Posts Tagged ‘entrepreneur’

In rugby there is a saying “it is easy to play well behind a winning pack”. For those that are not familiar with the game in each side there are 15 players of which 8 of them, “the pack”, work to maintain the possession of the ball and create space for the running backs to break through the oppositions defenses. One of the facts of sports, is that it consumes far more energy defending your position than it takes to continually attack your opposition.

I observed a situation recently on a project, that demonstrated this exact same principle. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise as projects are a team sport in  a way just competing against the opposition of time, resources and money. The project I observed had slipped somewhat over time and now that the final delivery was more firmly set in sight, it was apparent that not all could be delivered by the required delivery date.

The delivery date was fixed, but how the project and product managers presented the situation to the stakeholders was that if they wanted to meet the date they would have to forfeit some functionality requests. The stakeholders did not like the position as they had already settled on the bare bones delivery, as the project had consumed all available slack to the current point. Naturally this placed the stakeholders in a difficult position.

What seems to get lost in this play is that now the direction and decision capability is placed 100% in the stakeholders hands. Another key point is that the project had originally committed to delivering the functionality as part of the original scope, but now it is seen as a type of “scope creep” or “nice to have” and must be relinquished. Clever positioning by the project and product managers.

What I was also fortunate enough to witness is the behavior of the teams supporting this project. Because the project manager had lost control of the project over time, the project manager role turns into this ongoing defense of the current status and a slow ongoing erosion of deliverables. Like playing behind a losing pack in any sport, defending your situation on a project consumes time and energy – think of all the ancillary requests to your team members to test things out and provide feedback on how long xyz will take for the next project meeting. All this activity consumes rather than producing for the project and the situation just continues to get worse over time.

As a Project Manager you have to take charge and be the one to declare the future of the project with the support of the stakeholders. Don’t quit on the original commitment, rather try and declare what can be done for the delivery date and plan to make good on the original promise. This way you are in the driving seat and your team will feel compelled and motivated to play your game in the offense.

Don’t be on the defense, it will wear your team out – take charge and lead the offense to capitalize on the effort you have available. It is essential the project manager,” the pack”, is leading the way and creating opportunity for the team not stifling it with indecision.

Tagged as: active garage, delivery, entrepreneur, execution, Guy Ralfe, Leadership, ownership, Project Management, stakeholders, www.activegarage.com

For the 4^th time in my life I am resigning and taking a step into the unknown world of no job. This time I am doing it on a small scale, I am only moving my family across 8 states and not between continents. I don’t know what it is – maybe we just have a strong nomadic gene!

I have been working at Maconomy for a little over 3 ¼ years and am closing the door on the most exciting, hectic, challenging and learning chapter in my career. I would like to say a big Thank You to all at Maconomy who have pushed, supported, helped and laughed with me. If  you think you have the heart and attitude to be a business consultant, there are few finer places to refine your skills than at Maconomy

Before I lose you  – this is not about my career, but rather the reflections about making the decision to move and how vital networks and tribes are to being able to perform such drastic moves. For a long while I have had the ambition to branch out and become an entrepreneur but the opportunity has just never seemed to be there (bad luck?). But suddenly this opportunity has presented itself (luck?) and it makes sense to the point that I am willing to trade one tribe for another and turn the world I know upside down.

I hear people saying “you are lucky” and my response has often been “you make your own luck” and I speculate that there is a close resemblance between luck and the company we keep. There is  a lot of talk around tribes in the social networking space which may be a key to how an opportunity appears as suddenly available. I have had the ambition to start a business venture for the longest while, but what has lacked is another tribe in which I have been able to create an identity in which the opportunity can be exposed. Once this opportunity was exposed and I assessed I could coexist within the new tribe the natural movement is to make the transition. Rajesh Setty posted a great article on why nice people will win – the realization of this opportunity for me is just a positive consequence of making those connections and maintaining an existence to another networked tribe.

We have to have an identity and a presence with which people can make a connection and assessments across our networks. If we do not have this people will not think of us and we will just blend into the crowd and the opportunity will pass us by …and be snatched up by the colorful and loud person nearby! This is why it is so important to ensure we maintain a presence in the social networks we choose, and to leave an impression with those we meet and interact with.

Another similar example was our saleslady, who wished to make contact with a company. After a search on LinkedIn she found out that I was connected to someone who had worked at the company. This person had just sent me a LinkedIn invite after a ½ day meeting we had had some 8 months earlier. I really was not sure he would remember me, but I reached out to him to see if he could make an introduction. Surprisingly, he did remember me and was willing to help make an introduction. That is seizing the opportunity …not Luck!

