By Tom Grandy, Founder
If you have more than one child you have probably noticed something about yourself over the years. The strictness you demanded of your first child didn’t seem as important with the second or third child. I can still remember an overnight visit with my second daughter and her husband who were newly married and yet without children. My oldest daughter was also visiting. She has five young children. As you might imagine with the three older grandchildren being boys, there was quite a bit of activity, well perhaps it was more like chaos! As grandparents of eleven children the activity was a bit exhausting, but understandable, therefore it didn’t really bother us. During one of the quieter moments, with the newest son-in-law made a rather interesting statement. “When I have children, they will listen to me and will be well behaved.” I made no comment.
The same son-in-law now has three boys of his own. Suffice it to say, he sees things a bit differently today.
As each of us grow in age and wisdom we often look back and realize things we felt were really important at one point in our life really weren’t as important as we thought they were.
During my early years of one-on-one consulting with contractors, I can remember being at several contractor’s offices and observing the behavior of his or her employees, especially the technicians. Although I never spoke it out loud, I can remember thinking more than once, “If this were my company, I would have this and that rule and everyone would fall in line.” Over the years I realized that if I were the owner and had instituted those rules on Friday, I would likely have lost most of those valuable employees by Monday morning.
The new company owner, like the new parent, quickly finds out how little they know about being a company owner or new parent. There are lots of “How To” books on the topics but guess what? Your exact circumstances never seem to match what you are reading.
If new parents will humble themselves and seek counsel from their parents, grandparents or other older, wiser parents they can pick up a few tips on parenting that normally can only be learned after the fact. Likewise, business owners can pick up a lot of wisdom by seeking out relationships with older business owners inside or outside of their industry. This can be done informally on a local basis or formally through an organized Mixed Group within your specific trade.
Pride comes before the fall. True wisdom comes from humbling yourself and admitting you don’t have all the answers and then seeking out an abundance of counselors to gain direction.
Bottom line…if you are a young business owner, seek relationships with those that have been through the battles before you. If you’re an older business owner or perhaps retired, think about mentoring younger business owners.
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