The Building Business Value newsletter has one purpose - to assist midmarket business leaders in their never-ending quest to build better companies. Whether you are the CEO of your own company, a senior manager of a business unit, or a leader in a company that serves those in the mid market, you will find something in each newsletter to help you serve your stakeholders. Each month we will cover a variety of topics, all focused on leading in the mid market.
We are very conscious that you spend much of your day buried in e-mail, so it is with your permission that we send this newsletter your way.
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Vulnerable Leadership
Can you admit your own mistakes?
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Voltaire said that "the perfect is the enemy of the good".
The best small and midmarket companies I see have a culture of trying new things - not needing to be perfect with all available information before they try something new. I guess you can call it a culture of innovation.
Not all of your ideas are going to work. I once ran an all-hands meeting of about one hundred engineers and instead of clapping - we gave everyone a kazoo with the idea that we'd have some fun and get these engineers out of their shells. Well, it failed miserably! Not one engineer made a peep! But the upside of our attempt at fun was that the organization did get the message that it was OK to try new things.
I call this 'vulnerable leadership'. If you never share any of your own failures, how can you possibly think that your team will share their failures. If you, as the leader, are perfect, then they'll think they have to be perfect. That means they'll play it safe, not try anything new, do things the same old way, watch margins degrade and eventually you'll be boarding up the doors. In its simplest form, it's a case of innovate or die. We all have to try new ways of going to market but still be agile enough to recover quickly from some of our mistakes .... like the kazoo!
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| Good Reads .....
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 I was doing a bit of research and this book was recommended to me. I had high expectations and in general, I would say they were met ... almost. The format is terrific and easy to follow. Each chapter is filled with tips and anecdotes. Great for an airplane read, or a manager struggling with changing a culture. The one point that made me flinch was her comment about "being able to have it all ... it is just a matter of balance." I lean toward the mantra that "you can have it all ... just not at the same time." You simply can not be the perfect parent and the perfect executive ... at the same time. Other than that, it was an enjoyable read!
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| Building Trust in the Workplace
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In their August 10th blog "Trend to Watch: Trust in Business Is Running Out" on HBR Now, Eric Beinhocker & Elizabeth Stephenson discuss the strained relationship between us and the businesses we deal with every day. They found that "the relationship between business and civil society was showing signs of strain even before the crisis. Since the recession began, there has been a precipitous decline in trust. The Edelman Trust Barometer found that 62% of adults in 20 countries trusted corporations less in December 2008 than they had a year earlier."
But how does that impact the leader of a small or midmarket company? You are not the bank, broker or insurance company that fed this economic crisis but unfortunately, because you are in business, you're swept up in this potential death spiral of mistrust.
I could not agree more with Beinhocker and Stephenson when they ask "why should this concern strategists? Because a low-trust environment makes everything about doing business more difficult. For an individual company, loss of trust leads to higher transaction costs, lower brand value, and greater difficulty attracting, retaining, and managing talent. Ultimately, it can mean boycotts, negative publicity, and unwanted regulation".
So what can a midmarket leader do to build trust in the place that matters most, their workplace?
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As a business operator, I have been in a position to lead a company during troubled times. Concerns over the direction of the company, sleepless nights worrying about debt and cash flow, high anxiety over closing a deal or a transaction - the challenges seem endless. But I've also experienced the highs of leadership - the real joy of meeting client needs, the fulfillment of shaping a team, and the satisfaction of watching a vision become a reality. As tough as it can be, there is really nothing quite like being a leader in the midmarket.
It is my sincere desire that this newsletter will support leaders in the midmarket as they navigate their way to building stronger, more valuable companies. I welcome your comments.
Sincerely,
Marty
Martin O'Neill
Corsum Consulting, LLC
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| | Marty O'Neill | Marty O'Neill founded Corsum Consulting, which focuses on one goal: helping companies build business value. He is a frequent speaker and consultant on leadership, corporate culture and building business value and is the author of Building Business Value (Third Bridge Press) and the co-author of Act Like an Owner (Wiley). As a business operator, Marty started and sold a company, positioned another for an LBO, and helped a third sell for a significant premium. Marty lives on the Magothy River in Maryland with his wife and three children.
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"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
- Albert Einstein | ***********************************
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Building Business Value: How to Command a Premium Price for Your Midsized Company
by Martin O'Neill (Third Bridge Press)
Hardcover 
List Price: $22.95
Our Price: $15.96 Buy Now
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Act Like an Owner Owner: Building an Ownership Culture
by Martin O'Neill (Wiley)
Hardcover
List Price: $39.95
Our Price: $24.53 Buy Now
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