The Small Business Mantra

I really appreciate the great ideas and support that I get from One Coach. In a recent teleconference, John Assaraf offered the following breakdown of how you should spend your time in your business.  These are now on my whiteboard as a constant reminder to keep me on track.

40% Revenue Generation

30% People Admin & Communication

20% Conversion of Prospects/Opportunities

10% Content Development

I readily admit my days were rarely in this proportion.  It is very easy to get sidetracked when you are responsible for so many aspects of a business.  Those of us running small, agile and entrepreneurial companies have our hands on the wheel of a Formula One car as opposed to working in a large corporate where we may be steering an oil tanker.

The Power of Intention in an Organisational Context

I have recently completed a book written by Colin Wilson.  Colin is top of the list on ‘those I would most like to sit next to on a plane.’  I read the book after reading Gregg Braden.  I guess there is a bit of a path here but both solidified some thinking that has had me somewhat preoccupied lately.   Values have little use in an organisation.  An organisation may communicate and espouse values incessantly but we all know that individuals in the organisatoin may not adopt them.   I always felt that there is a state of being that can be classified as a peak experience (Maslow).  If an organisation is able to engage its people to achieve a high percentage of peak experience in the work environment you are able to elevate the organisation performance to a level that is self sustaining and pervasive in its operations e.g. it permeates all interactions internally and externally.  This is not done by values- mere words that do not strike all persons similarly.  The way to achieve an organisational peak experience that is sustainable is through definition, discipline (more similar to empowerment), imagination and engagement (more similar to collaboration).    When people are able to use their mental (or physical) capacities to achieve progress in a work sequence we can tap into a part of a human brain that is often discounted in normal managment practice.  Why do I want to get out of bed?  I am not interested in meeting a time deadline (start by 8), nor do I get engaged by pleasing my manager (I am here before 8- look at me).  I get engaged when  my mind is connected to a series of tasks that comprise a project that result in a defined outcome.  People want to see ‘traction’ in what they spend their time doing.  Why is waking up on a Saturday so different than waking on Tuesday?  Must it be different?  Think about the last time you were so engaged in a project that you lost track of time?  (can’t remember? )  Total focus with a vision of an outcome is what produces peak experiences.  More on this in the next post.

Are We Really That Helpless?

We hear how angry many people are about the demise of the world’s economy and the reasons for it.  The media is showing interviews with working people losing homes and jobs and in Europe of people actually hitting the streets to protest.  But what will really change?  We are ruled by the rich and privileged.  We have been brainwashed into believing the market economy is the only way to structure our economic affairs.  The rise and fall of our economic destinies is just a natural outcome of this system of political economy.  Why is this accepted?  The masses of humanity are poorly served by free market economics yet we blindly accept that we cannot have a system we control.  We accept that we can not have an egalitarian political economy in which all are fed, housed and educated.  Civilisation?  You are kidding.

Enough Already! The Mass Attraction of Doom.

I guess I am feeling a bit torn.  I am not a guru or a prophet but I was telling people four years ago that the world’s economy and particular the United States was heading for a fall.  Well here we are in 2009 and I cannot escape the parade of economic ‘experts’ telling me how bad things are.  These experts probably went to the same esteemed university institutions that trained the Wall Street greed barons that could not get enough wealth generated in unrestrained capitalism.  Hindsight is easy stuff.  There are a lot of very deep implications of this economic collapse- some are  bad and some are potentially very good.  I am sure I will feel inspired to write about the positive side but at this time I find it difficult.  Those ‘brains’ that played with other people’s livelihoods with no sense of social responisibility and on a deeper level have no sense of the interconnectedness of all things.  I question so much about a society that worships  business to the extent of making commerce so much more complex than what it needs to be.  The warning signs should have been evident when universities began throwing so many resources to business education and God Help Us- the MBA.  Well here we are suffering thanks to an elite created from the loins of a society too numb to see the risks.  A societywith its head too deep in the trough to see the approaching storm.   It is the first bad downturn in the new media society and have a look at the climate out there.  The incessant messages of doom and catastrophe are self fulfilling and they are coming from everywhere and in every medium.  Do you think we could engineer a turnaround based on The Secret?  More on the positive stuff soon.