There’s an important sequence to understand that results in exemplary business performance:
- Your business has to matter to you
- When a business matters, it warrants care
- With care comes craft
- With craft comes excellence
- With excellence comes performance
The overarching theme that a leader is going for, which covers all of the above, is to become ‘captivated’ by your business.
Being captivated is the opposite of being ‘dulled’, which was the condition I referenced and wrote about in my previous CEO Sundays missive.
I doubt whether most CEOs consider being captivated as a possibility. Businesses generally aren’t seen as something capable of captivation. Historically, businesses are seen as inanimate objects that simply function at arm’s length.
As opposed to something that is alive, dynamic, lovable, intriguing, compelling, and fascinating.
I fight tooth and nail to change this impression. If CEOs can ‘make a turn’ and get to a place where a business is seen in a more visceral light, everything changes. A whole range of performance-enhancing behaviours miraculously appear.
This is not a throw-away point or a fanciful idea to be placed in the nice-to-have category.
This is about the very real matters of profit, wealth, purpose, and vitality: key ingredients for a fulfilling life.
Please allow yourself to become captivated by your business, your career and your developmental path as a CEO.
It’s a path worthy of your attention and energy.