Motorcycle Club Rides and Six Business Management Lessons to Learn

Business management, just like motorcycle club rides can be tricky and, every challenge you face on the road to your destination (target) may not come with a pre-printed SOP on how to deal with it. While, in both cases, we try and maximize the desired output – that could be either profitability (in case of a business) or fun (in case of a motorcycle club), what does this really say about how to win in today’s competitive landscape?

Be it business management or a large group size motorcycle ride, the strategy is more or less similar – finding ways to use and combine tactics and resources to reach the destination even in conditions of uncertainty. For the road captains (or business leaders), it demands lateral thinking about everything that happens, factoring-in every motorcyclist (or team-member) in the convoy and then placing bets to gain an operational edge.

Here are six that apply today:

1. Cultivate and Leverage Skills: You may or may not know every nut and bolt of every motorcycle or every aspect of business. And even if you do know it, you cannot be everywhere, every time, helping everyone overcome challenges like the omnipresent Almighty. Cultivate specialists and trust their skills because it is they who will take your vision forward in your absence. You need people who can RESPOND to crisis and not REACT – be it an on-road accident or a shop-floor incident.

2. Communication is Essential: What keeps chaos away from large motorcycling convoys and globally spread businesses when at full throttle? CLEAR COMMUNICATION. Bluetooth helmet headsets often drain dry before the destination is reached. Hence, long distance motorcycling convoys often communicate using legacy communication systems that include headlights, horn patterns and hand-signals that have a pre-defined meaning. No matter what the incident – the communication has to be “Lima Charlie” – and it should reach every stakeholder before the cock and bull stories erupt.

3. Embrace Technology: What happens if an outdated technology motorcycle rides in a convoy of modern day bikes on a 500km run? Either it’ll slow down every other process, or be left alone – far behind. Probably 50 years back, paper maps and drum brakes were the ‘IN’ things in motorcycling, just like paper ledgers and business postal services. But back then, motorcycles did not have ABS and neither did your computer have sophisticated ERP systems or artificial intelligence algorithm based software. Evolve or perish.

4. Never Stop Learning: On the first Musafirs Motorcycle Club Ride that I led, our first halt was 50kms from the starting point and on the second ride a motorcyclist from the convoy had a near-fatal accident. The incidents gradually thinned out as we grew our experience. No one is born with a solution to every problem – it takes persistent cycles of pragmatic learning, experimental adaptation, and constant revision to get there. The mission and objective must remain true, but the approach must constantly adapt and evolve.

5. Cherish diversity: Motorcycle clubs that promote the passion of motorcycling rather than any particular brand of motorcycle find ready patronage and attract better quality than fluff. Rarely any show-offs. This breed understands that be it a Standard 500 or a Duke 390, a Soft Tail or a Multi-Strada – it is never about the gear and nut below the saddle but about the nut riding it – it is the people that matter. Diversity catalyzes the “respect for others’ ideas” and also brings to the table institutional strength conferred by diverse perspectives on matters of governance.

6. Swallow Your Ego: When out on rides we often encounter it: someone out there, a co-user of the road, planning to kill themselves by driving rash, entering into blind corners from the wrong lane and taking unnecessary risks but what you see is that they are “going faster than you”. Swallow your ego, and reassess your strategy – probably that business is headed for doom and if you follow suit, it will just make it two.

About the Author:

Musafir Nicc, a writer, a marketing communications pro and an avid motorcyclist himself, has led more than 75 long-distance motorcycle journeys with motorcycling enthusiasts across the length and breadth of India. He is also the co-founder of The Musafirs Motorcycle Club that earned a place for itself on the Indiatimes list of the must-know hobby clubs in India.