How much do businesses think about themselves?
And how much should they?
My friend Dave Livingston (you may remember him) made a simple statement in an e-mail exchange that stopped me in my tracks:
“Most businesses don’t have the habit of thinking about themselves.”
I think it’s true, and that it’s true of must individuals as well, in the sense that we seldom think through how we do things and how we might do them better. (Deliberate practicers, by contrast, do this sort of thinking all the time.)
What do you think?
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6 Comments so far
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I think businesses should not just think about themselves, but actively work on themselves as well. I review my business plan every 3 months and pick out a problem area I need to work on in order to improve my business. I then spend three months improving that area. I’m working on organization and client retention right now and have already improved it quite a bit. If I didn’t review my business plan every three months, I wouldn’t have as successful a business as I could have.
I think it’s true- most businesses look at their competitors rather than at themselves. In fairness, many companies are aged and have an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality and they haven’t failed yet, so why look at their insidey parts? I personally don’t subscribe to this method but many companies suffer from over confidence.
I was once told that the greatest CEOs in our nation are never satisfied which is the juice that keeps their companies innovative and creative despite their industry.
Good points, Taylor and Lani. Both of you seem to be getting at what Jeff Bezos calls the “divine discontent” leaders should feel for their companies — not that they can’t appreciate the successes they do have, but that they always see more to be improved.
Looking within, whether you are a business or an individual is a painful process. Much easier to answer “how are you doing?” than “how am I doing?”
Very well put, Liz. The more I study business, the more I’m struck by how many errors of management or leadership boil down to an unwillingness to face things that are emotionally painful (strained personal relationships, coming to grips with past errors, etc.), rather than technically difficult.
[...] pardon me for quoting myself from the comments to last week’s post about how much businesses think about themselves: The more I study [...]