Posts in ‘Management’

Melodius Beans

The character shown here is the word for Abundance (豊 yutaka), and interestingly is made of two radicals, the upper radical meaning melody (曲) and the lower radical meaning bean (豆).

It may take a stretch of the imagination to connect melodious beans to abundance, wealth, and richness, but it is a happy image, and abundance is different from the scarcity mentality which leads to winner-takes-all competition.

Beans take on a magical quality also in the classic children’s tale Jack and the Beanstalk, in which Jack is first portrayed as a fool giving away the family cow for a set of “magic” beans, which however then grow into a giant beanstalk towering above the clouds, and eventually to great riches stolen from the ogre’s cave. You can probably still recite the ogre’s lines from the tale, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.” This is a moral tale of trust and courage eventually leading to great reward, lessons that apply as much to adults as to children.

In Japanese there is an expression called mame ni hataraku, which is often understood to mean work like a bean, that is diligently and full focus. Although the word mame does mean bean, in this expression it is written with characters that give it an interesting nuance. 忠実 (chūjitsu, mame) means loyal or fully engaged, being made of the radicals for centered 中 mind 心 and to bear fruit or results 実. This expresses the wisdom that although the bean appears small and humble, it can grow into something great. Although our work may appear to be small and humble, with a centered focused mind it can also produce something great.

Time is Money

Benjamin Franklin is famous for having penned the phrase that Time is Money, though the earliest known appearance of the phrase was in the book Maxim (430 BC), by the Greek orator Antiphon. This is ancient acknowledgement that time is precious, and not to be wasted.

It is not just idleness that wastes time. Dealing with the wrong people and spending your energy on the wrong activities can also waste your time. From another perspective, time wrongly spent can leave a person wasted. This applies of course not just to money and health, but also that if we let time slip by, opportunity can be missed or wasted.

Despite the associations of this phrase with diligence, real opportunities often come in short spaces of time. Opportunity knocks, but doesn’t linger long waiting for a reply. Significant change often comes about in quantum bursts, triggered by decision and action. Perhaps in the broader meaning you could say that time is opportunity.

Wealth Network vs Poverty Network

Roger J. Hamilton, founder of Wealth Dynamics, says that we create wealth by leveraging our value, and this is done largely through the people that we associate with. He further describes the anatomy of our network as consisting of 3 tiers and 12 types of people who ultimately determine how our fortunes rise or fall.

Our Resource Network consists of Advisors, Opportunists, and Financiers; the people who can most significantly lend power, energy, and ideas to our projects, and help launch us to a new level. More closely we are surrounded by our Support Network, consisting of Advocates, Peers, and Supporters; the people who provide us with encouragement, endorsement, and emotional support.

Often not recognized because they may include friends and family, we also have a Poverty Network; consisting of Doomsayers, Doubters, Passengers, and Distractors. They may be friendly and well-meaning, but ultimately they can drag you down or keep you in poverty because they carry  with them a scarcity mentality that is contagious as a cold. Help them if you can, but take care that you do not share in the attitude that you must somehow slave for a living.

Craig Valentine, the founder of World Class Speaking, describes how you can take the lid off of a barrel full of crabs and none will escape. Whenever one crab tries to climb out, it is immediately pulled back down by the other crabs in the barrel. Crabby people do the same, because misery loves company.

We also have a Production Network, consisting of Managers, and our Team. These are the people who help make things happen. In order to generate wealth you need to have products or a service that you can sell. What is your product? Do you have a production process that can help you create and deliver your value to others? Consider who the people in your network are, and what position they occupy in your Wealth Network.

4 C’s in Opportunity

Once you have identified the people in your network, then you can find ways to engage them by clarifying your content, and then connecting with them through communication and collaboration. Here are 4 C’s to help you make the most of your opportunities with other people.

Collect your resources

Find containers to collect your output over time. This can be a blog, a diary, a book, a product, anything which takes a shape that remains over time for other people to recognize its value and potential. And that value will grow over time as the contents become increasingly relevant.

Connect with people

Find networks to connect with people over space. This can be a group or association, online or offline, any group that regularly communicates and trades through a system over the same channels, and one which grows stronger by association. That value too will grow over time as your contribution to the network becomes increasingly evident.

