02/ 01/ 2005
by Rex Hammock
Our readers have told us that “international business” is not among your top priorities. Yet as we delve more into the topics you tell us are important—growth, finding new markets, lowering costs—our writers keep bumping into small-business owners who have chosen to place international business at the top of their priority lists. In this issue, we profile some of these small-business owners who have decided to make the world their oyster.
In most instances, they too were reluctant to venture into new and unfamiliar cultures. But opportunity knocked, and they opened the door. Now they’re helping us see what’s on the other side of that door: what they believe is a world of opportunity.
Another story in this issue also came from observing recurring traits of certain innovative and successful small businesses. In addition to providing great products and services, they’re practicing a new style of management, one they believe is more suited for today’s workplace. While their approach is radically different from the top-down hierarchy of many large companies, it is a collegial, trust-based style of teamwork that often comes naturally in a small-business setting.
However, rather than merely pay lip service to “teamwork,” these small-business owners are not only rewriting the book on employee rules and procedures, some have formally thrown out the book. At some of these businesses, mutual trust, respect and a remarkable degree of financial and operational transparency have replaced formal manuals for employee policies and business procedures.
Like taking one’s business into new international markets, these approaches aren’t right for everyone. But like almost all of the small businesses we feature in this issue, there’s a lot to learn from those heading in new and different directions.
