Businesses should “listen to the rebel” inside their business in order to unlock growth, according to Fred Schebesta, co-founder and director of comparison website Finder.com.au.
Speaking at the Smart50 Awards in Melbourne last night, Schebesta told a room of more than 200 people there are two kinds of businesses.
“You’re either growing or you’re dying in business,” he said.
“Some companies never change and they die … What you want to try to do is obviously be a grower.”
Schebesta told the room businesses must make room for new ideas in order to keep growing.
“What you need to do is you have to listen to that rebel inside your business,” he said.
“It’s hard; you need to protect his or her ideas and you need to make space for them. And you need to manage their mistakes.”
“If you do that, if you can hear that rebel inside your business you just might see massive growth.”
Schebesta told the room there are three ways to ensure your business continues to grow.
1. Focus on incremental growth of your core business
2. Innovate in your growth areas: “You need to fight the fear of loss and fight the fear of resistance to change in your business,” he said.
3. Invest in big change: “The big change offers devastation; it also offers massive opportunity,” Schebesta said.
Read more about this year’s Smart50 winners.
Editor
Eloise is an experienced business journalist and editor, who has held senior editorial roles at SmartCompany since 2014. Prior to joining SmartCompany, Eloise was news editor at Books+Publishing, the trade press for the Australian book industry. Eloise has degrees in media and communications, marketing and business management, and political science. You can follow her on LinkedIn, and Twitter at @ellykeating.
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