Collaborate on projects

Form partnerships to collaborate with others whose resources and networks complement and enhance your own. This can be a project, a product, a company, or even volunteer venture based on trust, similar values, and mutual merit, a bond which strengthens through action. The value of this too will increase through synergy, as the value of the partnership exceeds the value of the separate partners.

Celebrate by sharing

Make commitments to share the benefits with others who recognize your value and want to share in the process. This can be a social enterprise, donation of money or services, teaching process, or rally of support, one which gains momentum through inspiration and gratitude.

If you can value and use time in this way, you will never lack for ideas or support.

Make a Difference

At the end of the day, and throughout your life, the important question is did you leave the world a better place than you found it? Did you make a positive difference? Your real legacy is the influence that you have and have had on other people.

Ask yourself how you will be remembered, and how you want to be remembered? It is never too late to do something about it.

Carpe Diem: seize the day. This ancient advice still rings true, but it doesn’t contain any instructions  as to how it is done. Each person must find that answer for himself or herself. Whatever your answer you will be more successful if you have clear goals and keep focused.

The 80/20 principle states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the activities, the ones that matter most. For this we recommend a powerful software tool called GOALSCAPE, which can help you visualize, track, and achieve your Goals, and really make a difference in a way that most matters to you and other people.

You can download a WEALTH NETWORK MANDALA which summaries each of these ideas and strategies in key phrases for review and application. Take care the company you keep, and take care of the people you care about. As you feed and provide for your network, it will feed and provide for you.

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Tagged as: active garage, Flexible Focus, Goalscape, mandala charts, Time for a change, Time is Money, william reed

Ever feel lied to? Is it hard to put your finger on what, exactly, is wrong with what is being said or done? It can feel like you are trapped inside an Escher drawing. What to do?

My suggestion is, “Go with it!” If that is what is happening, then call it what it is. Let the team members and stakeholders know (in a calm voice, of course) that their closed arguments just don’t add up. And just how is this done without sounding like a loon yourself? Once again, it is one of those “reads easy, does hard” situations.

Let go of focusing on the outside world. Go within…and drag all that insanity with you. Let people talk. Listen. Absorb without judgment. The tools needed to spot inconsistency are already in your toolbox. Stop thinking and, as Obi Wan told Luke, “use the force.” This force is there all the time. It is called integrity.

I’ve had more than one CEO (but not many), as well as other stakeholders and team members, lie to me on a consistent basis. If challenged, they would say they were simply testing me, wanting to see if I knew my stuff. Which is fine if it stopped there. The problem is when they saw my ignorance or naiveté as a license to stay with the distortion and go on with whatever their (hidden) agenda was.

This may sound a bit paranoid. It isn’t. We all actually do it to some extent. That “extent” is determined by how much we lust after or want to avoid something. Ever fudge 15 minutes on billable hours? For guys, what do you say in response to, “Honey, do I look fat in this dress?”

Those situations to which I am referring to here, though, are the systematic ones. The situations where there is a conscious effort to paint a complete picture that is closed in scope but relies on fabrications. When this occurs the details fail to match up. And this is where the solution lies!

Pay attention to those details without getting swamped by them. The way to do that is by watching behaviors and seeing in what direction outcomes go based on believing what is told. See where that trail of bread crumbs leads. When you get that picture, go back and look at the details again.

Again, trust your judgment. Once you can draw a bead on some of the inconsistencies, i.e., articulate them, keep up the process. The details, upon which you need to focus, validate, look to see if they exist, are mutually inconsistent, etc., will become apparent. It’s as if they begin to phosphoresce.

As you confront (in a respectful, business-like manner) the situation there will be a natural repeating of the illusion. You’ll be asked to stare more closely at it, as with Enron when reporters where getting close to the truth. You might even be told you just don’t get it, that you need to mature and get up to speed in order to see the truth. It can be especially tempting when the person creating the illusion has power.

The fact is, if you work to stay with the inner truth there will be a calm out of which grows the ability to sum (no matter how many thousands or millions of dollars have been spent) the situation in 3 words, “It’s an illusion.” At that point, you can do the best project management possible.

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Tagged as: active garage, Change Management, Escher, false, gary monti, information, Project Management, projects, The soul of a project, time, truth

Growing into Interdependence

In the Flexible Focus Series we looked at the first principle of the Mandala Chart, Interdependence. That article looked at the 3 stages of growth, from dependence, to independence, to interdependence, and six steps to continuous improvement which can facilitate this growth process.