So go make some noise, post a status update, tweet, call someone – get out there and pick your opportunity – Dance for your tribe!

Tagged as: active garage, Branding, business, Communication, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Guy Ralfe, networks, presence, Rajesh Setty, Social Media, social networks, tribe

If you have ever played poker (and I know there are many experts out there who can beat me hands-down belly-up!), you know what ante is. Simply put, it’s the wager you have to bet without an inkling of the hand that has been dealt to you or in other words It is the wager that you have to bet that simply qualifies you to ‘play’ in the game. Then there are many tables, each table with different stakes. You can choose which table you want to sit at and play on depending on how much money you have.

Business is very similar to poker. It requires us to wager something – an ante before we even have an inkling of the hand that is dealt to us. Think about the investment you have to make in order to bring a product to market or start your next entrepreneurial venture or even the new job that you get. In each of these situations there is this pesky ante that you cringe to put down but have to put down in order to play on the table! Here’s how the ante appears in each of these situations:

1. Bringing a product to the market: You put your time, money (maybe not yours!) and energy as ante in building the product, doing your market research & getting help from others.
2. Starting your entrepreneurial venture: Your ’skin-in-the-game’ is pretty much your ante here.
3. Getting a new job: You apply for your dream job, excel in that interview, land the job and within 2 months realize that what you’re doing is nothing like what you had imagined you’d be doing (Err.. I mean this in a negative way). In this case, all the effort that you put in to the point where you started the new job is your Ante.

My point so far: There is an ante in every game you play (Business being a game, too… )

Here’s the golden question: Is the table you are sitting at (which basically determines what ante you put) is the right table for what you want to achieve?

Consider this example: You are 45 years old & have plans of retiring with $4M in your bank account at the age of 65. You currently have $1M saved up. You make $100K a year. That’s a gap of $3M you have to cover in 20 years. You don’t need to be a math whiz to notice that it is impossible to get to this number with what you are making currently – You are basically sitting at the wrong table! because regardless of how well you play at this table, you’re never going to make your goal of $4M!

So you figured out that you’re sitting and playing at a table where no matter how well you play (heck! you might be the best player) you’re still not going to make it to your goal.

Now what?

Before you decide to take the leap of faith and move to the high-ante table, be aware that as you move up to the high-ante, the competition gets thick too. The players at the high-ante table are no pushovers. In fact, one mistake there and they’ll wipe you out before you know what hit you! So, yes – by all means, quit playing at the table where you are not going to make it BUT continue playing at the low-ante table until you are Skilled enough to move higher up and be the best player at the high-ante table!

… and of course, the last piece of advice and perhaps the most important to remember – Know when you have made it to your goal, get up from the table and go play a new game!

Good luck!

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Tagged as: active garage, ante, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, excel, financial goal, goals, himanshu jhamb, interview, job, poker, product, quit

As we enter this jobless recovery in 2010, it won’t be big business that will pick up the economy.  Once again, it will be the small business entrepreneurs.  News agencies and financial firms follow what the CEO’s of major firms foresee for 2010 to see when the light at the end of the tunnel will become visible.  What many people don’t realize is that small businesses employ over half of all private sector employees and generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.  It is small businesses and entrepreneurs who will bring us out of this slump.

While the days of working for one employer during your professional career are long over, big business continues to squeeze more perks out of their employees to cut expenses. Almost a third of Fortune 1000 companies have now frozen their pension plans in an effort to control expenses. US wages and salaries rose at record lows according to the Labor Department in 2009.  Over the past 12 months, wages and salaries only rose 1.5 percent making it the lowest increase since the figures started to be collected in 1982.

Wages for non-managerial workers have fallen by 1.4 percent so far this year, according to an article in USA Today, and are on track for even further declines. The official unemployment rate has reached 9.8 percent, and when one takes into account discouraged workers and people who are underemployed, it is at 17 percent, possibly higher.  And for 2010, while more employers state that they will be hiring more employees, it’s nothing to write home about as it’s not much higher than 2009.

With the marketplace now changing faster than ever and forcing businesses to adapt more quickly, more employers will have to rethink their hiring efforts as they look to their employees to be more flexible as well.  This request from big business employers to employees for flexibility will be: increasing and decreasing work hours depending on demand; the continued request to do-more-for-less; continue to learn new skills.  How do you think employees are reacting to this?  According to a survey of 2900 companies done by Careerbuilder.com revealed that nearly a quarter of them rate their organization’s morale as low.  So what can you do during these tough economic times?  You can be thankful that you have a job and suck it up or you can make a change.

