The Struggle is where greatness comes from — Lionesses of Africa

by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department

We have been reading far too much bad news from the global economy recently. So in an attempt to lighten our load, we reached deep into our collection of reading material thinking there must be something brighter. Sadly it seemed as if fate was working against us as nothing light and entertaining appeared, rather an article by the legendary investor and co-founder of the massive tech investing firm ‘a16z’ Ben Horowitz appeared. This was guaranteed to be serious stuff from a business guru who never lets a fear of telling it straight get in the way of any positive mood he might have at the time – so much for our wish for a bit of light reading! He is the author of one of our favourite business books – ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’ (here) which is described as follows: “There are lots of people talking about how great it is to start a business, but only Ben Horowitz is brutally honest about how hard it is to run one.” Note the ‘brutally honest’ – you have been warned!

Having recently mentioned in one of our articles (here) the Chinese book ‘I Ching’ which as George Harrison (he of the Beetles fame) put it, is “…based on the Eastern concept that everything is relative to everything else, as opposed to the Western view that things are merely coincidental.”, we decided to crack on with Ben’s article, no matter the pain such truths from the great VC and PE investor might bring…

The article was entitled “The Struggle”, yes, not a good start! The Struggle is all about what entrepreneurs feel when things start to go wrong (and in spite of all the positive management books out there – things do and will go wrong!). Wrong things such as product problems…supply chain failures…great employees who quit…Cash Flow issues…customers saying they will pay (yet never do)…and so on. With your head in your hands, there seems to be a never ending flow of bad news that builds and builds. Oh, and then there are external factors such as Covid and out of the blue, a war starts impacting oil, gas and food/fertilizer prices and kicks hard the already battered global supply chain system. Can it get any worse you ask yourself, as you watch the US dollar shoot higher and higher?…

This is when Ben’s free verse poem (as we believe it to be) called ‘The Struggle’ hits home. Take a moment to read it here and there will not be many entrepreneurs who have not felt the cold chill as seen from the opening lines:

“The Struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place.

The Struggle is when people ask you why you don’t quit and you don’t know the answer.

The Struggle is when your employees think you are lying and you think they may be right.

The Struggle is when food loses its taste…”

Ben adds that “When you are in the middle of the Struggle, nothing is easy and nothing feels right. You have dropped into the abyss and you may never get out. In my own experience, but for some unexpected luck and help, I would have been lost.”

“…unexpected luck and help”.

If you do find yourself in this difficult position, although there is never one thing that ever makes the difference between success and failure in business, those two – ‘luck and help’ are often mentioned by so many as they pull themselves back from the brink. ‘Luck’ of course is such a fickle friend, there is no way of controlling that other than trying to move the odds in your favour through practice (as Gary Player, the famous South African golfer, is alleged to have said – “The harder I practice, the luckier I get!”), hard work and actually turning up each day (the one way to guarantee you never win the lottery is obviously not to buy a ticket!). Our previous article on Luck is here.

‘Help’ is, however, something a little more tangible. Build that team, lean on your communities as we wrote earlier this month (here) and help yourself by rediscovering your focus. Look to where you can concentrate your energy, – the best way to help yourself stop running around like a headless chicken.

In a recent article by McKinsey (the management consultancy firm) they emphasize the following areas to focus on when going for growth – we have pruned this down to those that help regain focus during difficult times (here):

“Put competitive advantage first.” – Where do you have that advantage? Where are your products the market leaders? Think hard and then push here.

“Make the trend your friend.” – Do you have any really profitable products and fast growing markets? – push hard there. Don’t go throwing good money after bad. If there is an area or product that is struggling, look at why and perhaps pull back precious cash there to push it into areas/products where you are finding growth. Much like in the US NBA, when a player is ‘hot’ and shooting baskets from crazy positions, give her the ball!

“Don’t be a laggard.” Never be happy to just relax and ‘go with the flow’. While you are doing that your competition will be looking for areas to grow and leave you behind.

“Turbocharge your core.” What is your core industry or product area? – focus!

