Over the last several years a lot of people have made a lot of money telling business owners and leaders that to effectively manage the modern workforce you must manage the generations differently. Why? They claim these generations are all different, have different values, work practices, and motivators.
In the immortal words of my father…Horse pucky.
Your career is sailing; your business is profitable; everyone looks at you and says “WOW, I want to be like them.” I am certain many of us have read or seen such a scenario. To be the “WOW person” is wonderful. To be associated with that person is pretty good too. Imagine the WOW person and a WOW business. The perfect scenario.
Then, one day, it all falls apart. Some behavior enters into your life; you start making bad business decisions, you stop listening to others about your business. We have all seen or read of those. Successful Business Leaders who start affairs with subordinate employees, Successful Business Leaders who illicitly take money from their business, Successful Business Leaders who abuse a variety of legal or illegal substances, Successful Business Leaders who take illegal short cuts. One day they get caught, and their self-destructive behavior brings them crashing down.
How do you prevent that?
Becoming an Entrepreneur is easy. You decide you are good at something or have something people want. You start a business, and they come to buy what you have or do. It is that simple.
Not exactly as that reality probably happens to about 1 in several million. For the rest of us, it is a bit more challenging.
So what do you do if you want to be an Entrepreneur?
Ambiguity, according to many dictionaries, can be defined as “any concept, idea, statement or claim whose meaning, intention or interpretation cannot be definitively resolved “, another word for ambiguity is vague. Vagueness and lack of clarity in communication, mission and vision is nothing less than a productivity and performance killer. In short, ambiguity does nothing more than destroy profitability while protecting ineffective leaders. It is then understandable that Ambiguity is not a leadership value.
So, how do you overcome ambiguity?
Problem solving is a part of what we do and sometimes we spend way to much time doing it. What if there was a way to reduce the time you spend solving problems? Problems will always be a part of your business. Even if you have a strong problem prevention program you will still experience problems. Sometimes, because of time, limiting beliefs or preconceived opinions, we solve the problem with the wrong solution and thereby create a whole new set of problems. Sometimes we put a bandaid on a problem. Bandaids Aren’t Problem Solving.