Build a Balance Driven Business®

There is a prevailing trend to many business books that prioritize their catalogue of actions for building your business. They give “proprietary” systems, templates, and timelines for the most valuable, standard milestones. I guess we're also just as guilty of prioritizing our own framework, but what we prioritize in our approach to build businesses that work for everyone who plays their part, is a more resilient foundation.

The vast, proprietary library of systems and example “cases” often leave readers with the responsibility to pick and choose what may resonate, then adapt, finesse, and hope to find success in whatever they have left over. To combine the systems found in closely relevant books that may fill any leftover gaps. Often without confidence those other books, systems, or templates are ultimately compatible with each other or not in the long run.

We've seen through our own experiences that the better approach to addressing the challenges of any business, whether you’re growing, fixing, or simply changing, is to really begin from a far more fundamental place.

The simple question of, “what is our business philosophy?”

When you’re able to quantify your business philosophy, it becomes rather automatic to consistently link your business development, people, and financial strategies. To build solid customer relationships that are aligned with business operations, as well as financial realities. Ideal customer segments. Highly effective teams with superb management styles. Responsible fiscal decisions.

The philosophy that has underscored much of the business building I've successfully done, with a variety of companies, has centered on the process of building a Balance-Driven Business® with them.

Every private business functions through the interrelationships between three major elements: 

• you (the Ownership)

• the company (Mothership)

• your teams (Employees)

For any business to grow both sustainably and ethically, the Ownership must maintain the balance between their own needs, the needs of the Mothership, and the needs of the Employees.

The Ownership needs the proceeds (or net profit) from the Mothership to achieve his/her definition of success. The Ownership needs the Employees' attention and dedication in support of the vision. 

Employees require a portion of proceeds from the Mothership for their time, work, and level of engagement. They need from the Mothership a supervisory and physical environment that is helpful to their work. From the owner, however, they need security in their positions, respect, a path to a better future, and the appreciation for when going above and beyond.

The Mothership needs Ownership to provide the resources necessary for sustainability. Strategy. Restraint. It needs the Employees to be engaged and amenable to growth at the pace that the Mothership grows.

For example, if the Mothership grows (or shrinks), it may require keeping a greater percentage of the proceeds that had earlier been earmarked for the Ownership. Perhaps, additional time, effort, and attention from the ownership to keep things running well. If the ownership is unable to adjust its expectations for those proceeds or the time provided, it will have to turn to the Employees to increase their efficiency, commitment, or independence, perhaps asking for more than they signed up for.

If the financial need of an Employee grows, the Mothership may require the employee to increase capacity or productivity to generate more revenue. Conversely, the Mothership can adjust its reserves for other expenses or investments in its growth, if that is the more reasonable approach.

You get the idea.

In the end, any pervasive challenge to a business begins when one element is adjusted without regard for the others. The point where a business first begins to lose its balance. Unaddressed, the spiral starts:

• Continuous one-sided adjustments add to imbalance and lead to decline.

• Continuous decline leads to distress.

• Continuous distress leads to insolvency.

Business loves to talk about balance. The complete history of our business successes are enshrined on our Balance Sheets.

We also strive for balance in many areas of our general lives. A balanced diet. A balanced approach. Work-life balance.

Sustainability itself is directly linked to balance.

It's not that imbalance will not occur (in fact, it is the natural by-product of creating forward motion), but true sustainability comes from acknowledging there are always two sides in our interactions/decisions that, properly addressed, dramatically increase probabilities of success.

In short, if you're consistently unhappy with the results you keep reading for that are supposed to:

• Develop realistic goals and time-frames that better-set expectations of your team

• Structure the systems that profitably power your growing business into the future

• Build the right metrics to measure success

• Improve your daily quality of life and help you sleep better at night

  
  

...you may want to trade better templates for a better foundation. One that more realistically fits today's post-Covid economics and post-Gen-X business workforce sensibilities.

...you may want to select an approach that consistently meets the needs of everyone playing their part, and promotes long-term engagement.

...you may want to adopt a Business philosophy rooted in setting expectations, goals strategies, policies, systems, and metrics that are consistently firm and fair because they are grounded by consistently balancing the needs of the Mothership, the Ownership, and the Employees.