PREFACE

The greatest myth about running your own business is that you have to do it by yourself. Coupled with the belief that all it takes to succeed is a fierce desire for independence and the willingness to work hard, this myth motivates many of us to roll up our sleeves and do whatever it takes. We focus on the tasks at hand. We’re diligent, and we don’t give up until the work is done. Sometimes it almost seems easy, taking on its own momentum. From all the effort and dedication, you start seeing results; suddenly you’ve got the business growing.

Maybe it’s grown fast and you’re losing confidence that you can keep handling the pace. As it gets harder, you dig in, keep doing the same thing you’ve always done, muscle your way through. But after a while, that’s not enough. You are hitting a wall, or maybe you can see that wall coming. You have an indication or intuition that there’s some danger ahead of losing key employees, customers, or vendors, and it feels as if there are other problems on the horizon. You realize that what got you and your business to this level of growth and success won’t get you to the next levels. That’s disconcerting, to say the least. Something has to shift. You keep thinking that there’s got to be a better way.

Your intuition is right. There is a better way, and something does have to shift. It begins with your mind-set—your intentional choice to work on your business, not in your business. That may be an unfamiliar construct that you can’t fathom right now, but it is the key shift. And like turning the right key to open a door, it will help you to forge a new path on which you will set a course for your company and regain the freedom, confidence, and control that you may have felt slip away.

What’s Ahead

This book introduces Aileron’s Professional Management System for applying and maintaining professional management in your business in a way that works for you. Aileron is a nonprofit organization created to help privately held businesses grow. Professional management is a well-known, established approach of employing proven fundamentals in the running of a business. It is not hiring an outside company to run it. It is learning how to incorporate proven fundamentals—principles and processes—into the everyday workings of your enterprise and applying them to achieve your goals.

Aileron’s Professional Management System is based on the principles of professional management as explained by many thought leaders. What distinguishes it is the DOC (Direction, Operation, Control) structure. It simplifies professional management and makes it practical for private businesses. This book is for you, the business owner, unsatisfied with the status quo and eager to better your business, to learn a new way to grow your company. And it is for your team—senior leaders, managers, advisors, and even your family. Our experience is that although you will be the champion of the process, you will want to get the early buy-in of everyone.

Each private business owner has a unique perspective and specific needs. To make it feasible to incorporate professional management, I think each business and each owner needs to start right where you are, identifying a place to apply it in a way that works for you and in a way that solves a problem as soon as possible. There is no one-size-fits-all way to do it. The principles provide a framework, and you adapt that framework as you implement professional management in your business and your life. If you choose to adopt this approach to running your business, I believe that it will be more profitable and successful, and you will have discovered a way to run a sustainable business, just as I did with The Iams Company for many years.

Throughout the book you will meet real business owners, many of them Aileron clients implementing professional management. In our interviews with them, they shared stories of the challenges and fears they faced, as well as the learning, discoveries, and successes they experienced. Their stories won’t be exactly like yours, but I think that you will see yourself and your own company’s challenges in many of them. They are here because I think it helps to know that you are not alone. There are business owners all around the country who share your heartfelt aspiration for building a successful business that stands for something, and they share your struggles. They understand what you are going through—the real problems you face, your desire to grow your business, the risks you are taking, and the fears you are feeling. They have made the shift, and they are developing vibrant, sustainable businesses through the learning, awareness, capacity-building processes, tools, and support of professional management. Their stories exemplify the ways they have incorporated this system into their companies and the difference it has made in their lives, as well as the lives of their employees, families, and communities. You will meet people like these:

Tessie and David, whose adoption of professional management has helped them to manage growth, while inspiring innovative controls to ensure high-quality service by employees who love their jobs.

Christopher, whose company doubled its growth quickly. He was afraid that he could lose it all if he didn’t learn how to manage the next wave with timely systems and processes.

Wes, whose investment in developing his people has resulted in his having the time and the freedom to work on setting the company’s future direction and taking family vacations without sacrificing the smooth running of his business.

Mike and Jeff, who are always balancing freedom and authority with accountability.

Dan, whose board members helped him learn how to articulate his dream, then strategize a way to achieve it.

Jim, who worked hard with his executive team to create a strong, authentic culture that drives his business.

Tony, who incorporated his high-priority value of family into his business culture, which resulted in an invaluable experience for him, for his son, and for his management team.

Peg and Mark, who needed relief from the 24/7 demands of their business and an exit strategy that would help them meet other goals.

This book is a guide to Aileron’s Professional Management System. Part 1, “A Better Way to Run a Business,” proposes a solution to the problem of running a business that depends greatly on you in all matters critical to daily operation. It introduces the DOC, its fundamentals, and the shift it requires in your role as leader—stepping back for perspective to look at the bigger picture and to set a long-term direction for the future. Part 2, “Learning Professional Management,” goes into more depth on each of the fundamentals, focusing on how you can apply them so that they make sense for you and your employees, and how they can help all of you achieve your short-term and long-term goals. Part 3, “Living Professional Management,” is about your intentional interaction with your family about business matters, your awareness of the impact the business has on them, and the importance of a succession plan as part of the legacy and sustainability of your company.

We’ll be covering a lot of new ground. As you read what follows, I hope you will experience a shift in your thinking—gaining a new understanding of how critical it is for you to spend the majority of your time working on your business instead of in it, and beginning to understand the potential impact of professional management. Then I hope you will take a step further and pursue professional management. It all begins with your willingness to shift your focus from the short term to the long term so that you can influence movement in the direction of your vision. I hope that you will begin to feel a sense of what it will be like to be engaged in this process that helps you to get everything going in the same direction. This process isn’t easy; in fact, it’s hard. You will be challenged to dig deep and to analyze and reflect on a variety of critically important aspects of yourself and your business. But it really works. I believe you will find in this book a sense of something better … a better way to run your business that makes it possible to involve more people and live your values as you achieve new levels of growth, innovation, contribution, profitability, and sustainability.

But my commitment, what drives me to encourage you to pursue professional management, goes deeper. Despite what is happening all around us in the world, I believe in my heart, my gut, and the depths of my soul in the power of small businesses and entrepreneurs as the lifeblood of our communities. To me, nothing is nobler than the business owners’ willingness—your willingness—to put your capital at risk to create jobs for others and to invest in the realization of your dreams to grow businesses that stand for something, that will provide a better life for your families, your employees, and your communities. The way I see it, small business is about more than fulfilling the dreams of the owners and their families. You create jobs that give people hope, opportunity, the dignity of work, respect, and valued contribution. Private businesses have the power, one business at a time, to transform the communities in which you do business. You achieve it through personal growth, which fuels organizational growth, which in turn fuels community growth.