Posts Tagged ‘knowing’

Whenever listening to a public speaker, ask yourself two things: 1) Does the message make sense without the skilled speaker’s delivery and 2) Were the key points crystal clear? Make sure that (you)

1. Remove the oratory (the effect of the speaker’s delivery style and voice).  You can either do this mentally or you can find a transcript of the speech.  Do the words still make sense when just written, not spoken?
2. If the key messages were not clear, was that intentional?  Could simpler, more commonly used words have made the message unmistakable?  If so, then why wasn’t it said that way?  Perhaps it was worded so each member of the audience could interpret the speech individually by “hearing what they wanted to hear?”

The danger is being lulled into complacency.  Quite a large number of reasonably intelligent people adopt “selective hearing” when a speaker or writer uses ambiguous words: They often see/hear what they want to see/hear, either pro or con.  And less-educated people, who mistakenly question their own ability to understand “complex” subjects and assume the unfamiliar words surely must make sense to somebody, fall into the same trap.  This is partly because everyone is busy managing their daily affairs, working and . . . . just . . . living.  It is soooo easy to defer to the “ruling class” in the State capitol and/or Washington DC – – – the professional economists, strategists, politicians and lobbyists.  But many things that happen in the State and US capitols impact the business environment and, therefore, the company where you work.

The Danger for Our Country:

This “letting the experts handle complex things” is an age-old problem in every country and is especially risky in any democracy or republic, regardless of your political persuasion.  Howard Troxler said this temptation to be lazy is very dangerous in last week’s editorial “I’m Too Busy is not an option” in a Virginian Pilot editorial on June 13th (an outstanding newspaper, BTW).  He says, in part,

“We should pay more attention to what Washington is doing. We should pay more attention to what the state legislature is doing. We should pay more attention to what City Hall and the School Board are doing. If we don’t, then the same bunch in Washington will keep right on driving the country off the cliff. . . . Paying attention is not something optional that you can get around-to one day. Tell everybody you know.”

The Danger for Your Company

There are clear parallels in the business world:  It is easy to get tunnel-vision, to adopt a narrow focus on only your little part of the organization.  Don’t do this.  Know the big picture.  Listen closely to management’s speeches but be sure you know what matters most in your organization (cash flow, orders backlog, etc.).  In any company be sure you understand at least four things:

1. How the financial community rates your firm (if publicly traded) and what they are saying about your management (good, bad, strong vision, confused, etc.)
2. The company’s long term strategic plan and how your team (and job) fits into that plan
3. How your company generates cash
4. What your team’s financial objectives are for the month, quarter and year (in other words, what your boss signed you up to accomplish)

If you are intimidated by financial terms and statements, here is a great $20 booklet “Guide to Finance Basics for Managers” from Harvard Business Review at. Remember – – – what you don’t know can hurt you!

Copyright: Solid Thinking Corporation

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Tagged as: active garage, awareness, Communication, Doing, Guide to Finance basics to Managers, knowing, knowledge, Leader driven harmony, Leadership, mack mckinney, management, noticing, solid thinking corporation

Many years ago, before I had any sense of spirituality, a friend of mine, a practicing Buddhist shared with me that most of us are constantly immersed in thoughts that are driven by hopes and fears. Think about that for a moment … My thoughts coalesce around either fear-based monologs or I’m hoping for good stuff and not bad stuff. There is a lot of energy going in that direction, eh?

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, 70% of the time we are thinking negative thoughts. When I’m being fearful or being hopeful I’m not open to being here, in this moment. I’m not allowing new opportunities and ideas to emerge with which to engage. I’m not being with what is, I’m being with what could be that’s either going to turn out the way I hope or the way I fear it to be. What is unavailable while consumed in these unending internal conversations?

Our current paradigm has us feel as though we are trapped and victims to our current circumstances. This is absolute HOGWASH!

If and when we get totally honest with ourselves we come to discover how incredibly powerful we are to manifest limitations beyond our wildest dreams. Yes, you read that correctly. We brilliantly empower ourselves to disempower ourselves. Remaining within this current paradigm will forever more require you to live within your hopes and fears and nothing more.

Abandoning Hope

Hope springs eternal and is so essential to our sense of well-being.

On the other hand, I’ve found that when used as a strategy to avoid the truth of our current circumstances, hope interferes with possibility. Hoping is actually not a very empowering strategy. The strategy of hoping leaves the power in the hands of the Universe. As we hope that the will of God or our Higher Power in on our side, are we relinquishing power and courage to change the things we can? We have to look at our own relationship to hope if we are going to participate in this paradigm shift. How am I being while I’m hoping? Am I being hopeless, helpless and powerless while I’m hoping? Or, am I engaged with actions that will bring about a more likely and favorable outcome?

My friend and colleague Michael Sky died yesterday of cancer, here on Orcas Island. Not only was Michael a friend but he was a support person for me and my business.

Michael had been ill for some time, yet no matter what his circumstances, we never gave up hope that Michael would remain with us in physical form. It wasn’t until he actually died did hope die too. It’s a terrible thing to be with – the loss of hope. Promised miracles and magic that continually inspire us to live one day to the next, vanish. We are left with nothing and no thing to believe in. We struggle to understand why. There are no answers forthcoming.

