Step 5 - Becoming Super Leaders - What's your business?

STEP 5: Treat your Division like your own Business

I remember doing a program for GMs and senior managers of a company. And when I asked them some key questions about who owned their divisions - I got seriously blank looks. Most leaders don't consider their division/area/department to be their own thing.

The Challenge: If we are in a job we do act like employees. It takes special initiative to act unlike one and more like an owner. The question is - if I am to act like an owner, why aren't I one?? That's a good question.

The Key: When you treat your job as your 'own thing', you are not just helping the owners, you are helping your career far more than you can imagine.

3 Practical Ideas:
What do YOU want: Have you ever discovered why you don't feel like waking up all bright and bushy-tailed and rushing off happily to work? My guess is because your work seems like a pain - for so many reasons that we might fall short of space on this tiny blog. Jokes apart, it takes so much out of people when their work is not enjoyable. Those who run their own business feel the joy of bringing up a kid almost. So, what stops us from getting into the details of what makes our division tick? What is our equation with the customers, where does the money come in and where does it go? The program I spoke of earlier had many leaders who worked very hard everyday, but lost money for their divisions - without even realizing it! Traditionally, the boss calls the shots, but in reality - they are bound by our commitment or lack of it, for that matter.

What is at stake? What do you lose when you treat your job like a job? Something you are paid to do, but not paid to commit to. You might be surprised that the maximum loss is ours. First we lose our motivation, then opportunities, and finally, money. And aren't these the key reasons we work for anyways. It's important to ask what's at stake here? I believe the idea of working is much less to do with money and way more to do with an inner satisfaction that makes us believe we are contributing to something larger than us.

Where are you headed? Finally, the idea of treating work like our own venture is about what we want to achieve. I've had innumerable participants tell me that their ultimate goal was to become the head of their division or company. And yet they seemed to be doing nothing to contribute to that goal in fact, their actions were counter-productive almost. So, if we have the ambition to make it big someday, we better make it big today - in what ever job we are, which ever position we hold, and which ever country we call home.

There are two ways to be an entrepreneur - to run our own show or run our jobs like they were our own show.

Coming up next: Step 6: Be entrepreneurial than just an employee