Business Thoughts, Rants and Observations

business life as a renovator (versus a builder)

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We could never design a building as beautiful as the trees.

Pietro Belluschi, Architect

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constraints maximize pragmatism & demands productive imagination to explore possibilities.

“Creatives need constraints like a good architect needs the laws of physics (and in particular, gravity). It’s by working within the constraints that, ultimately, we creatives test our limits and push ourselves to grow.”

@SJ_Murray

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So. This is a business post and not about architecture or home building or even Home Depot. This is about renovating businesses. Fixing business problems as in taking stagnant businesses and getting them on the move again.

All that said, I imagine this piece is about me. I have always seen myself as a fixer or let’s call it ‘a renovator’.

I have always been at my best when stepping in to manage a business where maybe things have become stagnant (sales, ideas, whatever). Maybe stepping in when someone well thought of, who has been in a position for a long period of time, has left and making them not missed as much as what everyone thought they would. Stepping in usually at a place and time where shaking the etch a sketch was needed (although it may not be liked/appreciated by all at the moment).

I enjoy taking existing pieces and rearranging them. Maybe what people have liked (or what has worked for me) is that I don’t like to throw everything out (mostly because I tend to believe there are people a lot smarter than me and one or two of them had probably thought about this situation before I came along) and I don’t really like – or think about – putting my own thumbprints on something.

I just like to reshape things a little so that maybe people think it’s bigger than it really is, maybe a little better than it was and pretty easy to do (implement) because it’s just not that new. That’s renovation – almost indiscernible change to improve.

I had a business associate tell me once, after I told him all of this, that there should be no reason why I shouldn’t be good at building because the thought process underpinnings were exactly the same. I agreed but noted this was more about mindset. I would suck as an entrepreneur. I just don’t have the head for it. I guess I just can’t cross that mental block that would make it possible for me create something from scratch. I am just not a Builder.

Interestingly. Pareto (an Italian sociologist) suggested there are two types of people: the Speculator and the Rentier.

The Speculator is constantly preoccupied with the possibilities of new combinations.

Rentiers are more conservers of the routine — stockholders he calls them.

While I am not sure I agree life is as simple as he suggests I do agree different people think different ways. And it is in my DNA to be “constantly preoccupied with possibilities of new combinations.” Now. That can make me a pain in the ass to work with. One time a mentor, and a manager I loved working for, once said to me, “sometimes you are a pain in the ass, but I am glad you are my pain in the ass.”

And if you visit my LinkedIn site you will see a past client says,

If you don’t want to be “nudged” into new ideas and creative solutions – don’t ever call Bruce McTague. If, however, you want to look at things through a different telescope and find 3-dimensional ideas you’ve never considered, call Bruce now. Not tomorrow. He’ll make you uncomfortable, but I firmly believe that if the idea doesn’t make you uneasy, it’s not a big idea. Easy to work with, but always stretching your mind, Bruce is a true business Partner. You’ll grow working with Bruce.

I guess we renovators (if we don’t want to be order takers) have to be a little contrarian at times.

And I don’t mean to be just to be one, but to actually put that contrarianism to work.

I do love putting new combinations of things together.

I do love taking something existing and breathing new life into it.

I do love taking something that maybe standing still and getting it to not only move … but start running (if not jogging at least) again.

And maybe that isn’t really being a contrarian. Maybe that is just what being a renovator is all about.

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June 23, 2019 by Bruce

Written by Bruce

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business life as a renovator (versus a builder)

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