Tag: Recruitment

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Simplifying your business focus is a necessary and effective approach to easing cognitive burnout and re-energising yourself and your business.

---

As business leaders we face constant decisions, information, and pressures, leaving many exhausted and disillusioned. While it might seem like an inevitable part of business, this mental drain has a specific cause. George Parsons’ research into cognitive overload tells us that our brains can only juggle so much at once. When flooded with demands, we slip into a “freeze, fight, flight, or fawn” state, similar to how the body reacts under threat. If left unchecked, this cycle of overload and avoidance can paralyse decision-making.

To remain effective, regain control and break the burnout cycle, we need to simplify our business focus.

Understanding cognitive overload and the cost of ‘doing everything’

Running a business has become a lot more complex as a result of Brexit, COVID, skills crises, the cost of living, collapsing infrastructure, and morphing tax, climate, and employment legislation in a moribund economy. This load is compounded by the 24/7/365 information cycle—endless streams of news, events, and opinions accessible around the clock via digital channels. Each input demands attention, shifting focus and energy from meaningful decisions to constant reactions.

When constantly overwhelmed, our brains struggle to manage it all, slipping into cognitive overload. George Parsons’ research on memory says that our brains handle around 7 (give or take 2) pieces of information at a time, and operating beyond this causes lapses, errors, and mental strain. The freezing, fighting, fleeing, or fawning, behaviour often seen in business decisions. The result? Fatigue, hesitation, and even avoidance in making choices.

Instead of stretching to meet every demand, the answer may lie in slimming down: identifying who you serve best, what problems you solve, and aligning your business around that specific purpose.

Simplifying through purpose: Shift from selling to solving

If you’re feeling drained, it may be time to refocus on a core purpose—moving from merely selling products and services to solving tangible problems for a defined customer group. Rather than trying to attract everyone, determine your addressable market, not just anyone who could buy your product but those who genuinely benefit from your solution. By narrowing down your focus to a specific problem or set of problems, you simplify decisions, define clear objectives, and build credibility in one area.

Redefining your purpose lets you gain clarity on the customer experience and understand exactly what drives your target buyer. This clarity lets you streamline your lead generation, conversion, fulfilment, and retention processes. When you specialise in solving a defined problem, every part of the customer journey, from initial interest to loyal repeat customers, becomes clear and refined. As a result, cognitive load reduces, and your expertise grows, allowing you to deliver a solution repeatedly, efficiently, and with greater impact.

Next, delegate to build expertise. Reducing cognitive overload requires offloading tasks to others where possible. As you narrow your focus, empower your team to manage parts of the process. Delegation isn’t about giving up control but establishing a trusted system for repeated success.

And try to limit information overload, limit digital inputs to specific times each day. By creating boundaries around digital consumption, you avoid reacting to each update and focus on meaningful decisions.

Purposeful simplification as a path to lasting resilience

You create a structure that combats cognitive overload by aligning your business with a focused purpose and a clear audience. Instead of juggling every demand, you work intentionally, focusing on high-impact decisions that drive meaningful growth. This refined approach allows your brain to engage in deeper, strategic thinking, building resilience to handle future challenges.

George Parsons’ insights remind us that success isn’t just about doing more but about simplifying effectively to do better. Cognitive resilience comes from managing mental resources wisely, avoiding burnout, and creating a focused environment that builds expertise, confidence, and strength. By slimming down, business owners can regain control and clarity and, ultimately, a path to more sustainable and energised growth.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Think of the economy like a sandwich, with the mid-tier businesses making up the meaty centre.

---

The highest nutritional value of a meat sandwich is the meat. Its high protein and minerals outweigh the high-carb content of its neighbours.

Most economies are like meat sandwiches. The UK’s economy is a sizable one, with 5.59 million businesses employing 27 million people and generating a hefty £ 4.5 trillion annual revenue.

