John Linton .......I wonder how many people remember such, or similar, comments on their school reports? More than a few perhaps?
I don't remember any on mine but then that could well have been becasue I didn't try at all throughout my school education or alternatively because it was so long ago that I have no real recollection of such details - I do remember not trying at all though as 'good enough' results came very easily to me in all subjects other than applied math (which I never understood from the first moment I opened the course books).
However if I was to mark my 'business report card' I would very definitely use those phrases and some much harsher ones. Nothing like a long weekend to reflect on the weeks and months in front of you - particularly when you are working on a business plan that sets out in such clinical detail what has to be accomplished over the next twelve months simply to 'stay alive' let alone make any real progress.
As the increasing number of aches and pains and other disabilities keep ramming home the message that I am now at an age where most people take it much easier and enjoy the financial and other benefits of their long and successful career achievements to spend more time on the golf course and 'investigatory' overseas trps than they consider giving to their offices. Unfortunately, and I would be the first to admit completely deservedly, I am in neither of those situations and therefore I am looking at a very demanding twelve months where 70 - 80 hour weeks are yet again going to be the norm to ensure that Exetel gets through some likely quite difficult circumstances (perhaps fortunately, I don't play golf and therefore have no handicap to improve by spending more time on that activity).
I don't regard myself as a particularly lazy person but I do look at the work required over the coming 12 months and then for several years beyond that, if not with dismay, then with something that begins to have all the signs of dismay. Ignoring the obvious self pity elements of such emotional self indulgences there is a very real hard core of the recognition that physical stamina is as much a part of competitive business life as is mental acuity and mental toughness.
If ever there was a time when it's highly likely to need to 'try harder' and to 'perform right up to the very top limits of potential' then FY2009 has all the indications of such a period.
The realisation that has also now occurred to me is that such efforts, together with their associated financial and operational risks, will have to continue for 2 - 3 years beyond June 30th 2009 - there is no 'end in sight' and while we might not be in Kansas any more we're a very long way from Oz.
Then again, perhaps it's just the miserable weather here - third day of a rainy long weekend.
Of course, as Annette said over lunch yesterday -"just take one of the offers that occur every so often (the real ones not the flim flam) and sell the company". She's probably correct but I don't think I've either "tried hard enough yet" nor have I yet "achieved my potential" and they are very serious errors of omission in any career. I also think that having put in so much effort, by so many people over the past four and a half years that it would be a great shame not to achieve at least most of the objectives we set when we began this 'project'.
From what I've read the ability to survive four years in a start up business is a fair indication that the business will go on to survive in to its tenth year either as an ongoing separate entity or as part of another entity with which it mergees or by which it is taken over. From the same business advice and reading, from the fifth year onwards life begins to get easier for the founders of a small business and they need to devote less personal time to it.
It doesn't look that way but who am I to quibble with 'experts'?
What I did do late last night /early this morning was take three of the most obviously difficult decisions and implementations out of the Exetel business plan and reduced the revenue targets for FY2010 and 2011 which were, as is their nature, only general estimates anyway. I don't know if this was the right thing to do or not but it made me feel better and while I realised that they could be re-instated at any time the whole management burden looked far less demanding.
Ah....the power of self delusion.........