Startup and Run a Business with a New Management Mindset
Startup and run a business with a new management mindset. Many business management books discuss formulating a business plan, analyzing the competition, finding investors, etc., but is this the case? In this article, I will give you a new business thinking model for this topic and let everyone discuss with me the problems and related experiences that you may face in the process of starting and running a business.
We look at things from an opposite perspective, saying there can’t be more good solutions to complex problems. Thus, you do a startup or innovatively run a business. You don’t necessarily need to be a workaholic. You don’t need to increase employee size rashly with many recruiting. You don’t need to waste much time on meetings and planning, and you probably don’t even need a perfect office.
As long as you grasp the most fundamental purpose of the company’s existence of “making money,” doing your own business well, and improving the company’s operating efficiency as much as possible in all aspects, your company can become more successful. These viewpoints are also from what I have personally seen and experienced over the years and what I have learned through those experiences, combined with research studies and dozen books I have read, so I would like to share and discuss them with you.
The pursuit of simplicity and efficiency is the best way to make a business more profitable. Analyzing companies from the perspective of company culture, like plans, meetings, workaholics, and rules and regulations, all seem helpful but maybe efficiency killers. So let’s take a look at the key points first.
The purpose of all companies is to make money, and everything in the company must serve the purpose of making money. Company culture, as a concept at the macro level of the company, naturally has to do this. If the existing systems and norms cannot help the company make money, there is no reason for it to continue to exist. No matter how perfect it is, it will drag down the company’s efficiency. Here I will tell you the four most important ones. There are Planning, Meetings, Workaholics, and Rules and Regulations.
Let’s talk about the plan first. Almost every company has its business plan, but what is in the plan is just guesswork, and the estimates are garbage. Would you be surprised?
We cannot control too many factors in economic currents, such as market environment, competitors, customer groups, etc. These are all uncontrollable factors, and making a plan will make people feel they have grasped something. Still, there is no such thing as not being realistic. For example, have you ever encountered such a situation: you originally planned to go to the downstairs supermarket for a casual stroll, but when you came back, you found that two hours had passed; or you originally planned to spend two hours shopping for goods, but in fact, it took 20 minutes. People can’t even estimate a small thing, let alone a plan that lasts for months or even years.
A prevention rehearsal is always necessary, but no plan doesn’t mean we ignore to see what will happen in the future. To make a colossal length plan that nobody likes to read, they will put such a long-winded plan in the cabinet for the dirt, so it’s better to spend your energy on the frontier things and find the next most important task to accomplish it.
Next is a meeting. Meetings reduce efficiency because the amount of information conveyed in discussions is generally not much. Meeting often delays things that can express in 10 minutes for more than half an hour. After all, no one would book a ten-minute conference room. As the meeting time increases, the cost of the meeting is terrifyingly higher. For example, if ten people participate in a one-hour session, the time cost is 10 hours. You can think about it, is it worth it to hold such a meeting? Therefore, the author said that the meeting is toxic and will reduce work efficiency. Even if there is a meeting, people should strictly control the meeting time, and the theme should be cut directly after the start, and it is best not to go to the conference room and hold the meeting at the place where the problem occurs. These methods can capture the essence of things, significantly save everyone’s time and improve work efficiency.
The third one is workaholic. Despite a workaholic culture being unnecessary, it’s also foolish. Why criticize the workaholic may also surprise many people because many people think it is good to have workaholics in the company. Because the workaholics seem to be able to solve some problems but create more trouble, for instance, they always use brute force to make up for the inertia of thinking. As a result, they can only toss out a bunch of unpractical solutions. And in an environment where workaholics get together, even going to and from get off work on time seems to be an unreasonable requirement, which will lower the morale of other employees who usually work. The result is that everyone works overtime inefficiently. Therefore, we can criticize that workaholics are not heroes, yet they are more just wasting time.
We should respect to go to and from get off work on time and release people on time as soon as the off-duty time arrives because what we pursue is not working time but work efficiency. Every employee has their own life, and when they have something to do at home, they try to get the job done during office hours. And to improve work efficiency, most of the research studies also recommend that you must go to bed on time. It’s okay to stay up late once or twice occasionally, but if you stay up late for a long time, there will be more problems. For example, you will reduce your productivity, and at the same time, they will lack creativity, have low morale, and quickly lose control of their emotions. In short, we should firmly oppose the workaholic culture because workaholics are just superficial hard workers, but the actual efficiency is very low.
The fourth phenomenon is regulations. Regulations are, in a way, the scars on the organization’s body and the breeding ground for bureaucracy. If an employee does something wrong, we tell him not to do it again. For example, if a new employee comes to work wearing shorts, the best thing the boss can do is to tell the employee not to wear them like this next time. If there is a rush to make regulations on this matter, it is collective punishment for individual faults, and there is no need for that. Only when one thing happens repeatedly must there be rules and regulations.
The above is the focus of the pursuit of simplicity and efficiency. It’s rich to say that my purpose is only one, that is, the corporate culture should serve the fundamental purpose of the enterprise, that is, to make money—meaningful things, especially new startups. Planning, meetings, workaholism, and rules and regulations, which seem to be necessary elements of a successful company, are often a drag on its efficiency. If they reduce efficiency, company managers must dare to abandon them.
Despite a company culture that pushes on planning, meetings, workaholics, and rules and regulations, all of which look useful, can be productivity killers. Although many companies are happy to formulate plans and regulations and constantly hold meetings and work overtime, these things are not necessarily for the company. To judge whether the company needs them depends on whether they can help the company make money. Once these behaviors are found to be efficiency killers, it would be better to abolish these systems as soon as possible.
