Responsibility – Foundation Of Entrepreneurship

You are responsible for the way your business has shaped up till now. If you don’t take responsibility, then you won’t be able to fix anything. We shirk responsibility by saying stuff like this – Economy is bad. Clients are tough. There is too much competition. There is a price war. My suppliers don’t give me credit. I don’t have the right people. My staff isn’t reliable. Notice in each of the above statement the blame lies somewhere else.

Imagine if you are watching a television show and you believe that the remote control of that TV set is with someone else. So, you cannot change the channel, till that other person changes the channel. Now you are stuck. You are bored with the show. You don’t like it. In fact, you may start to resent it, but you cannot do anything about it. Why? Because you don’t have the remote. For your life to be better, for your entertainment to be better, someone needs to change the channel. That someone who has the remote.

Taking the same example to our business. When the blame lies outside of you, then till that situation or circumstance doesn’t change, nothing can change. That is how people and their business get stuck. How do you change all that?

Taking 100% responsibility of the way your business is the critical first step.

Shift your focus from uncontrollable to controllable. Shift your focus from problems to opportunities. Instead of saying, the economy is bad, you could rephrase it. I don’t know how to grow business in this economy. The economy is bad has no solution. I don’t know how to grow my business in a down economy has a solution – learn.

One way to challenge a bad mindset is to check for proof around the world. If someone is growing their business in a bad economy, in this tough market, with these customers, in a price sensitive market, then you too can learn to do it. What you are doing currently isn’t working but you are stuck in this way of working because you are blaming everyone else for what’s happening with you.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, just for a discussion, for the next 10 minutes, if you were 100% Responsible for your business not doing as well as you want. If you were responsible, meaning if you had the remote control. Meaning if you could take some meaningful actions and change the fate of your business even in these circumstances. What actions could you take?

Here is an small exercise: