A while ago now I spent 5 years of my life building another business.  At the time I left it was by most measures very successful and had demonstrated fantastic growth in what was a tough market.   My problem was that it could have been and should have been twice the size and had it not been for a partner with mad cows disease (not literally) – it certainly would have been.  Most of us that have started businesses at some stage go through the bad partner issues and once you have done that once you are extra careful about the next venture you take on.   Thankfully I was much smarter and much more careful in my choice of partners this time.   

As much as a complete disaster the end of that business became, I ended up being thankful for learning many lessons (perhaps the hard way) in how NOT to run a business.  Seriously - you can always find a positive even in something that appears on the surface to you as an unmitigated disaster.    When I sat down afterwards to evaluate where I was at - I could barely count the lessons I had learnt over the 5 years on what NOT to do.  Even though we like to think that intuitively we would never make a certain mistake – nothing drives that lesson home better than to see it played out in front of you, before your very eyes.  A bit like having an ulcer in your mouth that you can’t help but keep poking with your tongue.

I learnt the type of person you should never have as a partner.  I learnt a bunch of lessons in how not to manage staff, I learnt how not to deal with suppliers and I also learnt exactly how not to treat customers.  

I reckon the best lesson I learnt was that 'any opportunity you have to increase your self- awareness should be embraced'.    As a CEO you cannot be all things to all people, you cannot know everything.  Any attempt to pretend that you do will be exposed and your credibility should be questioned.  If you attempt to try and fool people that you are all knowing and all seeing you will undoubtedly strangle the growth of your company - and you end up looking very stupid. 

A small example of this was watching my former ‘mad cow’ partner wreck weeks of work on a tender by up- setting the customer at the 11th hour (as much as we tried to keep him out) and then refusing a ‘lost bid review’ after we got the news that we had been unsuccessful. 

I reckon it’s very important to understand your weaknesses, hire people much better than you and then MOST importantly listen to them.  Never refuse an opportunity to raise you  level of self awareness.