Better Small-Medium Business: Knowledge From Mark Twain, John Wooden and also the Aussie Outback
Summary
Inspiration for small-medium business improvement may come everywhere: even from Mark Twain, John Wooden along with a mining town within the Australian outback.
Not So Long Ago…
Over 4 decades ago, I had been residing in a mining community in an exceedingly, very remote a part of Australia. The closest town was 400 miles away. I discovered myself volunteering to teach a group of tradesmen and workers from our basketball competition. It had been rough and prepared plant basketball with little if any finesse. However it was very exciting. It involved the entire community, men and women, from 10 years old and upward.
The Content
One Sunday mid-day another volunteer coach and that i were getting a glass or two along with a chat. “You realize,” he stated, “the truly amazing factor about basketball would be that the more you discover about this, the greater you understand you do not know.” I agreed. But at that time I had no clue how profound his comment was.
What Mark And John Say
This past year I discovered two quotes that stated very similar as my coaching friend.
Mark Twain stated, “It ain’t what you do not know that will get you into trouble. It’s that which you know for several that simply ain’t so.” And John Wooden stated, “It’s that which you learn after long everything counts.”
Small-Medium Business Implications
We will take more notice of those clever and experienced people? I have spent the majority of the last 35 years counseling managers how you can run better companies. Of this time, I have labored solely with mangers in small-medium business for nearly twenty years.
I am fascinated for example, about how exactly keen these managers are to try and imitate large companies. I constantly uncover managers of companies that employ, say, 26 people show me the things they can study from a company which uses 26,000 people!
The Gurus
And they are also keen to follow along with some academic gurus who’ve outstanding professional reputations. Quite a few these gurus haven’t run any kind of business within their whole lives.
More Examples
Almost 30 Years Ago Al Ries and Jack Trout authored “Positioning, The Fight For That Mind”. This Year, 3 decades later, your readers of “Advertising Age” voted “Positioning” the “Most Significant Marketing Book Ever”. I still find managers who declare that what Al and Jack say “does not affect my company”. Three decades of buyer approval does not appear to mean much for them.