ACCOUNTANCY BEYOND THE NUMBERS with Hayes Knight
What will 2012 bring?
Over the wet Christmas break I had time to do a lot of navel gazing and contemplating what the year ahead might bring, as well as reflecting on 2011 and the difficulties that the year delivered to us. Since returning to work, I have had many discussions with business people, banks and community leaders and gained a cross section of opinions on what is coming up.
There is no doubt that 2011 was a toughie for most industries, and the outlook for the immediate future also looks challenging yet the majority of people in business are confident of an improvement over the next twelve months. Possibly that is because we are coming off a pretty low base!
What is important is that we require solid leadership in order to get ahead. This equally applies in our businesses, our political environment, our not for profit and charitable sector and our everyday home lives. In business I set goals and themes for every year – this year I am running with “Lead or Bleed”
When reflecting back on the most prominent positive events of last year, for me it is the Rugby World Cup and the general election. Both of these events have taught me that as a leader, you must take responsibility for being the architect of your own result and you need to have a few options available should the game change.
Think of the rugby - Daniel Carter (Plan A), Colin Slade (Plan B), Aaron Cruden (Plan C); still pushing for the same end result, but just running with a slightly different strategy to get there. And the winning points were actually scored by Plan D, Stephen Donald!
Think of the election – there is no doubt that the end result was heavily influenced and driven by the popularity of John Key. He is a great leader, and is admired even by his critics. Before the election many thought that National would govern alone, but the leader was never going to take that risk and definitely had the bases covered with alliances.
It’s no different in business. Our current marketplace has shown us that the goal posts are continually moving - constant new technology, immediate communication and delivery expectations, offshore competition, regulatory changes, sustainability the list goes on. It’s not easy and our plans of yester-year may now feel like a collapsed scrum on our own try line or a heavily defeated opposition party. It’s at this point when our team looks to us as the leader to step up, dig deep, and show the way out of this dip, or even better, the new way forward. Employees are looking for direction and an assertive leader to get them to where they rightfully should be heading. They want to be led, and led proud.
Let’s face it, we’ve been looking for leadership from our politicians in this harsh economic climate, from our captains in our national sports teams, from our rescue crews as they scramble to avoid environmental disaster and from our business owners as we challenge ourselves in what could be seen as the harshest economic climate in over 50 years.
Today is the day for the real leaders in business to step forward and shine. Qualities such as a true entrepreneurial spirit, commercial sensibility, skills to motivate the team to come along on the journey, and an excellent strategic mind to look for ‘what’s next’ must be in their DNA. Tenacity or grit alone merely won’t do it for us anymore if we want to improve and move our businesses, and our lives forward. We need to grasp all the tools available to us, we need to review our strategies so that we utilise tomorrow’s technology, we need to push for entry into new markets, and we need to up the ante in our industry sectors. We can’t be participants any longer. Simply put, we need to lead from the front foot if we want to convert our tries. Running out of puff after four years of recession isn’t an excuse, it’s a cop out.
We know that today’s status quo will not be tomorrow’s benchmark so we need to improve what we do, what we offer, how we offer it, and how we create it if we want to improve our result. We need to lead our businesses, anything less may see us bleed the life blood out of it as our competitors pass us by.
Remember, there’s only one Business World Cup, and you’re playing in it every day. You get out what you put in.
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