Know Your Strengths, and Weaknesses, and Opportunities and Threats.

    You have to look out, but first you must look in the mirror!  If you're the leader of your organization, it is absolutely essential that you know the strengths and weaknesses of your organization.  
    The first management book I read after college, way back in the early 60's, was Tough Minded Management, by Joe D. Batten.  It is still one of the most popular management books.  Joe said: "Build on every employees' strengths and possibilities, instead of weaknesses." You may have heard the phrase  "Tough Minded Management."  Today, after almost 50 years, most of us don't know exactly what it means but we know what we think it means.  It's a very common phrase in management literature.  Google it, and see how many results you get.  I just got 159,000! 

"Build on every employee's strengths and possibilities, instead of weaknesses," Joe said. In the '60's, that was news in the management business.  It was what we called a "pregnant statement," meaning that it said more than was obvious.  One of the things Joe meant, but that you wouldn't know unless you read his book, was that you had to know the what were strengths and what were weaknesses.  Joe Batten was one of the first management gurus who pointed us to that distinction.  Joe's statement is good on its surface, but the best effect has been to focus us on knowing which is which.

Know Thyself!  Before you can analyze your organization, you must analyze your own strengths and weaknesses.  All of us have strengths and weaknesses.  Every strength is a resource and every weakness is a challenge.  The strongest leaders, and the strongest businesses, take advantage of their resources and meet the challenges of their weaknesses. Most small business and service agency leaders have face serious challenges.

 A very common challenge is the lack of financial wisdom.  Many small business leaders are “techies,” very good at some technology or talent, but with little knowledge of financial realities.  Accounting is the language of business.  Sure, accountants and controllers can be hired, but if the leader doesn’t understand the workings – Income Statement, Balance Sheets, and Cash Flow Statements, etc., he or she will always be at the mercy of the accounting “techies.”  That can be very, very dangerous.  Should you ever need to go into the market for money – funding – you’d better understand the language spoken by the money people; bankers, lenders, and investors.  For another thing, being “techies” of a sort, most accountants have a hard time recognizing operational opportunities.  To Come Back Better, you’ll need that skill and you’ll need to be able to translate opportunities into the language of business.  Here are some other small business leadership challenges.  If you share any of them, you should do something about that, now.
    

    I have another blog, http://blog.parkersolutions.com, that is all about business Vision and SWOT analysis is a big part of it.  So I won't get deep into it here.  Having an "attractive, worthwhile and achievable vision of the future, widely shared," is probably the most important part of Coming Back Better Now.  It makes everything possible.  Go read and think about it, and let me know what you think.

    Next, we'll think about People Problems.
Bob



    

Posted by Robert M. Parker at 3/25/2011 10:05 AM
Categories: Empower people, Understand and Empathize, SWOT Analysis
 

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