The bottom slice of bread makes up the largest segment of business: the 5.3m sole proprietors and micro-enterprises who employ, on average, 1.6 people each. In effect, these businesses are self-created “jobs” for their owners. They also make up a significant voting population. Let’s make a tentative assumption that most of these entrepreneurs have a partner with everything to gain and lose from their economy. That means the voting power of this segment approaches a meaningful 10.6m ballot wins. Keeping them happy is a vital priority of any adept politician with eyes on Downing Street.

The top side of the sandwich sees dramatically smaller 8,000-odd companies that carry significant punch in their employment and tax contributions. With their extensive boards, NEDs, advisors, investors, c-suite executives, and deep establishment, sometimes centuries old, they carry weight in the corridors of Whitehall and feed a thriving public relations and media industry. A ‘lobbying’ budget to access the biggest customer in the land is not uncommon, nor is the understanding that your government representative today will likely be your board member tomorrow as the revolving door of politics and business swivel on the axis of shared interest.

The middle of this sandwich makes up the remaining 246,000 companies that carry the unfortunate moniker SME. Mostly privately held by growth-minded, self-funded entrepreneurs, they employ an average of 58.5 people. They don’t have the numbers to impact voting significantly, nor the budgets to invest in lobbying the government for access to opportunities or to influence policy. They also are considered by many to be “doing just fine”, implying that they are better off than the many who are not and, therefore, no resources or support should be directed their way. Yet society should pay closer attention to them.

Building a business that matures from micro to established and growing requires a growth mindset. That mindset sees the business owner continuously investing their money and time, committing to the 50 to 80-hour week commonly needed to fill the multiple roles their business demands, making them some of the most committed investors in our country. Their limited access to funding also increases their investment horizon. Building a business into a wealth-generating asset typically requires a 20 to 30-year investment horizon. It takes time and money to anchor the business within its locations, communities, suppliers, customers and employees. SMEs also face high levels of competition, given the maturity of our economy and the vested interests in this segment. Competition drives innovation, which attracts talent and funding. Focusing on SMEs across the UK is vital to levelling up and creating a fairer, more inclusive economy, which is the cornerstone of sustaining a democracy.

As an aside, my objection to SME as a descriptor of this segment is manifold. I’ve yet to meet a business owner who is joyously risking everything they have, griding out 80-hour weeks, contending with the relentless challenges posed by suppliers, customers, employees and increasingly government red tape with the intent of building a ‘small’ business. Reducing the dreams and ambitions of front-footed entrepreneurs is offensive and condescending. Governments and corporations that refer to this segment ought to think about changing their language to change their behaviour and find resonance and relevance to this segment, whether they be clients or a voting segment of society.

Building, amplifying and accelerating the nutritional value of the meat in the sandwich to deliver these outcomes is critical to unlocking a thriving economy that puts Britain back in a leading position in the global economy. Let’s back these businesses with fervour and enlightened self-interest.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Like a health-check for humans, a business health check aligns you and your team to drive towards a common destination.

---

Achieving industry leadership is not trivial in the business world. Yet, when asked about their future ambitions, many state they want to be ‘a leading business in the industry’ or ‘the industry leader in XYZ’. Given this propensity and to not trivialise this achievement, let’s dig into what it truly means to be a leader in your industry and outline practical steps to move from a vague vision statement to a measurable and achievable business objective.

What does it mean to be a leading business?

When pressed to explain what “leading” means, business owners often struggle to provide a clear definition. Without a precise and measurable definition of leadership, this goal can become an empty claim, communicating that your commitment to growth is thoughtless and relies on hope and prayer rather than a clearly defined intent and action plan.

The importance of clarity

A business must define leadership in its specific context to become a true industry leader. Is it about market share? If so, who constitutes the market? For example, if you manufacture luxury furniture, you need to break down what “luxury furniture” includes. Is it dining room tables, sofas, chairs, or lounges? Understanding your market and product specifics is crucial.

