Excerpt from CPR For Your Business
When going into war in ancient times, there are 3 very important characters that are needed in order to win a war: The King, the Advisor and the General. Similarly in a business, you need the attributes of these 3 characters in order to win the war in your business.
The King
In your business, the King is the leader who has a good, strong vision and has a firm belief in the desired outcomes and goals of your business. In ancient times, the goals and outcomes of war are all about conquering land while in business, it’s all about getting revenue.
The king of someone who leads the business, possess leadership qualities and has the ability to influence and motivate people to battle. He is the person who sets the standards and expectations, and is able to lead through the business through good and bad times.
The Advisor
In times of war, the Advisor is someone who plans the strategies, steps needed and what roads to take in order to win. Some of you might be familiar with the “Romance of Three Kingdom”. In the story, there was an extraordinary leader, Liu Bei, who had the best generals with him, namely, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun. Even with such great generals, they lost almost every battle they were in until they found an advisor, Zhu Ge Liang. With the right advisor in place, they started winning almost every battle.
The Strategist in your business needs to be a creative critical thinker and needs to understand the needs of their customers. They must have good consumer instincts and is usually in charge of product improvements because they understand their competitors and their ideal audiences the best.
The General
In the business world, the General is usually someone who is the Manager and will be the one managing every single process and makes such that each process, people and outcomes lives up to expectations.
In conclusion,
We need all 3 attributes in order to succeed in business. In my opinion, everybody more or less possesses some of these attributes.
Anybody can be a leader, strategist or manager but we need someone who is dominant at a particular category and possesses the main attributes to excel in the role rather than just anyone to fill in the role.
Nature or Nurture?
You have to be very sure what attributes you possess as a business owner. You might think that as the business owner, you are the king and the leader. While this may be true at many times, the role you play must be according to the attributes you possess and your character.
There’s a reason why many founders of companies get someone else to be in the CEO because they understand that they do not play best in the role of a leader or that there is someone else who can play the role better.
Without a good leader, it is almost impossible to keep a team together. A strategist without a manager becomes someone with all talks and no action. A manager without a strategist is like someone driving a Ferrari without a GPS. In my career, I’ve seen a lot of companies having the problem of lacking a role in their company.
If you happen to be the one in a million to possess all 3 attributes, then congratulations to you. However, always remember that the goal of your business is to be successful and you should not overestimate yourself just to prove that you are capable.
Finding the Right People
In a perfect world, you will be able to get a great leader, strategist and manager for your business but many times, it is very difficult to find the perfect person to fill each role. However, you should still make sure that you do fulfil these roles. You need to be fully aware of what your business lacks out of the 3 attributes.
Now that you are more aware of these 3 attributes, you should always be on a look-out, be it through partnerships or hiring employees, to fill the roles of the leader, strategist and manager.