Make Everyone Think Like an Owner

Have you ever had the opportunity to compare two similar business people…. but only one has started a company of his or her own?  Except in rare cases, there is no comparison in the entrepreneurial and business skill set when one has HAD to bootstrap himself and the other one hasn’t.  How much would the performance of your company improve if everyone had that same “Think like an owner” mentality?

Most business people have never had the creativity, drive, or responsibility to start and build a company on their own.  More often, they think only like employees, trained to complete “to-do” lists and make their bosses happy, often by not creating waves or thinking “outside the box.”  Follow procedures, maintain status quo, don’t rock the boat…. sound like your company?  As fast as you can, as soon as you can, as aggressively as you can, you should encourage every employee to think like an owner.

What’s the difference?  For example, what happens at your company currently when:

·        A supervisor wants to attend a trade show

·        Someone wants to add an overhead person

·        Anyone chooses to tolerate express shipping to customers

·        Excessive overtime is tolerated as a way of doing business

·        Compensation is not tied to individual and company performance

·        Trivial issues consume disproportionate resources (aka, “Ignoring Low-Hanging Fruit)

·        An “entitlement” mentality overwhelms the “spend company money as if it’s my own” mentality.

It’s better than an even bet that your company essentially acquiesces on these issues rather than insisting on Return on Investment everywhere, every time.  An entrepreneurial, hungry, aggressive owner mentality would be inclined to seek, at a minimum, a probable Return on Investment in every corner of the business: “If I spend a dollar, I want to see more than a dollar returned to my company.” World-class profitability requires world-class focus on expense control.  Insist on managers who spend money like it’s their own, not like an unlimited river of cash that can be spent without consequence.

Company founders may not be able to be everywhere, and certainly cannot single-handedly monitor every activity in their growing business.  They can, however, do even better:  Hire managers who think like an owner, and empower them to make your business a living, growing, healthy profit building machine!