An Open Letter to Business Owners, Directors, Shareholders and Investors

Business owners belong to a special group of people. There is a general characteristic among them . They are enterprising, creative. They see and seize opportunities when others see as insignificant or problems. As a result, they create businesses and provide employment to many.

As a business grows, the complexity of the system supporting or operating behind the business also increases. In the beginning, the owner will try to manage himself or herself. Later he or she finds that a group of personnel called Management or Professional has to be engaged. Both the owners and the professionals are following the doctrine of Frederick Taylor's "Divide and Manage", in most cases, unknowingly. After all "Divide and Manage" model was, and still is in most organisations, the only known management recipe.

A few centuries of the old management practice have locked us deeply into our present paradigm. It is further reinforced by some seemingly success stories of the past and some of the present businesses that result in good profits and gain. We continue to use "Divide and Manage" approach in all aspects of our endeavour.

Invariably, both the owners and professionals are focusing and revolving around profit and gain of the business concerned. Hence in the minds of both parties, a mental model is created to treat "Business" as a perpetual money making machine and the engaged professionals and staffs as robotics components of the entity, following the doctrine of "Divide and Manage". From such a perception, we can derive some expected outcomes. When the machine fails to produce the expected amount of money or results, then faults are concluded in some part of the robotics components. Corrective measures are then taken to addressed on those parts or components deficiencies : to fix it, repair it or replace it.

Such a simplistic and mechanical management model has proven its usefulness during the mass production phase of the Industrial Age. But it is certainly a mis-fit in the present dynamic changing world. Evidences of the misfit are plenty : customers are complaining more and more, competitors can coming in aggressively, there is no loyalty of staff (after all they are treated as robotics components in the first place), executive stress abound, union un-rest, uncontrolled waste and pollution, etc.

The above mechanical and robotics comparison and treatment of an organisation may sound extreme as some will argue that employee and staff are treated like human being also. But a honest, critical and systemic person will see ample evidence of organisation excessive focus on "control" "order" "structure" "hierarchy" "procedure" "authority" etc. There is hardly any, except a very few, free expression of opinions, creativity and innovation by individuals. It is then a mixture of a few human beings and a lot robots in an organisation.

Since the owners are the creators of the businesses, their mental model of the supporting system / structures become critically important to face the challenge of the new changing world.

Ability to create a new business is like a mother's ability to give birth to a baby or babies. But that is only the start of the business. The process of business growth and supporting system is again comparable to the process of the mother nurturing, educating, developing the children into creative entities by themselves. It is hard to imagine a mother treating her children like robots to generate wealth for her.

From the above comparison, it is obvious that there is a severe broken link in the totality of the Business Growth Process, with respect to the owners not involving in the complete process design and control, except the initial business creation, leaving the rest to the engaged management or professional. At the same time, the old mental model of the owners continue to dictate, influence the management process. It is a case of the blind leading the blind. In some cases, when the later (management team) begins to see different light, the light can be easily distinguished by the owners, who do not share the same vision.

The roles and responsibilities of Business owner have changed to a higher dimension and expectation of the market. Relying on the old approach and business model with the stereotyped and fragmented role-play by the business owners, will only quickly create a burial ground for an established business. The owners have to be equipped with more knowledge of the totality of a Business in a holistic, systemic manner. The interdependency and interacting forces of the business with the society, environment and market have to be understood.

Entrepreneur-ship alone on the part of the owners is totally insufficient in the coming 21st century. The ability to evolve and build a new mental model with sound theory and methodology becomes indispensable attribute of an owner to ensure a healthy growth of his or her business.

End.