Defining Business Success

I was struck by the following quote from Robert Brault, writer (b. 1938)

“If a rabbit defined intelligence the way man does, then the most intelligent animal would be a rabbit, followed by the animal most willing to obey the commands of a rabbit.”

It made me think about how we define success. For many people in business success is seen in terms of measures such as sale growth, profit, cash, and in lots of bigger organisations it’s growing your own little empire. Defined in those terms “success” is often achieved at a cost to others; those within the business and those in the family or close friends.

I’m not proposing that we all become tree huggers and spend all our time worrying about “work life balance”. Rather I’m suggesting that for all managers, but especially for business owners, we look at the broader measures of success that include achieving both business and personal goals.

As every business owner knows starting your own business takes many hours and lots of effort to achieve success, and most of us appreciate the help and support our nearest and dearest give us. There’s often little thought given at that stage to long term goals or to what we will in the future see as business success. But don’t we all want to see our businesses achieve stability, and increase in value, whilst having the time to enjoy the fruits of our labour?

I suggest that the only way you’ll achieve real business success is to develop a team around you that’s well trained, competent, and capable of running the business when you’re not there. Look at any self-made multi-millionaire and you’ll see someone who has recognised the need to employ experts who are motivated to take the business forward. They have recognised that no-one can be good at every aspect of business and so to build stability, long-term growth, and therefore value into their business they need to develop a management team.

For owners the result of business success is that in their personal lives they have both the time and the money to enjoy their leisure pursuits. And for those of us who work to live rather than living to work that’s a true measure of business success.