When the business is going badly, something needs to change

English philosopher Edmund Burke (1729- 1797) said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ Burke was the son of a Dublin attorney. In 1750, he entered the Middle Temple, London, but Burke soon abandoned law for literary work. In 1756 he published, anonymously, A Vindication of Natural Society. In 1765 he became the private secretary to Marquis of Rockingham, who at that time, but only for a year thereafter, was premier. Burke soon entered parliament, as a Whig, through a pocket borough, Wendover. During most of his years as a parliamentarian, Burke was to sit in the opposition benches as a critic to the ruling Tories.

So I hear you say what has this to do with running an early stage company, I believe strongly a lot, the ability for senior management and line management not to make tough decisions in the evolution of an early stage companies growth is renowned, I.e HR issues that never get dealt with, i.e poor performance, attendance, square pegs in round holes.

If your company is struggling to move forward, under performing , and you have been running the business the same way for a while 12 to 16 months then something needs to change, you need to be very clinical in your analysis, it could be management not performing, it could organizational culture that is not help companies performance, but what ever it is you need to fix it if you want to move forward.


So back to Mr Burke, if you do nothing to change things , nothing will change, very basic, but is a fundamental tool to be used in the management of your business, but a word of caution if you change something give it time to filter through and see if it have the desired effect, a rule of thumb, at least half of the length of the period that things went wrong....unless it is a terminal situation...


Hope you all have a great week


Slainte

Keltie