Behind every great entrepreneur or executive, there is always a great… Deputy Executive
Or at least that's what my experience tells me. Working with family business owners, owners of SMEs, allows you to appreciate and study the qualities that have made them successful.
There are many that are repeated: great work capacity, attention to detail, vision, ambition, self-love, and undoubtedly one that is always present is an extraordinary sixth sense, a nose if you will, to surround themselves with good people committed to them and their project, both inside and outside the company.
These latter individuals, in order to be truly useful and to become trusted by the business owner, must also possess a series of characteristics that must always be present; without being exhaustive, it is worth mentioning:
- Independence of judgment and economic independence. Otherwise, they do a disservice with their always biased and self-serving advice.
- Market exposure, personal experience.
- Knowledge and specialization that complements that of the entrepreneur and their staff
- Mindset, ability to explore and propose different ideas
- Time to reflect on the company's problems and translate those conclusions into actionable steps
Often, SMEs cannot, or rather believe they cannot, access an executive who meets the criteria I mentioned earlier, either due to the cost of these individuals or a lack of access to qualified professionals. This is no longer an excuse, as the market offers countless solutions for obtaining such professionals, such as the increasingly widespread practice in our country of interim management, which already has professional associations and flexible arrangements for accessing their expertise and commitment.
When was the last time someone told you "the emperor has no clothes"? If you don't have that one person on your team whom you respect enough to tell you you're wrong and make you rethink things, you need one now.