Once you begin to grow through Interdependence, a whole new set of factors come into play which enable you to cultivate and strengthen your relationships with other people, and with the universe itself.

To a small child the world revives around the self in a state of dependence. The baby cries when unhappy, and like magic mother takes care of all needs. This is a natural and healthy way for a baby to grow. However, in some people although the physical growth process continues, psychologically they remain needy and dependent, creating all kinds of problems for themselves and others.

At some stage before or after the age of 20, we come to seek independence. This is an important stage of growth, and essential to survival. However, it is also possible to become stuck in the appealing misconception that everything that happens depends on you. This is the world of the lone wolf entrepreneur, the rebel, the self-made man, and the independent woman. It can wear you down and end in a state of total exhaustion. Like Atlas trying to carry the entire world on his shoulders, in the end the burden is to great to bear.

Ultimately, and according to Carl Jung usually before or after the age of 50, you grow to seek interdependence. This is a more mature state, but unlike the two previous stages, there is no limit or limitation to the degree of connectivity you can have to the universe you live in. It is as limitless and inexhaustible as the universe itself.

That being said, the challenge is how you go about proactively and creatively cultivating this connectivity.

The Interface Connection

The character for 縁 (en) means interface, connection, and karma. It is often used to express a lucky meeting of people, an auspicious mingling of minds that produces blessings and benefits for those who become connected. It is often considered to be serendipitous, unsought but extremely lucky, and somehow meant to happen. You can have this connection with people, ideas, and places. It is a wonderful thing to experience, and one of the great mysteries of life.

While it happens through seemingly coincidental events, in fact synchronicity is deeply connected below the surface of awareness, and is not as accidental as it appears. It is possible to facilitate this process of positive change through mindful living, and paying attention to eight important factors in the interface connection.

• Attitude. Our experience and even what we see or do not see is conditioned to a large degree by what how we look at things. This has been proved in psychology experiments such as the Invisible Gorilla Experiment, which shows how people not only overlook the obvious, but even completely miss the totally outrageous when it stares them in the face. It is also well known that a positive disposition will make you happy, whereas a gloomy outlook casts a pall over everything and everyone. You find what you look for, so it only makes sense to cultivate a positive attitude.
• Gratitude.  When you become aware of interdependence there is a dawning awareness that all of the things that you have, all the things that you have become, depend in some important way on the help you received from other people. You didn’t do it all by yourself, and therefore it is only natural to appreciate and show your gratitude, not only in your heart by in your words and deeds. Find deeper ways to show your appreciation, and you will deepen your connection to other people.
• Association.  Of all of the people who can help you grow and increase your connectivity, it is the great teachers in your life who can create the most change. You most likely will not find them in school, though there are lucky exceptions. One reason why you are more likely to find a great teacher outside of school is that you have to seek them out, and the awareness and desire to fill the gap in your knowledge and skills is also an important part of interdependence. Choose carefully the people that you spend your time with, as they can either buoy you up or drag you down. Energy is what guides the relationship, so keep your energy positive and alive.
• Communication.  Many self-proclaimed great communicators are in fact poor listeners. So anxious to convey their own message, they forget to find out whether or in what way the other person might care. It is important to catch the atmosphere and mood of the people you are with, whether it is a small group or a large audience. A good way to gauge this is to ask great questions. Not only will you learn more, but good questions will open up hearts and minds. Once the flow of communication is there, you can enhance it wonderfully with the art of telling a story. This is what keeps people there, and makes them want to come back for more.
• Collaboration.  The notion of accumulating resources is based on the independent mentality, storing up for the future so that you will have enough for yourself. The interdependent mentality thinks differently. Rather than adding resources, it jumps to a new level by multiplying resources, matching your own resources with those of another through collaboration. However, it is vitally important to choose the right collaboration partner. If you have something good, many people will be attracted to it, but not all of them have the best intentions. If you have money, beware the gold diggers. If you have talent, beware the agents and producers. Work with people whose resources complement but do not compete with yours. The real test of a good collaboration is that all parties are essential to the partnership. Otherwise they will suck out of you what they can, and then leave the relationship which never existed in the first place, no matter how friendly the early approach may have been.
• Spaces.  Pay attention to ambience, the power of the place and the way it influences the people in it. Of course the place itself can be transformed by the energy of the people present. Ambience is enhanced through the five senses, plus the sixth sense of intuition. A space is like a stage, which can be set with lighting, color, and furniture, and enhanced through music, food, plants, even pets. It is a small universe that responds and creates response. A highly enjoyable way to increase your connectivity. Develop your own sense of presence so that you can be the master of the space wherever you travel.
• Words.  The power of words is magic. Words can captivate, entrance, enrage, or engage. The power of the Word is recognized in all religions, and is the driving force of culture. Choose your words and phrases in such a way to enhance and reinforce your relationships, as well as remember your experiences. Words can be expressed in multiple dimensions. The tone and quality of the voice carries words when spoken or sung. There is the power of the written word in literature, and the transformational effect of brush calligraphy in art. Words are a wonderful bridge to the world.
• Anchors.  We anchor our experiences in various ways, through imagery, metaphors, anecdotes, emotions. Those which are well anchored can be triggered through the smallest of reminders, a scent, a melody, a phrase. When you are centered you have more impact in your communication. It is as if you words have more weight, more substance, greater power to spread and take root. Anchors can be reinforced by going back to relive, revive, and remember your experiences. This is the power of a diary, and one of the driving forces behind social media.

