your weakness in the next leg of your journey.

In Mountain 1 (Mountain of Purpose), the business is in Infancy.

In Mountain 2 (Mountain of Value), the business is a Toddler and the work of the business is to discover a Profitable Business Model. 

In both Mountain 1 and Mountain 2, Leading from the Front is the most effective leadership style. You define the Purpose, Core Values and the BHAG in Mountain 1. And, you roll-up your sleeves to get out of the office to meet your customers and discover profitability, making a difference to your customers - one conversation at a time. Then, you find people who are aligned with your Purpose, Core Values and BHAG. Forever more, onboard only those people who are aligned to the foundation of your Business - Purpose, Core Values, BHAG. This may slow you down but Tortoises win the race, not Hares. 

Building a Great Business is a marathon, not a sprint. Impatience to see results, need for Instant Gratification, discomfort with Failure are barriers on the Good to Great journey. That is why building a Great Business requires Leadership Depth.

Failures, Discomfort and Breakdowns are our best friends on our journey to realize our and our business' highest potential. 

In Mountain 3 (Mountain of Growth), the business is in Adolescence and the work of the business is to learn self-discipline to begin the journey to realize its highest potential. Process Excellence and Operational Effectiveness is the key at this stage to further success.

The Unconscious needs to become Conscious to scale the business in the next stage because if your DNA of success is unconscious, you can’t onboard people with velocity and ensure their success.

Leading from the Centre  is the most effective leadership style at this stage. The Founder needs to write the Book of Greatness for their people to understand consciously what made them successful and how to follow it with even more precision to create greater success. It also creates space for elevating the processes to make an even bigger difference to our people and our customers.

The Business Book of Greatness is unfortunately called Operations Manual and Founders squirm at the very sound of it. 

Yet, writing this Book and implementing it, leading from the centre, will elevate the Founder’s consciousness all the way to Gear 3.

Raising a child is a hands-on job. Similarly, building a business is a hands-on job. The founder has to roll-up their sleeves and clean the business' bottoms, change their business' nappies, bathe the business, feed the business with their energy, get their business ready to go to school, believe in their business even when they get poor marks and keep growing themselves to lead their business in a way that would most support the business at the stage the business is at.

At this stage, any excess money plugged into the business which is not earned from the customers pulls the business down to the Good journey which is opposite of the Business' Hero's Journey from Good to Great. More start-ups die of indigestion than of starvation. 

Necessity is the mother of Innovation. Having excess kills the hunger for greatness more than anything else. 

Being an investor to your business, instead of being a responsible conscious parent, and pumping money because you have excess of it is only leading it to a Good journey which comes in the way of creating massive positive impact. Good itself feels like success that we don't even realize we are not travelling our Good to Great journey. We become blind to the fact that we are not leading our business from Good to Great. 

In Mountain 4 (Mountain of Scale), the business is a Young Adult having learnt discipline in Mountain 3 and is ready to take on the world. This is the right time to invest outside funds in the business, not before that. Leading from the Centre  is still the most effective leadership style at this stage which means you are at the centre of the Universe of your business. 

In Mountain 5 (Mountain of Mastery), the business finally becomes a Mature Adult ready to live on its own. It is time now to change our Leadership Style to Lead from Behind by finding a Professional CEO to continue the Good to Great journey, leading the Business on the next Spiral of Growth from Mountain 1 to Mountain 5, while we become their mentor and start our own next Spiral of Growth with another business.

Good is the enemy of Great. Success is the enemy of Massive Positive Impact. Excess is the enemy of Innovation.

This is our biggest blind spot. We are happy and content with Good when we can realize our highest potential, and make a massive transformative positive impact in our country and the world.

May each one of us awaken and stay awakened to our Hero's Journey of Good to Great for us to keep journeying forward to joyously fly high in the vast sky of our limitless possibilities. That is our Purpose every Lifetime.

Loving you,
j.