Anthony Davidson

Weekly insights to help you run your business.

Stay up to date with the latest business and apply them to your business. Feel free to contact me to discuss ideas or suggest new topics.

Subcategories

Building strong leadership
Leadership

Build better leadership

What happens when 12 directors come together for a two day leadership retreat in the Blue Mountains? You build better leadership through deeper personal connections, alignment of values and goals, and commitment to effective leadership behaviours. Personal connections build better leadership Better leadership requires trust, honesty, and accountability. To achieve this, individual leaders must be self aware, true to their own values, and willing to improve leadership skills. Getting to know each other, and sharing events that have shaped your beliefs, builds trust and more honest conversations. It also reveals common experiences, highlighting our similarities as a team instead of our differences. Aligning personal values and goals Taking the time to reflect on your personal values and goals in life also enables leaders to appreciate the level of alignment with business values and goals, areas of potential conflict, and how to resolve this. Often leaders lose clarity about what they are trying to achieve and how the business can enable it. Sharing your personal values, goals and concerns with other leaders helps further build trust and shared understanding about what is important and what can be achieved as a team. Commitment to better leadership behaviours It is difficult to be effective as a leader unless you understand what leadership means at both a personal and business level. Assessing your leadership ability is a good starting point for understanding your leadership style and areas for improvement. But it is critical to explore and agree on the leadership behaviours that are needed as a team to reinforce business values and shape culture. Understanding the difference between managing and leading enables you to identify these desired behaviour. Then create a leadership team charter to build commitment and accountability within the team.

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Reset your business
Engagement

Reset your business

A Business Reset is an opportunity to get clarity, focus and alignment within your business. But when should you reset your business, what is the best way to do it, and what is the best way to avoid it. When should you reset your business The pandemic forced many businesses to rethink their strategy and innovate their business model to deal with rapid change and uncertainty. However many scenarios exist where a business reset is required. Survival mode – when a business is just trying to keep its head above water. Doing more of the same makes no sense. It’s time to question why you are in business, whether you should be in business, and if the business can be turned around for the better. Unsustainable growth – when a business is experiencing rapid growth that is draining resources and profitability. Here the challenge is to find the economic sweet spot and focus resources on owning that market space and position. Turbulence – when a business becomes successful but very set in its ways. Success can often breed arrogance, leading to myopic vision, missed opportunities and even disruption by new entrants. A business reset challenges mindsets and assumptions and looks for better ways to do business. Key person absence – when an owner or leader loses interest, motivation or focus. Sometimes it can happen because of personal or family events. Other times it is the result of not having the skills or acumen to grow with the business. Either way, a business reset is required. The best way to do it A Business Reset is an opportunity to get clarity, focus and alignment within your business. It enables business owners and managers to: reflect on what is working well and what isn’t working well review performance, challenges, obstacles and roadblocks rethink strategies and business models for achieving goals recommit to the purpose and vision for the business reengage customers, employees and business partners The best way to reset your business is to take your leadership team offsite to explore, share and agree on the way forward. Last week, I facilitated a one day Business Reset with a business owner and his leadership team to review and clarify the vision for the next five years and refocus goals and priorities for the next 12 months to regain traction and momentum. This will enable each team within the business to set quarterly objectives and key results to achieve 12 month goals. The best way to avoid it While it is highly beneficial, you can avoid the need for a business reset with a clearly thought out engagement plan that reinforces your business purpose, goals and priorities. The engagement plan details that way that you will communicate and interact with key stakeholders. It often takes the form of a meeting structure to plan, enable or monitor business, team and individual performance. The challenge with meetings is that they often lack focus, direction and outcomes, or fail to effectively engage participants. Meetings must have a purpose, deliver beneficial outcomes, be time well spent, and logically link to other meetings that are conducted. To build clarity, focus and agility, I recommend a simple structure of meetings across the business: an annual retreat to set strategic direction, business priorities and KPI’s a quarterly plan to set team objectives and key results each quarter a monthly review to problem solve issues and plan the month ahead a weekly meetup to review progress and prioritise the week ahead a daily check-in to discuss the day ahead, any concerns or constraints Together with annual individual performance reviews and monthly one-on-one feedback sessions, this level of engagement can eliminate the need for a Business Reset.

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Governance

Your role in the business

What happens when your skills and abilities to set up and grow a business are not sufficient to take it to the next level? A key challenge facing many business owners is determining their future role in the business and how they can best contribute to its success. Today’s Owner Manager Program explored the different stages of the business lifecycle and changing leadership roles that business owners play to build a sustainable business. As a startup, owners are the doers and decision-makers. But as the business grows, their role changes to delegator and direction-setter. With rapid growth, the role again changes to that team builder, coach, planner and communicator. As the business enters a new phase of sustainable growth, this role shifts to that of strategic innovator, change catalyst, organization builder and culture leader. For many owners, this can be daunting especially if they lack the knowledge and skills to take on these new roles. Enter the management team. Successful business owners understand their strengths and limitations, and build a management team with the capabilities to take the business to the next level. Picking the right team members makes it easier for owners to let go and take on new roles because it instills confidence and trust. But learning from “bad picks” is equally important because it make owners more committed to finding the right people for each stage of the business. What are potential new roles for owners who lack the leadership or management skills to take the business further? Often owners will step back from leading the business and take on an operational role. But this can be counterproductive and undermine the new leader. Another solution is to take on “strategic projects” that leverage your existing skills and experience and make a valuable contribution to the business. Depending on your motivation and willingness to develop new skills, taking on a proper director/Board role in the business may be the best solution to protect ownership interests and contribute to the future direction of the business. The final solution is to consider your exit from the business and the timing of it. Ultimately, these decisions are up to you as an owner. Being clear about what you want and how you can best contribute makes the decision easier. #strategy #leadership #businessowner

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business workshop
Leadership

Successful Business Owners are Resilient

What happens when you blindfold 16 business owners and ask them to work in teams to assemble a tent within 3 minutes? At this week’s Australian Owner Manager Program, we found that successful business owners can be a resilient bunch.   Most teams easily completed the blindfolded task because they’re experienced in responding to challenges and know how to best contribute to a team’s performance – even if it’s a newly formed team. Earlier in the day, business owners revealed key obstacles facing their business in panel sessions with other owners and business experts. A common theme emerging from discussion was that no matter how frustrating business can be, owners are committed to finding solutions to difficult problems. This resilience is something that has been developed over time. Resilience is often associated with personality traits but recent research shows that it’s a learned skill – the mental strength to adapt to hardships and cope with setbacks. And it fluctuates based on how you respond to different circumstances over time. For business owners, it’s essential to have. #leadership #resilience #businessowner

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