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(re)Invention

Never be afraid to reinvent your business

Markets shift, owners change, leaders develop, teams evolve, products and services are born, mature and die.

There’s probably some good business school research somewhere that shows just how important it is to continually reinvent whilst staying true to your core. But you know in your heart this is true anyway.

Don’t let the thought of your “sunk costs” (the money and effort that you’ve spent but won’t recover) get in the way either. They are gone anyway. Learn and move on.

If you don’t reinvent your business somebody else will change theirs first, simply because they need to more than you do. Necessity is always the mother of (re)invention.


As usual, please leave me a comment if they’re still open below, or tweet me @NickRobCoach. What might get in the way of the reinvention your business needs?




Leadership Quickies

Four leadership mistakes you probably don’t even know you’re making

1. Not giving one-to-one attention to each of your team members
Leaders should act as a mentor or coach and listen to each person’s concerns, needs and ambitions, giving empathy and support, keeping communications open and setting challenges. This fulfills a deep need for respect and celebrates the individual contribution that people can make to the team. You’ll very quickly lose the right people and bring out the worst in the wrong people if you don’t do this.

2. Being safe and boring
A steady pace is all very well, but people and organisations sometimes need a leader to challenge assumptions, take risks and ask other people for their ideas. This helps stimulate creativity and develop independent thinking. When times become hard, you’ll wish you’d fixed this particular roof when the sun was shining.

3. Not having a Vision
Being able to talk about an inspiring and attractive view of the future position of your team, department or organisation is perhaps the key factor that sets great leaders apart. It isn’t difficult and it doesn’t have to be grand or world-changing (unless it is); but you do need to do it.

4. Forgetting that You’re a 24/7 Role-model
I get that it’s a tough thing to be an always-on role-model. Everybody looking to what you say and do, all the time. It is wearing. And it also just comes with the territory. People will adopt their way of doing things from watching you. Please remember that you need to be a role model for the right behavior, so that this instills pride and gains respect and trust. You don’t need to always be perfect – that isn’t possible for anyone – but you do need to visibly put it right when you haven’t been.