At the DCBKK conference a couple of weeks ago, they closed out with a speaker that talked about turning around a SaaS company that was on the verge of bankruptcy. They were hired in as a CEO after seven other CEO’s had failed to fix things and were able to get everything back on track in a couple of years.
What struck me about the speech was that it was mostly about fundamentals:
- Planning
- Financial forecasting
- Operational alignment
- Management
These are things that we all think we know pretty well.
But the speaker focused on deeper levels of these fundamentals:
- Detailed plans with three scenario cases for each stage of objective
- Pro forma business cases in forecasting
- Operational alignment using OKR’s, EOS, and financial metrics
- Managing like an investor rather than an operator
One of my working theories is that excellence isn’t found in the esoteric and new, but rather it’s discovered at a deeper level of the familiar.
If you were to evaluate the fundamentals of your business, what categories would be under developed?
Featured images is Philosophia et septem artes liberales, the seven liberal arts. From the Hortus deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg (12th century). The seven liberal arts established in ancient Greece were: astronomy, math, geometry, music, rhetoric, grammar, and logic. Used under public domain.