Identifying Wealth Creators
Human Factors International (www.hfi.com) has mentored many wealth creators over the years. One of the most striking was an individual who was a member of an exclusive Christian sect. He started his own business and after about two years was providing employment to about 100 members of this sect. He decided to leave the claustrophobia of the sect and overnight, his entire workforce deserted him. He left on Friday night with an intact business and returned on Monday morning to an empty factory. Only two people turned up for work.
He did not throw in the towel. As with all the wealth creators we have worked with, he saw this catastrophe as an opportunity, set about recruiting and had the business up and running again within a fortnight.
Resilience and tenacity are key characteristics of wealth creators. These are the people who have the self-belief and the ability to mould the world to suit themselves and to make a success out of a disaster. Wealth creators may start three or four businesses which do not succeed but they see each one as a chance to learn and a stepping stone to the next enterprise.
‘…if you are not prepared to sweat and sacrifice to get the boulder out of the little hollow and rolling, you’re unlikely to succeed.’ Will King – King of Shaves.
8 years after losing his workforce overnight and his herculean effort to rescue the company, our wealth creator sold it for £22 million – and started his next company.
Wealth creators are very rare but essential to the success of serious businesses. As Business Psychologists we have researched the qualities of wealth creators and can identify them through our psychological knowledge, skill and expertise.
Sylvia Tidy-Harris: ‘I just wish these tests had been around when I was 16… my studies proved a complete waste of time.’
Not all leaders are wealth creators. As a leader, you need to find out whether you have the characteristics of a wealth creator or whether you need the support of wealth creators to drive your business forward.
Wealth creators can come from anywhere in the organisation. They are not always among the most senior management. We worked with a large technically based company who were looking for their next CEO. We assessed the senior team and could find no-one with either the leadership or the wealth creator potential that they needed. But there was someone three levels down in the organisation – an up and coming, highly competent and ambitious, commercially focused architect. The executives could not accept that someone could leap frog over the usual succession path and refused to recognise his potential. He left after six months to set up his own business which within two years was a serious rival. With no wealth creator in the executive team the original business went into bankruptcy soon after.
Wealth creators are not always lone pioneers. Sometimes they need to work together to produce the winning team. A technically focused company had a technically minded CEO who needed support to find the strategic direction to drive the business forward. We were invited to coach someone who was seen as a real trouble maker lower down in the organisation. He was demanding, impatient, visionary and totally strategic. We persuaded the CEO to accept him as a strategic advisor – identifying and planning how to exploit market opportunities. The company went from strength to strength. From a value of around £200m at the time, it was sold four years later for over £500m. The CEO recognised the significant contribution of the strategic advisor.
In sum – some excellent leaders are not wealth creators and need the support of a wealth creator to drive the business growth. Wealth creators are not only rare but are not easy people to work with. They are often seen as trouble makers. Instead of letting them go, you should identify them, recognise their value and give them the support and resources to go on to win for you. Companies with a significant number of wealth creators flourish.