Preface: The lazy should learn a lesson from the way ants live. They have no leader, chief, or ruler, but they store up their food during the summer, getting ready for winter. Paraphrase of Proverb 6:6-8
Are Leading Entrepreneurs Considering the Ants?
Credit: Donald J. Sauder, CPA | CVA
Ants colonies are a great case study for entrepreneurial and organizational success. The nation of the Ants really can teach great lessons mostly applicable to business and entrepreneurship. In this blog, we intend to gain simple insights and profound, systematic principles from these quiet “social entrepreneurs” to help the entrepreneurial communities to flourish with a greater appreciation for the vibrancy of the freedoms of our culture and thee privileged opportunities to pass the time with holidays.
Focus
One of the most significant challenges in entrepreneurship is keeping focused on the right business opportunities, highest value tasks, and keystone priorities. Ants are exceptional at this. They can seemingly focus effectively on a task or project and see it through successfully to completion. They don’t procrastinate, complain, or wince at the perceived work or effort that may be required. Instead, they diligently and quietly get to work.
Likewise, star baseball players keep their “eye on the ball” and connect successfully. That’s how they win the game. That’s how they hit home runs right, focusing on the right opportunity to connect. Entrepreneurs likewise must also value continual focus day after day.
Entrepreneurial success is obtained with a single-minded focus on serving customers, delighting customers, and satisfying customers. While this may seem to be conventional advice, it is easy to get distracted, in many moments, not only from business priorities, and not only individually but as a team or organization.
Ants seemingly don’t expect to be applauded at an awards ceremony or receive graduate honors, or other honorary recognition. Yet our expectation as we consider these social entrepreneurs is that they will give the responsibility of each task an award level commitment and focus. What do ants do for leisure?
A business can be only as successful as its systems of service, satisfaction, and delight of customers. Would you trust an ant to do what it says it will do regarding an order? A business that has a thriving and vibrant focus will have an outperforming team that is trusted, keeps its word, and delivers on consistently on time and budget. Do this, and the rest will take of its self.
Every incredible journey started with the first metric length. Goal setting with a plan will help you more easily measure and keep focus. Achieve your vision in incremental segments that are concise, understood, and realistic. Then accurately measure the success of your focus as you complete each step of the plan. This provides clear goal-posts to measure the yardage gained and progress with chronological steps.
A business with a focus will listen to its customers and provide staff training to develop the expertise to deliver an exceptional experience with every sale. While this is not easy to achieve and easier to talk about, it pays big dividends. Imaging what customer service would be like from an ant may seem similar to a robot – quiet, ambitious, and with a dedicated effort to complete the task to the best of expectations and highest standards. Giving 100% and knowing that is all that is required. Ants focus most effectively, and effectual entrepreneurs focus too. If focusing on entrepreneurship with the high-standards exhibited from the ants, it is likely good to great things will most certainly happen.
To be continued….