Power Play: Act like a small business even in a big business

Power Players know that size isn’t everything. It’s like those oversized genetically engineered strawberries: huge, but no flavour.

Take a leaf out of the Playbook from Power Players at the big end of town. They might preside over a large business, but they still roll like they work in a small business.

Terrible things can happen when little businesses become big: they can lose their gumption, their soul and their humour.

The world’s greatest Power Players (at that Warren Buffett level) might be giants, but they still play the game in a small business way, like thanking someone personally, walking the corridors to chat to the people in cubicles rather than the corner offices, having lunch at the cheap place rather than the $60 main course restaurant.

Big might be beautiful in Texas or the porn industry, but it’s generic in the world of business.

The story

Every week, the CEO of one of Australia’s biggest mining companies still goes out to the mine, puts on a hard hat and does a couple of hours with a bobcat.

He started at the very bottom working the mine, and he never wants to forget what it feels like to do an honest day’s labour.

The reaction from the guys on the ground is extraordinary. They tell him what’s really going on and improvements he should consider making.

He is in one of Australia’s biggest businesses and he still acts like it’s a small business, like the boss in any small business does when he or she licks the stamps in the morning and does the big-cheese stuff in the afternoon.