I desk-top researched the question of ‘the top 10 SME owners’ biggest challenges?’
I found that the answers to be:
- Reducing operational costs
- Finding and keeping new business
- Quality improvement of both products/services and processes
- Growing the business
- Improving profit
- Staff issues, including hiring and culture
- Improving productivity
- Reducing time constraints
- Dealing with uncertainty
- Competition
I looked deeper into the challenges from a root cause perspective.
I assert that the causes are human:
- mindset
- beliefs
- attitudes
- skills deficits
- and the resulting behaviours and actions.
Items 1, 2 and 3 in the list above create the morale and culture of the workplace, which together with existing skills or lack of skills, determines the performance of the workplace and thus directly affects all the challenges listed above.
Improving the culture, beginning with effective leadership and appropriate skills development, is the best and cheapest way to address the well-known challenges.
However too many small business owners have a mindset that regards training and development as a cost, not an investment, and they wonder why they stay as they are, or continue to struggle.
The wise, growth oriented small business owner cleverly invests in the right training and development that delivers an excellent return on investment, successfully helping their people to overcome their challenges.
There is no other way.
Or is there?
