How to Unearth the Hidden Potential in Your Business

Converting limitations and disadvantages in to opportunities ends in incredible outcomes at every step in the operation of a business and of its performance outlook. Decisions are made and actions are taken based on the hard reality of the business not obscured by tomorrow's challenges or the lure of the urgencies of the present.

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity". Albert Einstein's statement is an exceptionally noble approach, and exemplifies that business potential may indeed lie in its threats and weaknesses. For the business to prosper and grow entrepreneurs must recognize that irrespective of how successful they become they will still be far below their optimum potential, and must therefore meticulously find and exploit their enterprise's true potential. This requires a shift in paradigm thinking and a congruent alter in the entrepreneur' attitude towards the dangers and weaknesses of their business.

While not every business has a hidden potential and can create limitations and restraints in to opportunities, businesses that have no potential or fail to search for their potential cannot grow or survive. So, how are you able to unearth the hidden potential in your business and create its opportunities?

You start by asking yourself questions like:

Most entrepreneurs are fully aware of the restraints, vulnerabilities, and limitations of their businesses but seldom ask questions. They are likely to think that nothing can be done to alter their circumstances. They fail to recognize that to convert restraint in to opportunity requires innovation with flexibility and variety to exploit the new possibility by investing in its development.

What you are fearful of, what do you see as a danger to your business, and how are you able to make use of it as a chance?
What are the restraints and weakness that contribute to the vulnerability of your business, delay its full effectiveness, and hold down its tendency for profitable results?
What are the inconsistencies in your business?

They historicallyin the past identify areas of inconsistencies and imbalance with excessively massive productive resources incapable of producing sufficient outcomes, within the business in the promotion and research & development areas. The cure in these areas is determined by cautious analysis followed by radical redefinition of the business in its entirety or integration in to new services or products with adequate utilization of the resources and efforts needed.

While inconsistencies are a lifestyle for growing businesses, chronic imbalances can drain the business of its productive resources way beyond any results they can produce. If the imbalance in resource allocations is in support activities or control measures, the treatment is to cut out whatever causes the imbalance. Concurrently, identifying the area with excessively massive productive hard work often indicates a major unused potential and requires major changes in the nature and structure of that area of the business.

More serious cases of imbalance they encounter are companies that are the wrong size- usually small- for the market they are serving or for the management they need. For these cases a unified business review and performance program that converts the disparity between the business size and the management it requires by scaling the management down to the size appropriate to the needs of the business.
Needless to say, that unearthing and attaining the potential of a business is psychologically taxing on all concerned and requires great hard work from the various aspects of the business and its management.

Therefore the role of an outside coach or consultant is supremely important in the soul searching technique of the organization and in the unearthing of its hidden treasures that are disguised as imbalances in the type of a weaknesses or a threats.

Entrepreneurs need to work systematically on maximizing opportunities by looking within not without! And by asking questions like; Where are the imbalances in our business, and what are the opportunities for the greatest economic outcomes? They can start to maximize opportunities by focusing the obtainable resources on the most beautiful possibilities and devoting them to obtaining the greatest feasible results. This followed by successful business planning based on exploiting imbalances and maximizing its prospects by uncovering its potential and developing actual opportunities that can increase the tendency of the business for survival and growth.