I have just read a post by Jessica Lewis on LinkedIn group ‘Online Visibility Boost for Entrepreneurs’ ( http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Entrepreneurship-Business-Strategy-Dealing-Failure-3987482.S.236007402?view=&gid=3987482&type=member&item=236007402&trk=eml-anet_dig-b_nd-pst_ttle-cn).. The post discusses some serious issues that entrepreneurs must face when their venture fails. This is a subject that all entrepreneurs have tucked away in the back of their mind, hoping never to have to drag it out. I also dealt with this subject in my very recently published eBook: ‘The Venture Capital MasterClass: everything you always wanted to know about raising equity capital … but until now, you had no one to ask‘ (https://chironthebusinessdoctor.com/the-venture-capital-masterclass/). I had a slightly different slant on the subject, but we each reached virtually the same conclusion.
The simple fact is that there is no glamour and no glory in failure! Continue reading
Please click this link to read more about this postYou have a venture idea or a business expansion project in the back of your mind and you want to explore its possibilities in more detail. You don’t have the time to research the feasibility yourself (you are a small or mid-size business owner, after all!) and this is not something that you can delegate to staff. Accordingly, you decide to live a little dangerously and (gasp!) hire a consultant. Martin Ashford, the internationally renowned management consultant, in his 1998 book ‘Con Tricks: The World of Management Consultancy & How to Make It Work for You’ (still available at http://www.amazon.com) had a few words of advice for those business owners who want to test the waters by putting their faith in a consultant.
Please click this link to read more about this postUnfair dismissals. Of all the subjects that you, as small or mid-size business owner, have to get your head around, unfair dismissals are near the top of the ‘too hard’ list and the ‘do I really need to worry myself about this?’ list. In my discussions over the years with small and mid-size business owners like you, some of the words often used in conjunction with the phrase ‘unfair dismissals’ are hatred, loathing, indignation, outrage, disgust, tricky, expensive and costly. You can see that this subject attracts a great deal of anger, passion and rage.
Survive IR; navigate the minefield. While this subject, and the closely related issues of constructive dismissal and unlawful dismissal attracts a great deal of emotion, this is not as it should be.
Please click this link to read more about this postThe buck stops here!. In modern companies, the buck stops in the Boardroom. Boards of Directors don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘this is too hard, give it to the Chief Executive to fix!’. Of course, Boards do have the questionable (some would say honourable!) option of procrastination. They can refer a proposed venture that seems a little complex to a Board subcommittee for evaluation, they can refer the proposed venture to one or more members of the senior management team for further evaluation, or they can refer the proposed venture to their external advisers for further evaluation (their accountants and solicitors for example). Sooner or later however, the Board will have to face the music, consider and decide what to do with the venture proposal. This is the point where Directors’ Decision-making: Working Between a Quandary and a Dilemma becomes a serious reality.
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