Good to Great: How to Scale With an Outsourced CFO

In today’s world we all have access to learning material that helps us think about our businesses and what could make them more successful. Publications, news items, webinars, blogs and the like are all part of the resources available to us. At Altus, we are a strong advocates of continuous learning and such resources generally. For example, the books written by Jim Collins such as “Good to Great” spring to mind as something that helped shape our thinking some years ago.

Interestingly, the central themes promoted about business can often parallel into other walks of life – sport, personal relationships, and so forth. How aware are you of your own leadership traits and habits?

Sometimes we find it helpful to think about things that we should NOT do in order to focus on the task at hand and reinforce the behaviours that we all should be practising.

With that in mind, here is a list of some of our favourite “leadership don’ts”:

1. Don't meander – you can do that on holidays. Those that seem to move through the world aimlessly will certainly enjoy the view but never get to a destination. Set a goal, get clear about what that looks like and get there the best way possible.
2. Don’t procrastinate. Life and business is about making decisions, so get the boxes ticked off so that you don’t drive yourself and your associates completely mad.
3. Never give up. Never ever ever. Not everything will go to that plan you now have and those decisions just made.
4. Avoid doing everything yourself. People like to help – so find good help, be prepared to pay for it, and learn along the way.
5. Don’t be a statue – they never change and ultimately decay. It’s hard to do anything with a statue other than look at it, so keep moving, be nimble and adaptable.
6. Don’t be a spectator. It's all very well to surf the internet, stay up with the trends and observe the world. That’s great but the world is coming to you rather than you going to the world. Get out there and be a leader by influencing what happens in your life and others.

Jim Collins has a great quote that sums it all up ... “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”

At Altus we talk about all the things we need to do to be a great business and great advisers to our clients every day. You should be doing the same.