When I was a senior at Princeton in the Spring of 1988, I completed the grueling process of proving my Senior Thesis. I had researched big restaurant chains that had both company-owned stores as well as franchised stores. My thesis – which I was able to prove – was that the franchise stores outperformed those that were owned by the company.
Why? For one simple reason: because franchisees have more on the line… and therefore just think and act like business owners.
Think for a moment about the implications of this to big organizations. The world’s most-admired companies decentralize their business operations. Top executives talk about pushing decision making down into the organization. (Have you seen that commercial for Enterprise car rentals, where employees proudly exclaim that they can take ownership to solve your problem?)
There’s a tension here. While companies celebrate innovation and intrapreneurship, (that is, the corporate version of entrepreneurship), they find that their leaders still fail to think like business owners.
And no, incentives have not been effective at resolving this shortcoming.
So why don’t leaders at these high-performing companies act as business owners? After dedicating the last twenty-four years to training and developing the work forces of some of the world’s highest valued companies, I’ve come to a conclusion that is startlingly simple: they don’t know how.
At Blueline Simulations, we have a lot of experience in addressing that experience gap. The solution is more than simply teaching business finance and strategy; and it goes beyond incentives. The more impactful solution is for leaders to experience what it is like to be a business owner. They need to see how their role impacts the top and bottom lines. Easier said than done, right?
We have dedicated much of the last decade to identifying “best of breed” solutions to this challenge. We offer a broad range of business simulations that put leaders at all levels in the role of the business owner, and as a result show them how to think and act like a business owner.
Our solution matrix will help you determine which of our solutions is the best fit for your unique organizational challenges.
There has never been a more critical time to maximize business results. And there has never been a better time to help all of your leaders to succeed by thinking and acting like business owners.
Take the first step by downloading this simple matrix that provides you a side-by-side comparison of Blueline’s Business Finance & Strategy Programs today.
Then call us 813.269.7467 to explore how to equip your leaders to act like key stakeholders in your organization.