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The current economic situation and the time of year may call into question the performance of business owners. Was it a good year? Was it a bad year? Why? How could it have been better? Why didn’t the objectives get achieved? What problems surfaced that the organization was unprepared for?

The list of questions is endless when it comes to playing the blame game. There is no shortage of targets, either, usually starting at the top and working their way down the organizational chart.

Unfortunately, it is the nature of those in charge to focus on what didn’t happen as opposed to what did.

That restless nature of being an owner is sometimes a blessing because it means perseverance, dedication and focus. But some years just surviving is a cause for celebration!

Not enough owners take time to celebrate their own successes or their own performance. It is assumed if revenue is up and profits are increasing, the leader is doing his or her job. But it isn’t just about money.

Maybe a good way to establish how things are really happening as an owner is to perform a self-assessment away from the day-to-day demands of the business. Da Vinci said: “Every now and then go away. To remain constantly at work will diminish your judgment. Go some distance away, because work will be in perspective and a lack of harmony is more readily seen.”

A January 2007 Harvard Business Review (www.HBR.com) article titled “What to Ask the Person in the Mirror” provides an excellent primer upon which every leader should reflect. Here are some questions from that article as well as some additional queries that should cause additional reflection on what the role and responsibilities of an owner should be.

n What is the vision of the organization?

n How can the vision be described in such a way that everyone in the organization can understand and repeat it when asked?

n How often do I, as the leader, communicate this vision for my business?

n What are my three to five key priorities to achieve the vision?

n Have I communicated these key priorities to achieve that vision throughout the organization?

n If asked, would my employees be able to articulate the vision and the priorities?

n Does the way I spend my time match my key priorities?

n Is how my direct reports spend their time matching the key priorities of the business?

n Am I, as the leader, coaching my direct reports and giving them challenging assignments?

n Have I, as the leader, become a bottleneck in decision-making for the company?

n If I, as the leader, had to design my business with a clean piece of paper, how would I design it?

n What types of events create pressure for me as the leader of this organization?

n When I, as the leader, am under pressure, what signals am I sending to my employees?

n Are the signals I send helpful or do they undermine the success of my business?

n Do I, as a leader, assert myself sufficiently or have I become more tentative since my last self-evaluation?

You’ll never have a better time to ask yourself these questions than right now.

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It’s been said that movies are created with at least one, and up to three, combinations of plots. Those plots involve: man versus man, man versus the environment and man versus himself.

I thought about those possible plot lines while I watched the movie “Jerry Maguire” recently. It occurred to me that almost all of Tom Cruise’s movies generally have all three plots, but the primary focus of his characters is coming to terms with themselves.

What was interesting about this particular movie is that Jerry finds himself troubled as an individual while employed as a leading sports agent in his company. He fears that the company has lost its way through a number of missteps. These include becoming too big to successfully handle the number of clients they represent, that the company will soon decline because it has lost its competitive edge and no longer has intimate relationships with the clients, something on which it has long prided itself.

Unlike other employees, who see that the company has grown, has all of the outward trappings of success and is financially successful (defined as everyone getting checks and bonuses), Jerry sees things differently. Jerry has second thoughts about what he is doing and how he is doing it.

If you remember how the movie starts, Jerry sees that the company needs to be refocused, so he writes a report in the middle of a sleepless night, crafting a mission statement for the firm, basically telling his fellow co-workers, “Let’s get back to the basics that made this firm successful.” For his effort he is terminated and one employee, played by Renee Zellweger, leaves with him to start a competing agency. She has read his missive and in a leap of faith, joins him.

Everything and everyone seems to conspire against him as he begins his new company. The big question is, can Jerry stay true to his mission statement and what he believes, despite losing his friends, his income and his fiancé?

There are a number of messages from this movie worth considering that can translate directly to the issues a business owner might be facing today.

The first is that it is perfectly fine to take a step back from the everyday hustle and bustle and say “Stop – are we doing what we should be doing or have we lost our way?”

This kind of activity needs to happen far more frequently than we think it should. I can’t tell you how many people I have spoken to are in absolute shock over the traumatic, life-altering events that have shaken to the core the financial well-being of this country.

It didn’t happen overnight, but rather it took place over a period of time because of something I will call “drift” which took people and organizations, both in the public and private sector, away from what they should have been doing.

Taking time to re-calibrate, re-look at the compass and reorient is not just critical, it is essential.

The second message is one of mission. Even with a mission, an organization can lose its way.

There is no better example of an organization that has lost its way than the Oakland Raiders football team. With a mission of “Commitment to Excellence” the organization had the highest winning percentage of all professional sports teams in the United States for decades. Nearly five years ago, they lost their way, no longer committed to excellence. What they are committed to these days is still not understood. They are adrift. Losing sight of the mission and not taking the time to reorient is one of the reasons for their dismal performance of late; there might be others.

But many more organizations have never developed a mission, which provides focus and direction to people and the organization. Having not just a sense of mission but an understanding of mission is so basic that I wonder how organizations and the people in them can possibly be successful without them. The answer is, they can be successful but not in the long term.

The third message is that of resilience. Not to be confused with drive or toughness, the concept of resilience is not about deflecting challenges, ducking and running from them. It is all about absorbing them and having the ability to rebound stronger than before.

Owners like to think that they can handle anything that comes their way; they often plan scenarios and prepare for the “if this, then that.” But Jerry’s termination came out of the blue, and these current tough times did, too.

Being resilient means running your business in such a manner that allows the owner to run their business and accept setbacks as they occur, move on and create new opportunities and face new challenges.

The most memorable line in the movie Jerry Maguire resounds to this day: “Show me the money!” But, let’s keep it in perspective; it wasn’t Jerry who uttered that line first, it was his client. In the end, through the process of taking time to rethink his business, staying true to his mission statement and being resilient, Jerry was able to deliver and build his business.

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