One bite at a time
How you eat an elephant and grow your business
By Michael Feuer
October 2007
What do eating an elephant and building
a business have in common? You eat
an elephant and build a business the same way one bite at a time.
Executives and leaders with common sense
and the awareness of their own vulnerability
have all had that sinking feeling in the pit of
their stomach when the size and scope of a
pending project or major undertaking suddenly become overwhelming. Be it starting with a
blank piece of paper to create a plan for a new
business or revitalizing a tired product line, the
reality can run chills down the back of the most
seasoned and stoic chieftains.
To get started with one of the bigger meals of
your career, first, you need to have the idea and
conjure up a big picture of what has to be done.
As in photography, when you pull back to get
the entire subject in the frame, it always looks
bigger and more daunting than it really is.
However, once you get the picture in focus
and zoom in on the subject, you start to
crystallize the individual pieces and parts
but not the entire, if you will, elephant. A
close-up of each cross section or smaller
piece launches the building process.
You always begin by including all the
bells and whistles. From there, you rationalize the project not only economically, but
also in terms of the time and resources
needed to get the job done. However, before you put pencil to paper, this question
must be answered: When the new initiative is
up and running, will it produce as promised,
satisfying the return on investment criterion,
and will it serve the end-users by offering something special that they will want and need?
Simple enough, but what do you do once you
have the big picture, know the returns and have
satisfied yourself that it is worth the pain and
strain to complete the effort?
The next step is where our “one bite at a
time” proverb really comes into play. If you pull
back and look only at the big picture, you are
likely to be so riddled with second thoughts,
and possibly overcome with fear of failure, that
you will put this well-conceived effort on the
back burner or, worse yet, scuttle it altogether.
The trick is what piece to start on first.
Initially, logic would suggest starting at the bottom with the foundation and then building up,
step by step. It makes sense, but sometimes
taking the traditional route is not the most efficient, nor the most effective.
Creating is not always a linear process. Many
times, you can start eating that elephant simultaneously from the top, bottom and middle with different teams focusing on various tasks.
Many movies are shot out of sequence, meaning that it is not unusual to film the end or middle of a movie before the opening scenes. That
same strategy can apply to building a business.
It just may be more economical to begin with
the middle or end parts for a variety of good
reasons, such as the immediate availability of
specialized resources or materials.
Here’s an example. In opening stores, there
are teams assigned specific aspects of the project, such as designing the building, laying out
the interior, buying the merchandise, creating
the grand opening ad campaign, etc. with
each team doing its own thing concurrently.
In the final stages, it takes only a few days or
weeks for the fixtures, merchandising and marketing dots to be connected. When they are, the
doors are unlocked and management prays
that since it was built, customers will come.
It’s mandatory that you decide upfront who is
responsible for what. Make sure everyone involved has seen the picture of the entire elephant and understands what it is supposed to
look like at the end.
Include all of the objectives, the financials
and other parameters. To be sure no one goes
off the reservation, set up checks and balances
by having constant communication with predetermined checkpoints and formally scheduled all-hands meetings.
Don’t have any illusions. While eating your
elephant, I guarantee you’ll have some indigestion. No worries, though that’s why Rolaids
were invented.
And always keep in mind that if you’re in
charge, you are also the one who is responsible
for walking behind the elephant with the
broom and shovel. It’s just biological that with
animals and projects, there are always things
that need to be cleaned up and kept tidy.
Life is sometimes one big puzzle, and so is
creating a business or managing a process. At
that moment when all of the pieces fit together,
you’ll have that “Aha!” sensation of knowing
that your dream has become a reality. If you follow these steps, dessert will be sweet success.
MICHAEL FEUER co-founded OfficeMax in 1988 with a friend and partner.
Starting with one store during a 16-year span, Feuer, as CEO, grew the company to almost 1,000 stores worldwide, with annual sales approximating $5
billion before selling this retail giant for almost $1.5 billion in 2003 to Boise
Cascade Corp. Feuer immediately launched another start-up, Max-Ventures,
a retail/consumer products venture capital operating and consulting firm
headquartered in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. Feuer serves on a number of
corporate and philanthropic boards and is a frequent speaker on business,
marketing and building entrepreneurial enterprises. Reach him with comments at mfeuer@max-ventures.com.