Recently a good friend of mine told me that he was considering quitting his corporate job in the northeast and moving to the mid-west to help a family member of his grow his small business and take it to the next level.  While he would initially be taking a pay cut, the opportunity for growth and exceeding his income today is enormous, but he worries about leaving his “comfortable” corporate job.  He called me to ask me for my opinion.  I told him that there are risks in working for a small business, or for that matter, helping to start one, but in today’s uncertain economy, there aren’t any more uncertainties working for big business as there are working for a small company.  The difference, I told him, is that there will be nothing more fulfilling than creating something that is his and being in control of his financial destiny.  I asked him what he’s waiting for and when he’s leaving to start his new journey.  I hope it’s soon.

So ask yourself, “Am I happy?” or, “Is my career/job fulfilling?” If not, then what are you waiting for to change it?

Tagged as: Action, active garage, business, Business Strategy, Communication, destiny, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, execution, http://activegarage.com, Leadership, management, possibilities, purpose, Robert Driscoll, Strategy, www.activegarage.com

I am privileged to have had the opportunity to preview Seth Godin’s upcoming ebook What Matters Now prior to its launch. First off, there is little I can write here that will be of any substitute for reading the actual ebook.

This is a brilliant work and you must read it for 4 key reasons:

• Timing – It is the end of the year and those pesky new year’s resolutions are upon us. This book will provoke your thoughts, stimulate your ambition and orientate you for action in the coming year.
• Power – Seth Godin has brought in 72 thought leaders to provide their version of “What Matters Now.” This is providing us a sneak peek into the minds of these thought leaders with minimum time investment from us.
• Network – Through this book you get access to the recognized thought leaders of today, what they are up to and how to tap into their networks – very valuable.
• Diversity – Each contributor has presented their work in their own desired format, which in conjunction with the powerful messages produces a lesson in the art of communication.

The eBook comprises a page per topic word, with diverse topics as Strengths; Poker; Harmony; DIY; Change; Confidence; Productivity, to which a contributor per topic has shared their insight and knowledge, primarily producing a sense of reflection and thought to each topic.

I found it triggered many emotions and thoughts associated with each topic. As fast as they were triggered, when I flipped the page to read the next topic, the sensation was repeated – it is like being in a conversation with the author of each topic.

Later in the  day after reading the book, as I moved about I found I was pondering my situation and reflecting back on what I had read earlier. I think this is one of those books you keep with you as a guide. The format makes for a very easy read and great if you need to read in byte-size slots.

To give you a little insight to the content and contributors – Tim Sanders, author of Love is the Killer App: How to win business and Influence Friends wrote on the topic of Confidence – Tim speaks of confidence as the “Rocket fuel for your business life”. He then exposes the problem in confidence – “Most people don’t cultivate confidence – it just lands on them due to favorable conditions… Good times make for confident people. Bad times crush them, along with their daring point of view”

How true has this been over the last year? Tim then prescribes some sensible action to avoid this situation.

To demonstrate the contrast in presentation Jessica Hagy, author of the blog Indexed drew a simple picture on an index card and it produced just as much thought on the topic of Facts!

Do yourself the favor and download the ebook – but more importantly read it! If you can’t do that then please send the link to someone you care about because they will appreciate it.

Download free now -What Matters Now

Tagged as: active garage, book review, business, Business Management, Business Strategy, Effective Thought, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, execution, gralfe, Guy Ralfe, outlook, possibilities, seth godin, what matters now, www.activegarage.com

Have you noticed how you live life and then suddenly one day you notice “something”, seemingly for the first time? Then after noticing that “something”, it seems to be hounding you – they just suddenly appear everywhere?

One of the best examples is the emergency exit sign at the movies. Amazing how an illuminated red/green sign in a dark room just goes unnoticed. Think back to the last film you watched and see if you recall  where the emergency exit was? Yes it was there, law requires it be there and clearly visible too!! You probably even left through the emergency door afterwards.

So what does this have to do with business? It occurred to me that many entrepreneurs start something that they identify as missing, flawed or incomplete. The fact that they are able to vision this means that they have a concern for this need and that is why they can notice it. This is good from the point of visioning, but it will also prove very difficult to get investors, partners and consumers interested until they too can see the need.

For big organizations they put their new products in front of us through marketing and advertising and telling us the story of the possibilities the new product will create for us. This gets it quickly adopted and widely noticed. For the entrepreneur it is a far longer and slower process. In the same way a salesman looks at his prospects and tries to convert as many to sales, the entrepreneur must maximize every interaction to ensure that the listener leaves with a clear vision of this product’s need, and the space of possibilities it will create once  in the world.

