expressed opinion entrepreneur Contributors are themselves.
Leadership is not easy, and starting a business is not easy either. Bringing a new idea or concept to market is a dream for many, but can often be daunting. As I reflect on my CEO journey, I recently asked myself, what are the three important lessons I’m going to tell my younger self?
I offer the following advice: always listen to your customers, choose progress over perfection, and get your people involved. Keeping these lessons in mind will help you pursue entrepreneurial excellence and transform your business. Here’s why I think so.
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1. Listen to your customers
When changing your business or product, customers typically react in one of two ways. On the one hand, they may be receptive and open to change. Typically, this occurs when the change does not require a significant change in customer behavior. Customers don’t want to be pushed too far outside their comfort zone (or their existing processes), so if the change requires a major shift in attitude or perhaps a change in the way they interact with your business, they may be more resistant.
Knowing this, it is imperative to listen to and acknowledge their concerns. As a leader, you may not be able to solve all their problems, but by listening and acknowledging, you can put people on the path to embrace change. Plus, you support their view that they are on the same team as you, which helps facilitate change.
Another effective way to reinforce new beliefs is to focus on “peak moments”—specific parts of a consumer’s decision-making process that have a disproportionate impact and that consumers tend to remember best.
Peak moments often include first-time product or service experiences, touchpoints at key milestones in the customer journey (such as the first renewal cycle), and other moments of intense interaction (and reaction) with consumers.
Related: How to Quickly Adapt to Change and Future-Proof Your Business
2. Progress is better than perfection
In today’s competitive startup environment, it can be tempting to strive for perfection when launching a new product, idea or solution — especially those of us with an engineering bent. Nobody wants to go to market with something that feels “under”. However, striving for the goal of perfection can become an obstacle to real growth. As the old adage goes, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
Without making mistakes, without giving a chance to improve, we never know what success looks like – that is the danger of making the perfect the enemy of the good. Honestly, it’s the ups and downs that make startup life interesting.
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Over the course of my career, I’ve witnessed a shift in thinking and execution from so-called Waterfall to Agile – essentially a shift from sequential to iterative. It’s a huge difference maker in quickly showing (or not showing) progress. While releasing something seemingly incomplete may sound scary, realize that as consumers, we’re used to this way of consuming new products and processes—think of the last mobile app you downloaded.
Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself and your team to take on high-risk and high-reward opportunities. Taking the time to experiment, learn from problems and discover new solutions is part of the process. Not only does it allow you and your business to grow, it also encourages the development of your team.
3. Engage employees
When a company is doing well, top management gets a lot of attention and praise, and every employee is part of the beating heart of the organization and plays a vital role in implementing change. So consider the change from bottom to top holistically.
To achieve this, as a leader, you should strive to foster an environment of trust, curiosity, and learning. Leaders must build trust, not destroy it, to inspire a sense of commitment and create a culture of motivation and professional development in their businesses. This helps encourage more discussion and synthesis about what works and what doesn’t.
Additionally, companies that have innovation, transparency, and trust as core values in their culture often attract similar qualities in the people they hire. There is no doubt that the next generation of talent is making waves in the labor market. From the pandemic to the “big resignation” and “quiet resignation,” employees’ expectations of their employers have shifted.
Every employee and organization’s needs vary, but in general, it’s no surprise that employees want to be valued and held accountable for high-value initiatives. To be clear, success here starts with attracting talent who embody your company’s values.
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move forward
All in all, changes in your business, product and market can and should take time. Achievement does not happen overnight. Be open and sensible about it. Plus, be prepared to learn as you go. There is a difference between reading about these courses and experiencing them in person.
Perhaps most importantly, don’t underestimate what your team can achieve when you have a clear vision and the resources to execute – empowerment is the secret sauce of top organizations.