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Business, like most things in the world, seems to be governed by certain laws. These laws aren’t regulatory or legislative, but more truisms that keep proving themselves again and again. Business changes throughout time as trends come and go, and new laws of business become relevant in different epochs. Here are the laws of business in ours.
Knowledge is Powerful Beyond All-Else
Knowledge has always been valuable and corporate espionage has probably always been a thing, but in our current business environment, knowledge in the form of data has become the new oil. Collecting as much data as possible doesn’t seem to have a downside if you can afford the server costs and if you’re adept at choosing business intelligence software. Data can be used to improve your own services, get an edge over the competition, and of course, customer data can be sold to the highest bidder.
Lone Wolves are a Myth
The lone wolf is a big myth of the current era thanks to billionaires with gigantic egos who sometimes have you believe they did it all themselves. This is a major fallacy, even Jeff Bezos had to ask his parents for a quarter of a million dollars so Amazon didn’t collapse and fail in 1995. The number of obstacles that you face in business will cripple you if you are not working with other people, so just remember that success is a group effort in all instances.
Understand Emotions like Anger
It’s easy to think that business is a clinical endeavor. How often do you hear people say ‘it’s nothing personal, only business’ in Hollywood movies? Well, it’s not. The stock market is almost completely driven by emotion instead of cold, hard rationality, and the chances are that your colleagues and rivals will be, too. But that’s not a bad thing!
Emotion is an important guide to decision making. Just remember that anger is special – it can be highly destructive and intimidating, but people become angry because they’re frustrated and helpless. Once you imagine the furious Fortune 500 CEO that is personally having a go at you as a screaming baby, they’ll become a lot less intimidating. As CEO, keep your emotions in tact when it comes to succession planning, stay in control. Because this is also a critical part of any business’s success. Organizations could be left without the necessary leadership when times get tough. With CEO succession planning, businesses can prepare for the unexpected and ensure that their operations stay on track regardless of personnel changes. Done correctly, this type of careful planning should include assessing both short-term and long-term staffing needs, drafting job profiles for potential executives and developers of talent, as well as putting processes in place to nurture new leaders who can fill executive roles. While many businesses may view succession planning as an afterthought, those who prioritize it will reap the rewards when necessary leadership shifts occur.
Remember Newton’s Third Law
A law of physics seems to also be a law of business: for every action there will be an equal and opposite reaction. That means the more you try to exert yourself over others, the more you’ll be met with resistance. The more you are actively aggressive, the more passive-aggressive those surrounding you will be. Leaders who force themselves are typically less effective than leaders who guide and manage.
The Law of Moderation
How do your projections look? Are you looking at things from a best-case scenario? What about a worst one? Well… chances are neither will ever happen. Don’t put all your eggs into the best-case basket because you’ll be incredibly disappointed. Equally, don’t invest too much in worst-case scenario preparation. Make sure you’re ready for things to go sour, but don’t expect the worst of the worst to happen because there will likely be an endless number of alternative endings to your story.