I believe that to surrender hope takes us outside the domain of our humanity, back to the Source of all that is. For most of us, this moment of transcendence is far too uncomfortable. Our mind struggles to make sense – in hopes of finding concrete rationalization for what cannot be understood; only accepted.

Sometimes abandoning hope is actually the miracle. It may be what is required in order to shift what is currently impossible to be possible.

“Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Letting go of hope frees us to look at life and our circumstances differently. It is not easy and effortless to take this leap of faith. Opening of our hearts, flooding ourselves with innovation, surrendering attachments; the result of which is to soar beyond our limited thinking – isn’t this what we are all wanting? Isn’t this why organizations hire executive coaches and consultants to create think tanks, so as to produce results through simulated means? Yes, they work to a degree, yet too often the facilitators of change guard against their participants actually leaping the full measure, of which we have no comprehension. How does one steward an individual through a leap of faith?

I have no doubt that this is where spirituality in business will be taking our organizations. Corporations are desperate to discover ways to shift their business. Eventually they will reveal that the seat of every employee contains the wisdom and the brilliance they are looking for. Let’s hope that realization comes soon!

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Tagged as: active garage, As the paradigm shifts, being, Dreams, fear, hope, knowing, possibility, rosie kuhn, Spirituality in Business

In search of a Toolbox

We have looked at the power of the 2×2 Matrix, as well as how to gain additional degrees of freedom with the 3×3 Matrix of the Mandala Chart. Any kind of Matrix can be useful, because it helps you compare variables that interact with each other, and it puts everything on a single screen. This gives you the vital element of perspective, something that is easy to lose when you are caught up in the fray. In business, this can spell the difference between success and failure.

Now there is another kind of Matrix which enables you to map out and test proven business model concepts, not only by seeing the parts in relation to the whole, but also with the ability to run interactive simulations and projections with numbers. Introducing The Business Model Toolbox for iPad.

Even if you don’t have an iPad, the Business Model Generation book can guide you through the process, with beautiful illustrations and real world examples of successful business models in action. This book is a remarkable innovation in itself, having been co-authored by 470 strategy practitioners from 45 countries. Ordinarily it would be nearly impossible to integrate that much diversity into a single package, but this book is held together by a highly integrated visual design, and the fact that the contributors speak from real world experience.

Their methodology is practiced by companies such as Ericsson, 3M, and Deloitte, and the book is available in 18 languages. It is positioned as a handbook for visionaries, game changers and challengers, and the communication savvy of the core team behind the project is self-evident in both the book and the website navigation.

Telling Your Story with Prescience

Guy Kawasaki is the founder and managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, a seed-stage and early-stage venture capital fund, and a best selling author whose successful books include The Art of the Start, and Enchantment: the Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. I interviewed Guy Kawasaki on video for the iPad Creators Club, and in that interview asked Guy, of all of the factors that go into evaluating a business model as a venture capitalist, which factor carried the greatest weight. He said that it was 90% in the story behind the business model. He added that we all know that the numbers are made up, but you cannot fake the level of passion, belief, and commitment that is either evident or missing in the story itself.

Nevertheless, the power of story in business is more than just the power of narration or stage presence. The story must be delivered with the skills of an actor, but it must be grounded in the perspective of the strategist, and this is where Business Model Generation can make the difference.

Think of it as the power to see there before you can be there. Prescience is the knowledge of things before they exist or happen, foreknowledge, foresight. Surely it must seem as magic to those who lack this ability, and often it is the experts, blinded by their own knowledge, who have the least prescience! This is laughably evident in just reading a few of the bad predictions by the leading experts of their day, in nearly every field that has been touched by technology. And what field has not been radically altered by technology?

If the numbers are fabricated, and the experts totally off the mark, then how can we develop some degree of prescience? How can we navigate through this unpredictable world, without falling for superstitious fallacies, or succumbing to the hypnotic mantras of the latest guru?

As a reader of this column, you know by now that reality is not fixed as it appears to be, and that with flexible focus, you not only can see more, but you can actually create more. It is ancient wisdom that comes back to remind us that we are co-creators of our own reality, that the sky is not empty.

Nevertheless, to help others see the dimensions and qualities of our vision, indeed to be able to perceive these things ourselves, we need the help of tools which help us to make the invisible visible, and the impossible possible.

Vision is not enough. We need resources and collaborative support to make things happen, and that will not happen without prescience and a powerful story behind it.

Knowing that you don’t Know

One reason why the experts are so often lacking in prescience is that they think that they know. The beginning of wisdom is knowing that you don’t know, having a beginner’s mind. In the classic book of informal talks on Zen Meditation and Practice, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki says, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.”

One of Socrates’ most famous sayings was, “I only know that I know nothing.” This is the beginning of knowledge, because it drives the spirit of inquiry, the quest for knowledge that is behind the question. The Matrix is the flexible container that begs to be filled, the toolbox that supports our vision.

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Tagged as: active garage, business model generation, business modeling, Flexible Focus, guy kawasaki, knowing, knowledge, mandala charts, manga, Modeling your business, Prescience, story telling, toolbox, william reed