“Be a local hero.” Never forget your home base, they are your community and seriously – who are Lionesses without a community?!

“It’s OK to shrink to grow.” Don’t worry about taking a step back, from there you can build in safety and then take two steps forward.

Truly Involve Your Team. According to Ben some of the world’s greatest companies have become great and stayed great because everyone thought they owned a part of it. Employees worked as if they were actual shareholders. This start up phase where everyone believes in your dream and all pull in the same direction – the longer you can hang onto that feeling of togetherness, pulling in the same direction, to build the same dream, the better for your company – and certainly the better you will weather downturns and fierce headwinds.

This is where your leadership truly shows itself. Throughout all you have to pay attention to what matters most. Be Vigilant!

As the fascinating article ‘Vigilant Leaders: Paying Attention to What Matters Most’ – from ‘Knowledge at Wharton’ (‘KaW’) states (here):

“In vigilant companies, leadership attention is leveraged for greater agility and advantage, whereas in vulnerable companies, misdirected attention creates blind spots, myopia, and delayed reactions.”

So how can we ensure we are a ‘vigilant’ company?

Firstly, there is far too much information out there creating this ‘misdirected attention’. Daily we are bombarded with utter rubbish on social media and thousands of emails that within their fog (and polarization) hide essential information that could assist and alert us. What KaW suggest is that you create a team (we suggest simply encourage your employees) to “…voice hunches, concerns, doubts, or intuitions that would otherwise remain dormant”, you can then work with your management team to remove the chaff from the grain, to take seriously that which you believe to either be a threat or even an opportunity.

“Learn from the past, interrogate the present, and anticipate the future.”

KaW say you should learn from your past, by looking at past successes – why were these a success? Then using that information look to others in your market or even other close markets who have been successful to see why. Those who have “…a consistent record of seeing sooner and acting faster.”

“What is their secret?”

For the present we not only have to have our eagle eyes on social media in all its forms – having cleared the chaff of course, but also pay attention when seeing or delivering to our customers, so – who else is delivering, perhaps we can ask to see around their premises – certainly into their warehouse as we chat. Were they previously good payers, yet now there is always an excuse for the cheque/cash/payment not being ready…

There are warning signs all around – we just have to find them.

For the future, ask the questions of your team – what could really hurt us? What surprises could knock us to the floor? We would suggest that most of what we have seen over the past two years are surprises that none of us could have foreseen (‘Black Swans’), a massive pandemic, a European War, supply chains almost collapsing – and yet Climate Change is still with us (as tragically Pakistan is currently seeing), and has become almost part of the fog as countries rush to cover gas price increases.

As Melanie wrote recently in one of her GML Blogs (here): “If ever there was a truism in business, and in life too, it’s that things don’t always go as planned. It doesn’t matter how much we think we are in control, or how much research we have done for our business plans and strategies, sometimes a set of circumstances makes us rethink.”

Think through where you have been, where you are and where you want to be, then make sure as much as possible that boulders and rocks ahead in the river are well mapped. As Melanie in her blog points out this particular Lioness she was talking to saw the boulders and rocks ahead in the fast flowing river she was on and stepping back from her international drive “…refocused her attention on enhancing domestic business opportunities first, and only certain global markets second.”

Of course this is not easy. Of course the World (and increasingly Mother Nature) throws curve balls at us. Of course it is often a struggle. But with help in the right places and luck on our side (from helping ourselves and from mapping as many potential boulders ahead as we can), from not expecting ourselves to carry the entire load, from leaning on our Team and our community of Lionesses, from being happy to step back and rethink, we can get through this.

Ben closes his free verse poem by saying:

“The Struggle is not failure, but it causes failure. Especially if you are weak. Always if you are weak.

Most people are not strong enough.

Every great entrepreneur from Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg went through The Struggle and struggle they did, so you are not alone.

But that does not mean that you will make it. You may not make it.

That is why it is The Struggle.

The Struggle is where greatness comes from.

Stay safe.