Characteristics of Successful Small Businesses
Fortune magazine has a sibling devoted to small business issues called Fortune Small Business. They post short articles online at www.fortune.com that are often worth a quick read when you are surfing the net.
One of the recent issues included some observations by Azriela Jaffe, who is one of their regular contributors, about successful small businesses. I thought her observations were pertinent to P&O practices since they are overwhelmingly small or very small businesses worldwide:
- Nimble, small companies respond quickly to changing conditions
- Happy employees feel a sense of ownership
- Praise motivates only when the pay is good enough
- Many small businesses are started by people who want more control over their lives
- Small businesses know they can't be everything to everyone, so they focus on doing a few things exceptionally well.
- Big isn't necessarily better.