You can download a CONNECTION MANDALA which summarizes these ideas as a reminder and a gauge of your level of connectivity through Interdependence.

Editor’s Note: The image (provided by www.toyouke.co.jp) depicts character for 縁 (en, connection), painted by William Reed on a charcoal egg.

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Tagged as: active garage, creativity, Flexible Focus, interdependence, japan, Leadership, life, management, mandala charts, manga, Time for a change, william reed

Raising the energy level of your meetings

We usually assume that an agenda is something prepared for a meeting, but unless the goals of the meeting are quite clear, it is likely that we will not meet our agenda.

A meeting can be a form of successful collaboration, or it can be a mindless ritual that saps your energy and time. What makes the difference is clarity of purpose, and a commitment to work as effectively as possible within the time available.

To truly meet your agenda you need to understand your circumstances and your objectives, and not simply pile on a list of things to do. The essential ingredient which determines the success or failure of any meeting is communication.

A highly practical model to understand communication was developed by Roger J. Hamilton, the founder of Wealth Dynamics, and Asia’s leading Wealth Consultant. Roger makes the distinction that communication contains a spectrum of four energy levels: Exchange, Connect, Motivate, and Inspire. While meetings are organized with best intentions, ask yourself at what level are most corporate meetings conducted? How often have you attended a meeting at which information is exchanged in a strange volley of suggesting and then shooting down each new idea that is presented?

The idea generators focus on possibilities, and suggest new things to do, or new ways of doing things. The idea critics focus on reasons why those ideas would not work, and therefore should be abandoned. This is demotivating for both sides. Mere idea exchange is a form of corporate wheel spinning, because without achieving any traction, there can be no effective action.

People connect when they get the goals at a gut level. Something clicks when the ideas and actions presented make sense not only at a logical level, but also at an emotional and intuitive level. Still nothing changes until people take this connection and do something with it.

Although the energy improves when people at the meeting become motivated, problems occur when the motivation is not shared by other members of the team, or when it lasts only as long as the meeting, and is soon forgotten on returning to the daily grind.

The reason we aspire to inspire is that inspiration lights the fire of internal motivation, and leads to action that does not need to be driven from the outside. Inspiration is self-sustaining.

Improving your LUCK

O, Fortuna! Since Ancient Greece and before humankind have been interested in improving its fortune. And yet the Wheel of Fortune is often portrayed as something whimsical, to which you need a magical connection for it to shine on you. Las Vegas thrives on the theme of Luck be a Lady Tonight! And yet when you look closely at those who are considered lucky in love, in business, and in life, you see that there are elements at work over which we all have some control.

One of the tenets of Wealth Dynamics is that LUCK is no accident. It is constructed of four elements that are easy to remember, yet not so easy to practice.

