Craig McIvor: For business owners, lifelong learning the key to coping with change

Business owners are not coping with the fast pace of change. Rather than getting ahead of the game, they are late in responding to changing trends, customer expectations, exchange rate fluctuations and a workforce that needs more support.

This is resulting in lower profits, increasing frustration and a long-term desire to leave their industry. While it is easy to blame others, often the fault lies in their own ability to meet the ongoing requirements of their profession.

Just last week I was surprised when my cab driver began yelling at another driver for cutting in front of him. I thought to myself "why would someone be a cab driver if they got frustrated by traffic?" I then thought about some of my clients - business owners - who constantly complained about their relentlessly changing business environment. Weren't they just cab drivers with suits?

One owner had just trained a new staff member for three months, only to have them leave to join a competitor. Another had just got the business working well, when his supplier in China went broke. Everything needed to change as a result.

In another case, a business owner was furious after having finally extricated himself from the day-to-day running of the business, only to be forced back into that role after the new general manager resigned.

When you're young, this constant challenge can be quite invigorating and each time a new start is made, there is the chance to improve on previous attempts. As age advances, though, the prospect of having to retrain staff, find new suppliers and rewrite, rejig and re-explain new products, suppliers and customers to staff is just too much.

Like my angry cab driver, the obvious question is why would someone be in business if they get upset by the changing nature of that business? The answer lies in the multiplicity of tasks that the average business owner does every day. Sure, there are the high-profile activities such as entertaining clients and the perceived perk of coming into work a bit later. But there is also the mundane everyday aspect of managing a team, hiring staff and having to deal with all the unexpected problems that arise. This is where much of the frustration lies.

Often, many of the problems that upset an owner can be traced back in some way to their own failings. For example, the reason that a new employee is leaving may lie in the fact that the company did not provide enough incentive for the employee to see a future in the business. The owner may be angry that they left, but maybe they should be angry at themselves for not ensuring that they stayed. I see this type of scenario time and time again.

Not only have owners never been trained on how to approach some of these simple issues, but they are using the same ineffective methods they have always used. It is unlikely that they will think they have a problem, or that they would even need training on something as straightforward as hiring someone.

The truth is that every part of running a business has a science attached to it and can be improved. Keep hiring the wrong staff and believe me: after a while it will start to get you down. If we look closely at the entire task of hiring someone, we may find faults in the job specification, the advertising, the interviewing, the induction and the ongoing training and monitoring of the new employee.

Let's look at the owner's perspective. He thinks he can hire people. He has hired people before. It must be the new staff member's problem.

Let's look at the consequences to the business. Three months to find someone and then six months with the wrong person as well as the cost of their exit. Consider then the new hire, advertising and start-up time for the new person.

The whole process may mean loss of one person's productivity for a full year. For many businesses this is crippling.

To rectify this, it is necessary for owners to find and embrace this science - whether it be hiring staff, training others, in fact, all these simple activities - and rediscover the joy of getting better at it. We are never too old to learn how to do things right.

With this new-found skill we also rediscover that nothing is foolproof and that things go wrong. With this knowledge we can handle better the disappointments that invariably come along.

A business owner can ill afford to abdicate from any activity that affects their business, just because it is something they do not like to do. Of course if your business is large enough you can hire someone to do the "frustrating" parts.

How disappointing it will be when they decide to leave too!

The only true answer is to embrace your profession and to embark on a life-long quest to become a master of it. Doctors read a number of magazines weekly to keep up to date. Sportsmen practise and keep fit.

Similarly, business people should practise and improve their own craft, no matter how old they are. If you are not willing to do this, then it is not the profession for you.

Our cab driver may have been better served to let the driver cut in front of him, or even better, left enough space for him to do this in the first place.

Given the cost of cabs these days he should have known that in his profession the longer the ride, the better the fare!

Craig McIvor is managing director of Corporate Management Advice Ltd, which helps NZ businesses with growth strategies
www.managementadvice.org