7 Pillars of Business Success, Part 1 – Strategy and Leadership

The greatest challenge for any business owner is freeing themselves from the inner workings of the organisation and finding time to actually be a leader. It’s the endless tug of war between urgent versus important, and the successful leaders always know how to make time for the latter.

Understanding your market landscape

Without exception, the most successful leaders are endlessly curious about their audience, their competition and the broader factors shaping their market, be they technological, political, economic or social. They are constantly consuming information from their peers. They understand how their customer’s needs and desires are evolving, and they’re always investigating their competition to see where they’re spending their energy and resources. Steve Jobs was famous for stealing ideas from his competitors and this natural curiosity is a trait we often find among the owners of high growth companies.

For a great leader, every day is a school day.

If you’re in an emerging market this might be easy. If you’re in a saturated market competing against big brands then the process is far more difficult and will almost certainly result in you going niche (unless you have very deep pockets!).

Unfortunately very few companies ever answer these questions, which is why most markets are packed with forgettable brands communicating generic messaging to an unresponsive audience.

The idea of core competence is raised by many business authors and thought leaders. Perhaps the most famous and memorable example is by Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great, in which he gives an analogy of “The Hedgehog and the Fox”. Collins explains that the business world has two types of organisations – hedgehogs and foxes. The cunning fox has all sorts of methods by which it can sneak up and catch the hedgehog unaware. The hedgehog, on the other hand, is a simple creature. It merely has one defence mechanism – to curl up into a ball. The thing is that it works, every single time!

Collins encourages businesses to find their inner hedgehog. They should stop trying to be so smart with endless strategies and tactics, and instead focus on perfecting their one big advantage. If they get that right, the clever stuff will naturally follow.

Articulating a compelling vision

Being clear on your core competence is not enough. You also need to be able to articulate it in a compelling manner.

This comes down to understanding your purpose, or as the brilliant Simon Sinek puts it – finding your why.

By understanding why you do what you do and why people should care, you can communicate your core competence in a powerful and emotive way. And regardless of how rational your audience may seem (or may think they are) every purchase decision, whether B2B or B2C, is ultimately driven by emotion