Means to an end--------
Starting and running an independant lifestyle enterprise can be an attractive proposition for those who wish to adopt a 'freeranging' lifestyle. As, though, in all business activity, there can be risks, not least of which is the fact that others are often involved in the form of 'customers', and to some extent , 'over' independent thinking can sometimes be capable of obstructing adequate understanding of customer needs, for instance. Often, lifestyle enterprises, quite rightly, have high 'heart' content, and here again, if overdone and not adequately balanced with 'head' input, can cause difficulties in the longer-term ( one way of coping with such a situation is to recognise the strong 'heart' component, and employ an empathetic consultant to provide the 'head' input, for instance). It can also be important to be able to make the decisions which are right for the business at that particular time, and which may not necessarily be the same as decisions for other businesses - to be able in fact to 'freerange' decision make.
The case-study earlier, for instance, raises an interesting question as to whether the commonly promoted business/enterprise objective area of ‘business expansion’ (‘growing the business’, as it tends to be called these days) should be a prime objective area at all. As the earlier case-study illustrates, there are times when business expansion may carry too high a risk and for some businesses, business rationalisation or even contraction may be the right move for the prevailing time and business situation, and the unique priority mix of objectives active then for that particular (unique) business/enterprise.
Making ‘business expansion’ an ‘automatic’ business/enterprise objective could lead a business into expansion at an inappropriate time, then leading, as in the case study, into longer-term on-going business difficulties. If the question ‘why is business/enterprise expansion sought?’ is asked:
is it to get more security? to get a better ‘survival’? to make more spending money? or to achieve more prestige?, for instance - then these become the actual objectives, the ends, and ‘expanding the business’ becomes one of several possible routes to achieving the end(s), a ‘means’ rather than an ‘end’.
Being only one of several possible routes then implies that a choice and a decision have to be made, so the various alternatives need to be appraised to identify the appropriate course of action for the prevailing circumstances. Such a way of business thinking then guards against any possibility of ‘automatically’ embarking on a 'wrong road', and re-emphasises the importance of ‘freerange’ type independent decision-making: making the right decision to suit that particular business/enterprise at that particular time, which may be then different than the decisions needed for other businesses/enterprises.
‘Running is of no use if on the wrong road ’ (German saying)
Others, in the business world are, of course, operating in their own interests, and to that end may seek to influence individuals’ business decisions and strategies. The case-study outlined earlier, though, clearly highlights how important it is for individuals or groups of individuals to be making decisions right and relevant to their own identified priorities and objectives, rather than adopt generalised and assumed strategies and objectives, even at times, advised strategies, which may not work for their situations or for them. They need, in fact, to be ‘business freerangers’ making the right decisions for themselves and their businesses/enterprises, even though these decisions at times might appear to be odd to others.
‘Live as if you’re going to die tomorrow, farm as if you’re going to live forever’ (farmer saying)
How long is the long-term, though? The survey of the important business objectives of farmers/rural enterprisers previously examined appeared to show that as they got older, and hence presumably more ‘sorted and settled’ their priorities focused more on the long-term, objectives such as caring for the countryside, rural community considerations and activities, the on-going well-being of their staff, passing the business onto future generations and the long-term health of the land all featuring more prominently, whereas the younger age group, presumably more involved in establishing themselves, tended to prioritise more on making profits and supplying adequate cash flow.
These rural ‘small’ businessmen could be said to be ‘freerangers’, in that their independent lifestyles, which various studies have identified as being important to them, lead them naturally to identifying and working towards their own multi-dimensioned priorities, which then change ‘naturally’ and dynamically over time, a somewhat more complex process than just, say, continual working towards a single-dimensioned objective such as ‘profit making’.
Less of a business, more of a ‘lifestyle enterprise’------?
Conventional business planning and recording could be somewhat limiting, in that it largely just covers a single dimension, that of finance. Most would probably agree that finances are indeed important, but a ‘freerange’ lifestyle business/enterprise take maybe that finances are important to the ‘survive and thrive’ level, after which them other possible return areas are likely to then feature.
Larger business maybe tends to be more restricted by the wants and needs of shareholders, and seemingly concentrated on the ‘norm’ cultural path of achieving maximum profits, a process which has lead to charges of over-focus on short-term results to the detriment of possible longer-term considerations, such as prudent longer-term conservation of resources.
The lifestyle smaller business/enterprise can be therefore generally somewhat less tied, and so can be used as the vehicle with which to deliver the satisfaction of a multi-dimensional range of people needs, ideally suited, then, to ‘freeranging’. It then follows that a multi-dimensional accounting/appraisal system is needed to be able to fully appraise lifestyle enterprises, one that is fuller even than those that have more recently been introduced for bigger business (which has introduced, for instance, environmental auditing). For instance, the ‘returns’ section for a ‘freeranger’ lifestyle enterprise might have to cover a variety of categories to cater for the required multi-dimensional approach, such as:
Financial performance (eg.s yearly profitability, capital growth, cash flow)
Environmental performance
Sustainability performance (longer-term prospects)
Security performance (risk)
Social performance (eg, level of social contribution)
Employee needs satisfaction performance
Personal performance – 1 (satisfaction of array of individual
needs)
Personal performance – 2 (depending on how many involved)
Such a multi-dimensional appraisal maybe unavoidable for freeranger-type lifestyle enterprises that are in themselves multi-dimensional; any more limited version would automatically fail to represent the fuller and truer picture. Businesses/enterprises seen as only moderate successes via a one-dimensional financial appraisal, may in practice and via a multi-dimensional freeranger style appraisal, be then considerably more of a fuller type of success.
Many of the smaller, family-owned farm businesses, for instance, now seemingly under some degree of threat from larger-scale ‘factory farming’ trends due to the prevailing and potentially dimensionally limited ‘economy of scale’ approach, have been multi-dimensional goaled outfits and could well be used as models for multi-dimensioned enterprises.
Might, in fact, these businesses have been ahead of their time, real freeranger enterprises? They could be the pathfinder businesses, busy innovating a successful long-term multi-dimensional business and life survival style - maybe they could show the way ahead?
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