Notes on Noble Business

When people hear about “Noble Enterprise”, they often think, “Well, that would certainly be nice, but not in our business, not in our industry.” They think it too lofty a goal that can’t be reached because Reality interferes – the need to sell to demanding customers without losing your shirt, the need to control waste and keep employees focused on the proverbial “bottom line” etc. “We can’t afford (the thinking goes) to serve some lofty purpose, or to be honorable because it’s just not practical and stands in the way of profitability.”

Yet when a business is shaped and led as a Noble Enterprise, it can actually achieve traditional business results far beyond the norm.

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With a New Year starting, it’s a great time to step back from your business and take a fresh look at something most business leaders take for granted or seldom work on – your “business model.”

What is your company’s business model – and how’s it working for you? I don’t mean its strategy – that’s different. The “business model” is the very core definition of your business – WHY it exists, to Serve WHOM – and what those NEEDS really are.

The traditional business model focuses on things like: 

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While many companies still remain almost “locked down” with a clamp on spending, waiting for the economy to recover, now may actually be just the time for you and your company to shift into action. Those who act early will seize an opportunity caused in part by the economy’s having stopped its free fall – and also by the fact that many competitors may still be essentially dormant, just waiting until it becomes (truly) “safe” to resume “business as usual.”

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With financial companies in shambles and the rest of the economy reeling, the business education community is asking themselves where they may have gone wrong in training the MBAs who headed for Wall Street, rose through the ranks, and were at the helm of many of the companies that lost their way.
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Last week I had the privilege and pleasure of speaking to a group of 35 mid-level executives enrolled in Fordham Business School’s Accelerated Executive MBA program, which is rated in the top 30 executive MBA programs in the world by The Wall Street Journal.

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A few months ago, I asked several dozen business owners and executives just that question. Some reported that their companies were growing and prosperous. Others said their companies were stagnant, and a sizable number reported that their companies were declining and/or not profitable. If your business is in any of those three categories, you may be interested to learn what each group described as their biggest challenges. As you might expect, the challenge of coming up with a better business strategy and how to improve its implementation ranked high. But what I found most interesting was that there were also quite a few mentions about the challenges related to the human side of the business. You may be surprised by what specific challenges they cited.

Read the summary of the business challenge survey results.>>

How can you differentiate your company to put it on the path toward competitive advantage and sustainable business success? That’s the subject I recently talked about with Chip Conley, founder & CEO of Joie De Vivre Hospitality and author of PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo.

The old answers and approaches are no longer enough. As Chip put it, “One of the things that companies are looking for is how to differentiate themselves, and companies that succeed do not tend to do so by following the pack. So one of the most important elements of successful or peak-performing businesses is how you differentiate yourself.” (more…)

I recently attended an awards dinner at a hotel on Fifth Avenue in New York City for my nephew, Curry Ford. This was a gala affair with men in tuxedos and women dressed to the hilt. (more…)