Building a Growing Business
If you grew up in the village like me, you probably heard this Africa proverb in different forms: “The Ant-hills are not built by elephants but by the collective efforts of little ants”. That is usually put across when communities mobilize resources, tasking citizens for the collective good of the society. While it may be tempting to look at the elephants [few successful ones], smart communities look at everyone.
Some elders follow-up, throwing another proverb: “To keep a village square clean, all citizens must sweep from their homes towards the square”. In this one, the elders push for individual responsibilities, tasking citizens to take actions which would accumulate for the good of the society.
This applies in running businesses. You have the vice presidents, EDs and senior managers as the elephants. Unfortunately, without the receptionists, gatemen, and others, nothing would happen. It takes all the efforts of the ants to build the ant-hills, and no elephant despite the size has ever built one.
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Never neglect the power that comes from your lower-level workers who may not be visible. If they do well, you look good. If they fail, all the strategies collapse.
To begin with, no one was born as CEO or big guy, everyone was born small. Therefore to be become big, you must first of all be small; no other way. Understanding this simple principle would obviously help one to be reasonable, responsible and treat everyone that comes one's way with dignity and respect.
There can only be one CEO, few C-suite guys, but there are lots of people on the bottom-line. Interestingly, customers and fans rarely have anything to do with those at the C-suite; but have a whole lot to do with those on the lower ladder. Your success and failure lie with those guys down there: treat them like rags, then your famed customers would be handed a replica of that; treat them like prince and princess, then be certain that your customers are getting kingly treatments.
Little ants coming together were able to build massive ant-hill, while an elephant with its bigness can't even make a hut for itself. You don't need to be persuaded to treat the junior staff with warmness and respect, rather you would be compelled to do so, by the time all the numbers start going south. And by that time, you are already such a cow head.