Setting realistic and measurable goals

Let’s say your focus is on luxury dining room tables. The first step is determining how many such tables are bought annually in your target market. If you identify that 500,000 dining room tables are sold each year in your defined geographic region, you then need to ascertain how many of these qualify as high-quality luxury items. Suppose 5,000 of these meet the high-quality standard. This gives you a tangible target to aim for.

Understanding market share

You must know your competitors and their market shares to claim industry leadership. If you have ten competitors and the market is evenly split, each would sell about 500 tables annually. If your goal is to be the leading supplier, you must sell more than 500 tables annually. By consistently increasing your sales figures—say from 500 to 600 to 1,000 to 1,500—you can objectively measure your progress towards market leadership.

Enhancing business operations

Achieving and maintaining a leading position requires continuous improvement in various aspects of your business. This includes enhancing your products’ quality, price, service, delivery, durability, and brand reputation. By systematically improving these areas, you can increase your market share and solidify your status as an industry leader.

Claiming to be the leading business in your industry is more than just a statement—it requires a clear, measurable, and achievable plan. By defining what leadership means in your specific context, understanding your market, setting realistic goals, and continually improving your business operations, you can become a true leader in your industry.

I give a quick overview of this idea in a 2m 23s video.

In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Like a health-check for humans, a business health check aligns you and your team to drive towards a common destination.

---

In the face of uncertainty, the key to maintaining sanity and effectiveness as well as securing a meaningful return on your time and attention is to anchor on something within your control; that is measurable, and communicable. But what should this anchor be?

As a business owner and leader, you are a servant to your business. Serving it means catering to what it needs to thrive. Consider this: when you go for a medical check-up, after a few prods, plugs, needles, and readings, a physician qualifies you as healthy. A health check-up assesses overall health, identifies potential issues early, and allows for discussion of health concerns with a doctor.

This comprehensive assessment includes a review of personal and family medical history, lifestyle, and symptoms to identify risk factors; a physical examination checking vital signs and various body parts; blood tests to measure important biomarkers; recommended screening tests based on age, sex, and risk factors; and imaging tests if needed. The check-up concludes with lifestyle and wellness counselling on diet, exercise, and other health factors.

To conduct a health check on your business, you need an ideal “state of health” measure – something simple, accessible, and clean that considers the holistic well-being of the business. For instance, having a good heart rate but a poor liver does not equate to good health.

Company valuation is a comprehensive health check for your business. It considers the business and its context and is driven by five primary levers:

Positioning

What makes your business stand out in a competitive, noisy industry?

System of delivery 

How do you find new customers, engage them, onboard them, fulfil your promises, and retain them using business systems, processes, and activities?

Purposeful team

How do you get the right people to do the right thing at the right time?

Growth 

How do you grow revenue, profit, and profitability?

Value

How do you navigate your business and direct your team toward a clearly defined destination using your positioning as a blueprint to design and institute your system of delivery to guide and empower your team’s performance that generates growth?

These levers span your entire business and industry. They are all equally measurable, making your company valuation the most comprehensive yet straightforward health indicator.

How you communicate this idea to your team is crucial. Revenues are driven by the quantity and value of products and services you sell and deliver. Connecting the quantity of products or services to your company valuation offers a more accessible and inclusive understanding of your company’s health check. Instead of using a £50 million company valuation as a destination, use the language of the business that everyone understands – make 500 cars, deliver 150 projects, or sell 3,000 subscriptions in the year of measure.

This inclusive language gets everyone on board and helps them understand where you are heading. Next, confirm why it matters. If your business purpose is well-defined and your business’s impact on the lives of customers, suppliers, the environment, and society is clear, doing more becomes almost a responsibility.

Finally, relate it to “what’s in it for me” for your team. A growing business secures work, employment, and advancement for those willing to earn it. Everybody wins.

Be bold. Be brave. Pick a sizeable number. Set a timeline. Lead.