Recently I had lunch with the President of a successful, growing business. However, his owner-shareholders are anxious to sell, despite his success – possibly to get their best price – and there is already a serious bidder in the picture. He has done a good job and should do what he can to leverage that situation.
I familiarized him with the option solving approach, which brought him to develop the following rational question: “What is my best leadership option regarding our company; considering that current owners are determined to sell, we only have one serious bidder so far, desire to leverage an equity position, and time is running out?” Although there were other considerations these were the key ones that came to his mind.
Now his question was in place, I encouraged him to formulate least likely Yin and Yang “bookends,” which would provide a solid framework for his issue and help stimulate the most plausible options. These “bookends” came out as follows: “Just keep working current growth strategy,” at one end, with, “Come up with own equity funding for a bid” at the other. If you can now look at our Latest Example, you will appreciate why these two were least likely options.
I encouraged him to now come up with at least five plausible options so there’s a good range of options for his enormous intuitive capabilities to consider. It would also challenge his creative thinking to produce possibilities that may never have occurred to him without the use of option solving. One of the options he produced was: “Go seek other partners for a personal bid (or share of equity) “… which was Option C. You’ll see this in our Latest Example. Which one would you consider in the circumstances?
However, he stalled at four options, so I had to allow him time to think of another interesting option. He was back in a short while, but we’ll let you contemplate his fifth option over the next two weeks and then also “Peel the Onion” to consider deeper possibilities.
If you have an issue example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area.
Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Complete my five best leadership options regarding myself and our company?” We’re always interested in your COMMENTS or go to peter@ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)
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