{"id":468,"date":"2017-09-09T10:19:43","date_gmt":"2017-09-09T10:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/?p=468"},"modified":"2018-05-30T19:36:31","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T19:36:31","slug":"do-not-trick-yourself-into-believing-that-you-know-it-all-you-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/rwc-blog\/do-not-trick-yourself-into-believing-that-you-know-it-all-you-dont\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Not Trick Yourself Into Believing That You Know It All – You Don’t…None of Us Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

I continue to be bemused and disappointed by the extent to which some egos cause the decline (and sometime “collapse”) of Kiwi businesses. Yes, there is a strong sense of pride and fierce independence that runs through the veins of many Kiwis. Accepted and admired.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, it is this same strong feeling of “having\/ wanting to stand on our own two feet no matter what” among a big chunk of the New Zealand population that is actually causing the demise<\/span> of many Kiwi businesses. Why ? Because business owners with this inbuilt strong sense of pride\/ independence are:<\/span><\/p>\n

a) Convinced that no one in the world could possibly ever offer them guidance\/ support\/ input that would add value to and\/ or advance their business.<\/span><\/p>\n

b) Strongly resistant to seeking or accepting guidance\/ input into their business by other people – despite the qualifications and\/ or experience and\/ or achievements of other people who are available to help.<\/span><\/p>\n

c) Not willing to accommodate the ideas\/ thoughts\/ inputs of other people generally. In other words they consider that they alone have a monopoly on good ideas that are relevant for their business.<\/span><\/p>\n

I once worked alongside a director who had the memorable saying of “splendid in our isolation<\/span>“. Meaning ? This expression means that business owners can run the risk of seeing themselves as being splendid at what they do and\/ or in terms of their accomplishments when the owner keeps to themselves and doesn’t belong to (or interact with) a network such as franchise. This self-sense\/ illusion of superiority\u00a0is a “bubble” that can “burst” quite quickly if\/ when the business owner starts to consider (become aware of) the practices\/ achievements\/ performances of similar businesses operating around them…including discovering where their shortcomings exist relative to other players in the same industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know of a considerably experienced person who walked away from a major (nationally available) commercial capability improvement programme during 2016 mainly for the reason that he become fed-up at trying to influence these strongly independent business owners to open their minds far enough to at least trial the mentoring\/ guidance that is available via this programme. A classic “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” situation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My advice to Kiwi business owners is open your mind to hear\/ see what suitably qualified\/ experienced people have to offer you in terms of insights into your business – and\/ or plausible ways for you to consider improving it<\/span>. Remember – often it is difficult to “see the wood for the trees” when you’re so submerged in your business. You don’t have to “accept” (act on\/ implement) the suggestions that others provide you – that’s your prerogative. But at least be prepared to give them a fair hearing – a gem of an idea that has the potential to improve how you operate your business may just show itself as a result.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I continue to be bemused and disappointed by the extent to which some egos cause the decline (and sometime “collapse”) of Kiwi businesses. Yes, there is a strong sense of pride and fierce independence that runs through the veins of many Kiwis. Accepted and admired. However, it is this same strong feeling of “having\/ wanting to stand on our own two feet no matter what” among a big chunk of the New Zealand population that is actually causing the demise…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}