LOCATION

Location is the mantra in retail sales as the secret to success, but location is extremely important to success in any endeavor in life. The mood of a place can kindle or kill your enthusiasm. The decor of a room can affect how well you learn and what you remember. Environment is very important, and fortunately we can often do something about it, even if it means changing your physical location. In Japanese it is called 場 (ba) and is the primary focus when people set about trying to make improvements.

UNDERSTANDING

Understanding starts with seeing, not just on the surface, but deep behind the obvious. The character for 観 (kan) depicts a stork silent but fully aware of any movement. We need awareness, and an openness to see with the eyes of understanding, rather than judging the situation with blind eyes.

CONNECTIONS

Rather than starting a meeting with what you want to say, find out what information, experience, and emotions you have in common that are connected to the meeting agenda. Make sure that everyone feels connected and involved at some level. The character for 縁 (en) means edge, interface, connection, or relationship. It is frequently used to highlight how you are connected to another person, often in a surprising or synchronistic way.

KNOWLEDGE

The lowest component in communication is data, which can be assembled to create knowledge. However, knowledge only becomes useful when it is transformed into experience and wisdom. People easily assume that they know something just having heard about it. Socrates said that the beginning of wisdom was the realization that you know next to nothing. There is always more to learn, if you have the qualities of humility and curiosity in the right blend. The character for 知 (chi) means knowledge, but knowing at a deeper level. When you have this kind of knowledge you earn peoples’ trust through your natural authority and authenticity. Knowledge must then transform into action.

Download a Mandala Chart which summarizes these ideas with questions that will help you in Improving Your LUCK.

These words go deeper than their superficial meanings, and when you can combine them you get the magic winning hand! Your LUCK will naturally improve, and your meetings will meet the agenda with action and results.

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Tagged as: active garage, Flexible Focus, japan, Leadership, luck, management, mandala charts, manga, meeting agenda, meetings, Time for a change, william reed

We, at Active Garage had run this promotion for the free eBook earlier in the year and we are running this again, now. If you find yourself wondering that if the eBook has been available for free download since then, why are we saying we are “running the promotion again”? Valid point.

Here’s why.

The author of the eBook, Mark McGuinness, is opening doors to folks interested in Creative Success, once again, for his amazingly valuable course “The Creative Entrepreneur Roadmap”, for a limited period and seats are limited.

Before you go ahead with making a decision of if this course if for you or not, I would suggest reviewing the blog I had written in January about what being Creative means and who this book (and subsequently, the course) is for (yes, it is not for everyone… ).

There are some great success stories form real folks who have taken this course and produced magical results by directly applying what they have learnt from the course. For instance, there is:

• An interview with Amy Harrison (Mark is the interviewer) about how she transformed her business successfully.
• An interview with CJ Lyons who turned her book into a NY Times bestseller (ok, it was #2 on the NY Times bestseller list).

Since the course is now open for only a limited time, you could also directly go to the opt-in page to check it out and register.

To your Continued Success…

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Tagged as: active garage, Amy Harrison, CJ Lyons, Course, creativity, Freedom, independence, Leadership, management, Mark McGuinness, Money, The Creative Entrepreneurs Roadmap, time, training

It seemed like a small thing but once I finished it, I realized that it was actually a really big deal!  A friend recently left her job in New York City (NYC) and moved to a much smaller city in the southern US.  Today at lunch I saw her file in my Outlook Contacts and when I opened it, noticed that her NYC work address was still there.  As I deleted that address, one character at a time on my Blackberry, I got the most delightful feeling of relief when the last number of the NYC zip code disappeared into the ether!  It was as if I closed a chapter of her life.

I recalled the stress that the City levies on her residents, the constant fear of violent street crime, the challenge of grocery shopping without a car, just the general uneasiness my friend seemed to have whenever I visited her there or we talked on the phone.  She and I watched a drug deal go down across the street from her apartment one summer night.  And the cost of living in Brooklyn was surprisingly high – – -it took almost everything she made to buy the $5 boxes of cereal and the $3 quarts of milk.  And she was always sick.  Sinus infections, a bout of MRSA in a knee that she nicked shaving, a chest cold that wouldn’t go away: There was always something going on with her health.  A physician’s assistant friend told her “Yep, you’ll STAY sick for your first year in NYC because of all the germs that exists there and nowhere else, and the constant influx of immigrants from all over the world – – – nobody has immunity when they first arrive and it takes at least a year to build up a resistance to the bugs”.  We will never know if that would have been true in my friend’s case because she left at the one-year point.

