Just like the goal of growing a fruit tree is to harvest the fruits, the purpose of starting a business is to make profits and create a positive impact. A business needs to navigate through challenges and grow to its full potential to maximize profits. The growth phase is not a walk in the park. It plays a significant role in the business’s existence and often negatively affects the entrepreneur’s personal life. This phase contains many challenges that are referred to as navigating business growing pains.

The term “growing pains” refers to temporary difficulties and problems a growing company experiences during a particular stage in its development. This expression derives from the pains in the legs a growing child feels have no demonstrable relation to growth.

In business literature, the term growing pains has always been perceived to have a negative and dramatic connotation. I have also perceived it with the same attitude for a long time, but after working with entrepreneurs for over 20 years, I changed my viewpoint on growing pains. In this article, I will share my perspective on the importance of growing pains to an entrepreneur, how to successfully sail through them, and how to …

Is embracing the Great Resignation possible for business leaders? Lately, my focus has been on the remarkable phenomenon known as the Great Resignation, where many employees within the Western labor market voluntarily embrace change by resigning from their current positions or transitioning to new roles. Coined in 2021 by Anthony Klotz, an Associate Professor of Management in the Organizations and Innovation Group at UCL School of Management, this term encapsulates our transformative shift.

HR professionals highlighted the common reasons people were leaving their jobs: wage stagnation, looking for greener pastures or a toxic work environment leading to burnout, etc.

My thoughts on this new trend gave me a unique perspective I want to share with you in this article.

The underlying hidden reason

When I looked closely at the reasons for this critical movement of people towards other jobs and career alternatives, I realized that they all lead to a common denominator: an imbalance between what people invested in their jobs and what they get out of it. The input is far more significant than the return. The returns we are considering here are not only the financial compensation but things like fulfillment which varies for different individuals. Stated differently, …

As John made his way to the driveway into the garage, he glanced at his watch and noticed it was past 11 pm. He parked the car and sat there thinking about the day’s events. John felt dissatisfaction take over as he remembered he had promised to have dinner with his family that evening but failed again. He had not seen his son for the past three days. The frustration was even much higher when he thought about his parents who are in a period of their life where it was his duty to take care of and be there for them.

As he got lost in thoughts about the reality of his current life, his attention turned to the big project for an important client to start tomorrow. He needed to be there by 7 am to coordinate and supervise the kickoff meeting. This meant he would wake up early and leave the house before his wife and son woke up.

This was John’s schedule every day. His mind and every cell in his body was occupied with the business. It had been years of planning for a holiday and time off from the company, but something always came …

Every business has a culture of some kind. But you can’t change your culture any more than you can change your brand by just talking about it, or even teaching it. You have to make systemic changes in your organization that transform the way people think and behave.

People are deeply influenced by their work environment. Weaker people can become highly productive and stronger people can lose their edge, depending on your company culture.

The magic really begins to happen when the right people come together with remarkable business systems to create a culture of results through discipline, enthusiasm and high performance.

It is the primary concern, and responsibility, of every business owner, manager or executive to create a culture of results inside their company. This is created and maintained through disciplined adherence by every employee to ensure profitability and continuance of the company’s operation.

((Efficient People + Motivation) * Accountability) = Effective Team Results

Where does it start?

HIRE THE RIGHT BEST PEOPLE

Let me repeat from author Jim Collins, 

“Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing

All along I had a strong feeling that with these lockdowns, the rate of domestic violence and crimes would go up. To my surprise, I recently found that this wave of interrelation conflicts didn’t just strike homes but also the business world.

Visiting two of my clients with whom we had established harmonized teams before lockdown, I noticed a change in behavior and performance as some employees seemed to be stressed by this pandemic situation.

As employees try to live with the constant uncertainty and the continuous requirement to adapt to new conditions, tensions in relationships become more prominent, and mismatches in personality become more visible. The team members who don’t take full responsibility for their functions create friction and frustrations for those who have to cover for them, which leads to loss of motivation and an unpleasant working atmosphere.

On top of that, working remotely demands a higher level of communication. In a normal face to face meeting without masks, one might easily notice when a point is not well understood and address the issue with minimum damage. However, in a remote working situation, one idea that is poorly communicated through email or any other platform might cause latent …