The Impact of the Outside World on Business Executives
Suster argues that despite the need to listen to your clientele base (which is important), focusing too much on pleasing the outsiders will diminish your company’s progress in reaching a successful plateau. I agree with the author because CEOs need to focus on building their brand by listening to themselves and placing the majority of their focus towards ideas that will help the company succeed, because at the end of the day you’re the person who knows best what your company needs to improve upon. Entrepreneurs focus heavily on building up their perception from the public, which is essential, but that often comes with listening to the outside world, leading to distractions that pull away from your main objective. Listening to the public and your clients is by-all-means necessary, but you have to keep in mind that you’re in control and losing power to the public could negatively impact the growth of your company.
To put it another way, Mark Suster explains that the “modern world is filled with constant distractions,” so we need to “do less, but complete more by avoiding shiny objects and distractions that stop us from living up to our true potential.” It is important to think about this because most often, an entrepreneur’s time is very limited in the beginning stages of his/her career. This means CEOs need to prioritize shaping their brand for how they aspire their company to be perceived, before using their valuable time listening to others’ opinions. For instance, my father is an entrepreneur and his time was extremely limited, while he was first trying to build up his company. I learned vicariously through him that one of the most important aspects of building a company is creating a brand for yourself that separates you from other competitors and builds a healthy clientele base. He was successfully able to cater his products and services to his intended audience, which led to his company becoming prosperous and allowed him to gain more freedom as he continued. Then, being able to adopt these time management skills is crucial when you need to decide if you should get something done or relax, because it can have life-changing effects to your well-being. This is important to recognize because often your well-being is the first thing that affects your company’s success in all aspects. Start-ups will struggle to prosper when energy, effort, and time is put forth with too many abstract ideas that ultimately won’t help the company grow.
For example, my brother and I created a clothing brand and were essentially unsuccessful, due to our focus on the “shiny objects”. In other words, we continued to make new designs, instead of focusing on how we could better the ones we already had. Most of this was due to the fact that a small community in our surrounding area wanted shirts for different occasions, so we followed through with that, which in the end proved to be a lousy move. However, I was able to learn from that experience and use those ideals in the next venture that I was involved in. I began reselling sneakers, using the basis that I learned from the clothing business, and ultimately started to see success. Specifically, I wasn’t focused on selling “hype” sneakers that appeared much more valuable to the outside world looking in; instead, I put all my energy into making sure I was making profits that were worthwhile of my time. Changing to a strategy of such proved to be a tremendous move because I began to run a successful reselling business.
Conversely, some people may disagree with the fact that listening to the outer-circle of the business community directly correlates with that corporation’s prosperity. This may be true based on an individuals’ encounters; however, a CEO can only listen to the public for so long before it begins to make an impact. Mark Suster explains that “we all know executives who constantly talk a good game about vision and the things they’re going to do but actually never seem to deliver results.” This quote from Suster shows that oftentimes it can be difficult for business owners to find the balance between building their brand and pleasing the outsiders, so inaccurately talking up your company will eventually prove to be a mistake. This strategy can work from time to time, due to the power that executives hold over the general public. However, the ethical implications of this approach is that the public will begin to discredit you, which leads to your brand/reputation being tarnished, then resulting in a diminishing viewpoint from the community. Once executives are on this path of being dishonest to the public, it is challenging to get your community to buy back in.
Consequently, ethical implications typically lead to political disputes and problems. For example, in my experience I’ve seen many people become angry with top executives, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and a plethora of others. High profile executives such as those mentioned have an immense spotlight that’s constantly shining down on their every move, so they endure more struggles trying to find the balance between building your brand and pleasing the outsiders. In many cases, the public becomes upset due to the power of these CEOs in the community; however, what they don’t realize are the impacts of those CEOs’ actions often result in positive outcomes. For example, many top executives contribute to the economy and make large donations in a manner that is essentially impossible for others to do. Even though some of their reason for this approach could be to please the public eye, they have already established a prosperous company, so these actions almost always won’t affect the success of the business.
In conclusion, what made this relation between the business community and power possible was the willingness of founders to appear successful to the public eye and the need to feel respected. Even though these CEOs and their businesses provide great resources to the majority of people, we need to change the landscape of this relationship. I believe we could do this by giving business owners the opportunity to avoid the distractions that often lead to them wanting to be involved with the “shiny objects” of their industry. This would lead to more successful corporations, due to less public interference and now owners won’t feel the need to impress the community to their fullest. All in all, executives need to concentrate on creating/maintaining their brand, before they start listening to the outsiders’ ideas.