Once your listener can notice, they too will suddenly feel like they are being hounded by the opportunities for your product – and they too will then unconsciously become your speaker. This is important from a promotional point of view but more important in drawing in interested parties to build your products network.

Make sure you produce the vision every time in your listener, because that is where you will get the most powerful interaction, these listeners will see the exit signs like the fire alarm was ringing. If the listener leaves with a blurred vision, they will not notice that exit sign but take the exit!

Tagged as: active garage, business, business opportunity, Business Strategy, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Guy Ralfe, http://activegarage.com, investment, noticing, opportunity, possibilities, Sales and Marketing

“The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind.”
-Napoleon Hill

A disciple asked his teacher ‘Sir,How can I see God’.  The teacher said ‘Come, I will show you’ and took the disciple to a lake. Both the teacher and the disciple got into the lake and suddenly the teacher pressed the student’s head into the water. After a few moments.. he released it and asked the student how he felt. The student panting for breath.. said he felt that he was about to die.. and while in the water, his one and only desire was to get a whiff of air. The Teacher said ‘Son, if you have the same amount of desire to see god..you will see him’.

Tagged as: business, career, character, configuration, Desire, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, intense, intense desire, napolean hill, relationship, resources, team, tools, vijay peduru

This weeks article addresses the strong desire for people to fall into the trap of “I didn’t invent it, it’s not as good as it could be” or “Not Invented Here”.

Both of these attitudes usually have some merit and at the same time are usually flawed.

In an earlier article on when good enough is good enough, I made the point that at some point you have to stop development and ship the product or service, before that you have no knowledge of the viability of your product or service. You have to ship/deploy and get feedback from your marketplace, before that you are guessing.

Proof of your accomplishment is after shipment/deployment.

To that end we must as business owners be aware of the landscape surrounding our businesses, our competition, our customers, and our own needs, and what help is available to us at little or no investment. So the question “do I need to do it all from scratch?” is posed here. What parts can you get elsewhere and will it help you to do that?

For example, Matthew Lesko has made a big business out of publishing a series of books on government available loans, grants and funding, and if it works for you, the cost is very low.

There are professional societies for every profession that are a great source of help and ideas. Surprising though it may seem, you can even get help from your competition.

For the technology crowd there is slashdot and sourceforge; for the science minded products and services there is the IEEE with societies for nearly anything you can imagine and Symetry for the more scientifically minded. I would encourage your to sign up for one or more of these, at least take a look to see what’s there and if it is usable.

All of that said, there are countless places to find help in the marketplace, and as I’ve said in nearly every article I’ve written: in business you need help, and not just any help, you need the best help you can get, and help will cost you, the best help costs a lot.

So take a look around you both physically and in your marketplace and find your help, it may be surprising where you find it. Watch out for the “Not Invented Here” trap in yourself and your employees, it can raise your costs and lengthen your delivery times and thwart your chances of success.

Tagged as: active garage, Branding, Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, execution, Leadership, management, Return on Investment

A new entrepreneur almost always gets an idea and thinks it is the coolest and the greatest idea. He safeguards it and when someone asks him he would say we are in “stealth” mode.  He dreams of how he would be on the covers of Fortune, Fast Company and Inc when his idea clicks and takes off.  The truth is no one really knows whether the idea will click or not.   About 50%of venture backed firms fail.

So, how does an entrepreneur increase his chances of Success.  He needs to Accept Change as normal and Be willing to Evolve. Nobody can escape change… the way I see it – Either you will confront change OR change will confront you. You choose. The best way is to accept that change happens and take advantage of it rather than be bogged down by it. Humans and a lot of other species on this planet survived and thrived by evolving themselves as the surroundings changed. Similarly, the best companies can survive, if they can adapt with the surroundings and evolve.

We would not have heard about Google, Hotmail or Paypal  if they stuck to their initial Plan (Plan A).  The founders quickly evolved their companies. They tried a business model and if that didn’t work, they changed it immediately and tried another. For Paypal, Plan A to Plan F didn’t work. Plan G as we know today worked marvelously and the rest is history. Google grew and could introduce so many products because it encourages a culture of experimentation and Failure. All these and other successful companies evolved by looking for opportunities caused by change in the marketplace and encouraging change and experimentation within their business.

This can happen only if the team is willing to make mistakes, Learn from it and move on. Our school system has trained us not to make mistakes and view mistakes are failures. This view might prove useful for someone working in a large corporation which has lots of restrictions to change, but for an Entrepreneur, mistakes need to be learned from, quickly, and then move on from.