She said the idea of renewing her apartment lease and living another year there was not at all appealing.  She enjoyed the work there as a TV producer and she really liked the company she worked with.  And she liked most of the social life and she loved the restaurants.  But she said the final straw for her was being so tightly packed in a subway car one morning that, with every breath, she inhaled into her mouth the stranger’s hair in front of her.  And she was too tightly sardined to move.  Turning her head helped a little but she apparently made a decision to change jobs (and cities) that morning.  I don’t blame her at all.  I wouldn’t have lasted a month there.  Maybe not a week.

So here’s the deal:

1. Have some respect for people who endure the City.  They put up with a lot.  And if you need them in your business, as a supplier to you for example, or a customer, be thankful they put up with life there.  It isn’t easy.
2. Try it yourself sometime.  If your industry/career values time spent in a major metro area, consider NYC for a 6-18 month stint.  You might even like it.  And lastly, well, I don’t have a third point – – –  I’m just VERY glad my friend is out of there and in a friendlier, slower-paced city in America’s southland.

No place is perfect, there is some crime everywhere and she may have issues what some facets of life in Charlotte in the years ahead but the big cities come with their own challenges, which sometimes, get the best of even the bravest and the most enduring!

In Summary: When you conduct business with what seems to be someone who is a little irate, or cold or unapproachable… be patient; you never know what they have endured just to get to that meeting or to make to that conference call…

Copyright: Solid Thinking Corporation

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Tagged as: ActiveGarage, CONOPS, Leader driven harmony, Leadership, mack mckinney, management, solid thinking corporation, solidthinking.org

Peter Drucker famously said the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.  In order to do that, of course, your business must provide a product, service or experience the customer judges to be preferable to all of the other products, services or experiences currently available.  In other words, you must create a compelling offer for the customer to buy what it is you sell.

A compelling offer has four primary characteristics.  It is:

1. Meaningful to the customer
2. Divergent from the competition
3. Intensely focused
4. Concisely communicated

Let’s consider each of these characteristics…

Meaningful to the Customer

Since Edward Chamberlin first coined the term “product differentiation” in his 1933 book, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, marketing gurus have beat the drum of differentiation.  And differentiation is critically important.  But not all differentiation is created equal.  Some differentiating qualities matter to the customer, others don’t.  For example, you might be the only bank in town that has horse in your logo.  That probably doesn’t matter to very many people.  On the other hand, if your bank is open 24 hours a day, that might be meaningful – especially in a community with a large number of night shift workers.

Divergent from the Competition

The second characteristic of a compelling offer is that it is divergent from the competition.  It’s unlikely that what you sell can be completely divergent from your competitors.  But if your product, service or experience isn’t divergent is some significant way, it simply doesn’t provide the customer with a compelling reason to buy from you.

Intensely Focused

The third characteristic of a compelling offer is that it must be intensely focused.  In their wonderful book, Made to Stick, the Heath brothers lobby for focus with this quote from a defense lawyer,

“If you argue ten points, even if each is a good point, when they get back to the jury room they won’t remember any.”

Customers and prospects simply don’t have room in their heads for all of the wonderfulness of your product.  So focus.  Tell them what matters most – emphasize the one thing that is most likely to compel them to buy from you.

Concisely Communicated

Finally, the fourth characteristic – your offer must be concisely communicated.  In the screenwriting trade, this is called the logline, or more commonly, the one-line.  The one-line tells potential viewers what the movie is about.  In his book, Save the Cat, Blake Snyder uses these examples of a one-line:

A cop comes to L.A. to visit his estranged wife and her office building is taken over by terrorists (Die Hard)

A businessman falls in love with a hooker he hires to be his date for the weekend (Pretty Woman)

Your one-line must explain to the customer what he or she gets, and it must do so in a heck of a hurry.  If your customers and prospects can’t easily remember and repeat your one-line, you probably need to keep editing.

If your offer contains these four components, it is likely to be compelling and your company is exceedingly likely to grow… leading to… A Good Business, A Great Life!

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Tagged as: A good business A great life, active garage, businesses, customers, distinguished, failure, focused, Jack Hayhow, made to stick, meaningful, save the cat, success