When I feed the chickens at my family’s home with scraps from the day’s cooking, the sound of the food hitting the floor has them scurrying out to inspect the cabbage, the pepper, the potatoes peelings and so on. The first on the scene will pluck a few morsels, scuttle to a secluded area and then peck ferociously. If they are impressed, they won’t move. If not, they’ll abandon the morsel, and come back to the pile of food for something more ideal or drift back to what was interesting them previously. They do this daily and have a routine discipline, focus and organisation, knowing that the speed of staving off the competition is as important as the quality of the food they unearth.
I watch a great many entrepreneurs and executives, who seek help with their own hunting and gathering of new business or new investment opportunities. Their antennae are poorly attuned to opportunity (see, hear, read). When it does land, the time taken to jump on the opportunity is lamentable (follow up). They want to endlessly inspect what’s on offer, not knowing what is ideal (needs analysis). The competition repeatedly outsmart them or the opportunity disappears before there own eyes. There is no routine discipline, and there is certainly no allowance (spare capacity or time) for serendipitous opportunities.
If this is second nature for chickens, whose lifespan is considerably shorter and more precarious than humans, why isn’t this automatic in many businesses? Perhaps, they are too well-fed, they are not serious about their business growth or simply resigned to living off scraps forever?