In the old days, when a missile is fired, it had a fixed destination.. “Ready, Aim , Fire” .  Nowadays, thanks to modern technology, a missile , can be fired and then it’s course can be corrected midway. Tom Peters has a saying that goes – “Ready, Fire! Aim”. It is the same with a business. When we start the business , the business model is different and if it does not work, we correct course as we move.

Get ready to “Ready, Fire! Aim”…

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Tagged as: Accept change, active garage, bootstrapped, business, Change, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, evolve, failure, google, mistakes, paypal, Plan C, ready aim fire, ready fire aim, tom peters, venture, vijay peduru

There are countless instances in my life when I have wondered why my hard work has not paid off the way I had expected it to ‘coz I had heard so many times (from so many people) that it really pays to work hard. Evidently, I was missing something. My quest for solving this mystery led me to investing in my education (after a drought of almost a decade), finally, and I learnt why hard work, by itself, is not enough to get the results that we are after.

I realized that the way I was working was self-defeating in itself. Yes, I was working long hours (very long hours), I was tired, sweating-it-out and simply slogging it out. I was doing what I was told and I worked really hard to finish it in time and when I was done with that one thing, I went to the next task. What totally escaped me was that in “task-orientation” i.e. my single-mindedness of completing the task; I was simply blind to the overall purpose of what I was doing and in the process, did not end up producing much although it felt like I had moved a mountain (or two!).

If you can identify with this feeling… keep reading…

As an example of what “Task Orientation” looks like (or shows up as) in real life, a recent event comes to mind. I was working with a team member on a project where we were figuring out a piece of software on how we can make it work for using it to deliver some audio/video content. My astute colleague figured it out pretty quickly and I requested him to send out an email with detailed instructions on how to use the software to the rest of the team so that everyone can start utilizing it to do their work more effectively. My colleague sent out the email in the next 15 minutes with 3-4 brief steps and the final step (which was where the meat was) was garbled (perhaps a result of a shoddy cut/paste attempt). 3 out of 4 team members responded for clarifications and a flurry of emails followed to rectify the situation. Imagine how easy it would’ve been if my dear colleague would’ve given just a little more time to thinking of the PURPOSE of the request rather than treat it as just a “Task” that had to be taken care of quickly. The difference is admittedly, subtle, but the consequences, unfortunately, are not.

I have been culprit of many such emails in the past… (and I apologize now to all those who received those emails from me that added “Cost” to their life) and have learnt to take care by following a few simple rules to take care of my natural inclination to the “Task orientation” in my work and not get trapped in it. Here are a few of my simple rules:

1. Know the recipients of your emails: Who are you writing to? Are they aware of the context of your email? If not, provide some background before you dive into what you have to say.
2. Know your recipient’s proficiency in what you will be talking about in your email. So, for example, you will be writing a very different email if you are giving technical instructions to a group of developers vs. a group of managers.
3. Make sure the links or any references you provide in your emails, WORK. Test them out yourself before sending the email out. It is “Very Costly” for the recipients to click on the links you provide in your email that do not work.
4. Cutting & Pasting (especially software code or configuration stuff): If you are cutting/pasting anything that you want others to take “as-is”: Cut/Paste it in the email body and also cut/paste it in a simple text editor (e.g. notepad); save the file; attach it and then send the email. The attachment serves as a backup plan. It takes care of the situation in which any “hidden” or “Special” characters inadvertently find their way in your email and gives your recipient a “second-chance” to receive what you wanted to send them without them going through the trouble of sending you another email asking you to resend the cut/paste text. That’s a HUGE Cost Saving!
5. Include your signature at the end of your emails: How many times have you received emails from others, had a question you wanted to speak to them about immediately but could not get in touch with them because all you saw at the end of the email was a “Thanks!”? Do your recipients (and yourself) a favor – Do not be that person.

Imagine the assessments you trigger at the other side of the email with your recipients in your everyday communications. Imagine how you’d show up for them in your emails  if you “took care” to write emails with these rules. You will show up as someone who really “cares” for their time and your time. On the other hand, “Task orientation” only produces lots of activity… not necessarily productive and leaves people with quite a few negative assessments about you.

The choice is yours… and so are the consequences of it!

Choose with care!

Tagged as: active garage, assessment, choise, Communication, computers, consequences, cutting, defeat, education, email signature, emails, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, himanshu jhamb, investing, pasting, purpose, recipients, self defeating, signature, software, task, task orientation, technology, time, trigger