"A Fairy Tale is a lie, but it hints,
Good fellows a lesson!"
A.S.Pushkin,
"The Golden Cockerel" (1834) Once upon a time there was a young man named Mr.Business who decided to build his own Company that he could be proud of and that would feed his family. When he was younger he helped build a sauna for his wife’s father and a porch to have BBQs for his friend not too long ago. So he thought that since he saw how both are built and maintained, a Company to build couldn’t be harder! Some inherited money from his late father came in handy. He heard that somewhere far far away, there are business consultants that could help you properly realize your dreams into reality. When Mr.Consultant arrived, he began asking weird, sometimes uncomfortable, questions, while writing down the answers: - What are your life goals?
- Can you visualize yourself and your Company in 5 or 10 years?
- What are your strengths as a persona? And as a leader?
- How important are the moral and ethical principles in your outlook on life?
- What social or business problems are you planning to solve?
- What are the needs of your customers that you’re planning to meet? Or are you planning to form a new market?
- What is the uniqueness of your Company?
- What market share can you take if actively developing?
- What is the potential of the market?
- Who are your competitors and your partners?
- Do you plan to exit the business?
- …
Mr.Business quickly got annoyed and sent Mr.Consultant away to make connections with local nobility, and negotiate discounts with the merchants. The business consultant left and never came back. “So what”- thought the energetic person, – “I’ll save so much money”. He went on to buy expensive office furniture, hired a personal assistant, and got a couple of cheaper machines for production. A week, a month, a year has passed. Mr.Business was still sitting in his office drinking expensive teas and coffees, and calling up his friends. Suddenly, outside of his window he saw currency storms, competitors building intrigues, and the sleepless government asking for higher taxes. One machine broke down, and the other, well, it didn’t work from the start. It didn’t matter really because nobody bought the product anyways. Employees were loyal but even they, after a long salary holdup, ran away, along with the assistant. Mr.Business looked into his financial situation, and realized that his parent’s money have long been gone. In his safe, now dark and empty, you could spot the lonely bright white questionnaire from Mr.Consultant… © K.Y.Smolentsev, 2014 Author: Konstantin Y. Smolentsev Ph.D., Academician of the IIA, Chairman of the Board of directors and CEO IC "SMOLENTSEV & Partners" http://www.smolentsev.com/ |
