Y Not - Passion with Integrity

CONCEPTS

1. What, How and You

2. Non-Ownership Thinking

3. S.O.M. up v S.W.O.T down

4. Tide Turning Dynamics

5. Copowerment

6. E = mc2 a new relativity

During thirty years in business I have learned that there is a clear common theme regardless of the perspective at which we operate – be it employee, employer, manager, director, consultant, teacher or shareholder. What is it?

Business offers the perfect example of how
Man will always complicate simplicity.

When a business starts the focus of attention is on its strengths. As it becomes more successful, such attention shifts towards its competitors’ strengths. In time the operation becomes more concerned with managing its weaknesses.

Moving from an internally-driven company to an externally-influenced one is neither balanced nor conducive for growth.

There are only two factors important in business. The rest is trivia.

Why is that?

Because the only two things
that all of us ever want in life are
good feelings and right solutions.

Whatever business you are in, when you take the time to build relationships and follow through by providing good feelings and right solutions, then such a combination guarantees success.

Common sense perhaps, yet certainly not common practice; because the fixed-thinking within business is that it cannot be that simple. The conditioned tendency is that if it is too simple, then we must somehow complicate it. Why?

Doing what is ‘simple’ involves harder work than the easier path of complicating the issue.

For example, it is harder to write a one-page concise report than a 20 page document, though the former is easier to understand.

It is much harder for people to answer a question precisely then to be long-winded or waffle, though the former is clearer. So many feel compelled to drone on as if ‘inebriated with the verbosity of their own exuberance’ – as Disraeli said of his counterpart, Gladstone, who got himself so bogged down in arguing a point that it resulted in confusing everyone – perhaps the political intent!

How many times have you personally witnessed a colleague making a meal out of answering a question; or delivering a mountain of explanation over a molehill enquiry? Were you any the wiser, or simply more frustrated? How about report reading or writing? Did you get, or make, the point respectively?

There are only 24 words in the Pythagorean Theorem, 67 in the Archimedes Principle, yet there are almost 27,000 in The European Commission’s regulations on the sale of cabbage. Who is going to read the document – the farmer?

What about simply building relationships and following through – the very life blood of a business? Or did you think that cash flow is the lifeblood? How long will any business survive without customers? Just until the money runs out, then it’s back to the shareholders for more.

Why do you think shareholders are respected more than customers? Too many must be acting simple-mindedly to invest in a complicated business, plan or idea without a customer in place. Metaphorically speaking, does it really count if the product is the best thing since sliced bread? What if everyone demands rice?

Every business irrespective of size, industry and market-place has been founded with entrepreneurial thinking. Yet inexorably it moves from being a passionately-driven one by entrepreneurially-minded warriors toward a process-operated one by administrative-minded worriers.

The majority of businesses, particularly larger organisations, are seemingly successful in spite of themselves. But does this mean they are using their full potential? No, it does not. The difficulty is that when a certain level of success is gained in brand name and product sales, a kind of professional complacency sets it.

What are the first symptoms of this complaint? Indecisiveness, or the time it takes for everyone involved to sign something off. And, later, meek acceptance of such a long-winded process with the viewpoint: who needs to be agile anyway – ‘after all we are the market leaders aren’t we?’ An attitude, you will agree, alarmingly reminiscent of the voiced complacency at the advent of change in the silent movie industry: ‘Who needs to hear actors talk anyway?’

Though the most important competitive factor a business has is the development of its people, companies continue to struggle with the challenges to build commitment, improve communication, and above all, instil a sense of ownership; despite training initiatives and operational restructuring.

Clearly, entrepreneurial ideas have a greater certainty of being profitable and sustaining growth when supported by management attributes. Less accepted is that executives must develop entrepreneurial thinking – those same attributes instrumental in the founding and successful growth of their business.

What is entrepreneurial thinking? Though the term is frequently used in business few can define it simply. Most misguidedly assume it is being risk-focused, opportunist and rule breaking.

Entrepreneurial thinking is not about being an entrepreneur, that non-conformist individual so often assumed to be a loose canon who loses investors’ good money while trying to build a business by the seat of their pants.

Such perception has derived from most entrepreneurs not applying authentic entrepreneurial thinking – the vital key to sustainable growth in business.

 

So, some simple definitions...

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