CATS comes to the Books n Brew

At our recent Books n Brew we all met at the Hot House Cafe, had a few brews, and discussed Stephen Lundin's book CATS - The Nine Lives of Innovation. The overall consensus ~ the book's content is good and helpful but the use of cats is irritating!


Mette Keating, owner of InDeVision (www.InDeVision.com) and creator of "The Office Alive" Program, kindly "volunteered" to write this blog about the book. Thank you Mette!

CATS is definitely one of the better books that I have read lately.  Read it and use it to spark the curiosity and creativity within every employee and inspire innovation approaches to ordinary everyday situations.

Challenge yourself with these CAT Nips below:

Nip 1.

Think of a time when you were devastated by the comments of a thoughtless critic.

*What was your idea?

*What did the voice of judgment say?

*How did that feel?

*What did you think but not say out loud?

*What did you say?  What did you do then?

*Did you fight back or give up?

*What are the long-term effects of this drama if it is played over and over again?

*How can you stop the drama from playing in your life?

Now find someone to talk about this with, and see what his experience has been with critics.

Nip 2.

Try something that has the potential to instantly create spaciousness in your life.  When you find yourself evaluating or judging, redirect your attention to curiosity and wonder.  Try to see the same thing with the open interest of an infant.  The world looks different when you simply see it and don't judge it.

Nip 3.

Can you think of some personal examples of workplaces that seem, by the very nature, to breed fun and innovation?

*Ask yourself this question: "When do I have the most fun at work?"

*Now ask yourself: "When am I most innovative at work?"

Nip 4.

What are the names of the primary content files you have accumulated?  For example, you might have files for management, motivation, research design, metallurgy, leadership, astronomy, physics, math, change ... name yours.

*Do you have a Mind Map for each of these?  Make one, and keep it updated for the rest of your life.

*Prepare a place to keep neat ideas?

*Review your Mind Maps each week?  Do it.

Nip 5.

Consider putting yourself in situations that will stretch your boundaries:

*Travel, but without a tour group.  Have a personal experience.

*Read biographies of people in a variety of fields.

*Hang out with those who are not at all like you.

*Observe life!

*Try things just for the sake of experiencing them (legal things).

*Look for ways to walk in someone else's shoes.

Nip 6.

Here are some things you can tell yourself when you are stuck:

*How fascinating!

*It's not the end of the world, for goodness sake!

*I will live another day to tell the story.

*Let's backtrack and see what went wrong.

*It could have been a lot worse!

*Hmm, what can I learn from this episode?

*Adversity builds character.

*Five years from now, how important will this seem? 
  
Visit Mette's web site to see the fantastic work she does to make workplaces come alive! www.InDeVision.com

To Tweet Or Not To Tweet

To Tweet or not to Tweet. That is the question put to us on a regular basis by our business owner clients. Should Twitter be a part of their marketing strategy, they ask. Like everything in life there isn't a yes or no answer! The place to start is your target market. Where and who is your ideal client? According to a recent Toronto Star article the Solutions Research Group has identified the Canadian Twitter demographics to be:

• 42% are aged 18 to 34
• 28% are 35 to 49
• 17% are 50 and older
• 13% are 12 to 17

So if your target market is consumers in the 12 to 17 age group then you may think twice. Not to say some businesses are not using Twitter well by announcing upcoming events or the introduction of new products. The Toronto Star article (September 26th Business Section) cites evidence that Twitter does have a growing following of businesses. And it quotes Keith Macarthur, Roger's head of social media, who can see Twitter becoming a great tool for their customer relations.

The problem as I see it is that the business Tweets are crowded out by the hundreds of innocuous messages like "I have just eaten the best ham sandwich ever" or "On the way to work I saw the coolest shoes". Furthermore we have to wait for the qualified "followers" to find us and want to follow us. I always prefer more proactive marketing strategies myself. As Adrian Davis, President of Whetstone, wrote in a recent blog "these (social media) are focused on quantity of connections rather than quality".

We have a model we use when working with our clients: "While you are doing one thing, you can't be doing another thing." This is particularly true for small business owners who do not have armies of people to delegate work to. So if you are focused on getting Twitter up and running as an effective marketing tool you are not doing some other maybe proven marketing activity. Not to say you shouldn't try but keep in mind that Twitter is yet to prove itself as an effective marketing tool.

Social media is here to stay. And it's fun. But is Twitter the right marketing tool for business? Is Twitter worth the investment of our scarce resources - time and money? Will Twitter enhance the very core of quality marketing - relationship building? I don't think so. But it is time for some serious debate on the benefits of the social media for businesses. To start the debate I bring your attention to two excellent articles on the subject.

This one was written by David Baker, founder of ReCourses - David's article
And this comes from Adrian Davis, President of Whetstone Inc - Adrian's article

So think about it. Will Twitter and all the other social media become the future marketing miracles for us business owners or will they fade into the sunset. No, they are not going to fade away! I'm just not sure what form they will take. And I'm not sure if they will become an integral part of our marketing tool box.

Join the debate. Leave a comment or email me at nick@yourplanningpartners.com.

The Perfect Business

We at Your Planning Partners believe every Canadian business owner should have the opportunity to build the Perfect Business. But what is a Perfect Business?

The Perfect Business supports the life style you and your family want. This covers everything from personal income through to life balance. It means the business is not consuming every minute of your life. It means your family and/or friends are not complaining about your constant absences or starting to exclude you from family events. It means you are receiving an income commensurate with your role and responsibilities.

The Perfect Business is one you enjoy passionately. You love the nurturing, the leading, the guiding that successful businesses need. You get great delight in seeing your people grow professionally. You get excited every time a new customer comes on board. You are proud of your business.

The Perfect Business has value so one day, when you are ready, it can be sold. Yes it might be far away over the horizon but the reality is there. One day you will not be around to run the business and you cannot take it with you. Or, more likely, one day you will be wanting to do something else; retire or start another business or take up stamp collecting. Whatever it may be you will still need an income. Your business is your retirement income.

So in short the Perfect Business:

1. Supports the lifestyle you and your family want
2. You enjoy passionately
3. Has value so can be sold

What are your thoughts about the Perfect Business? Leave a comment to this post or email me at nick@yourplanningpartners.com. Have a good week building your Perfect Business!

Books n Brew

Rob MacGregor, owner of Koyana Inc ("We Save Software Projects In Crisis!" www.koyanainc.com) selected the Books n Brew book and led the lively discussion that took place about what we as small business owners can learn from it. The overwhelming consensus about the book ~ What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith; it is a must read for all small business owners.

Here is a surprised Rob winning one of the door prizes from Anne Sowden. The prize ~ the book Executive Image Power of which Anne is one of the contributing authors (www.hereslookingatyou.ca).

Other door prizes:

• 30 minutes of remote IT support from DigitalFire (www.digitalfireinc.com) won by Martha Dove (www.marthadove.com)
  
• Copy of the next Books n Brew book Cats The Nine Lives of Innovation presented by Your Planning Partners and won by Jonathan Roberts (www.zzeem.com)
  

Do You Like Your Customers?

Do you like your customers? Yes you heard me. Do you like your customers? Of course you say. After all they are the people paying me. They are my customers for goodness sake!

Indeed they are but over the years we have met business owners who spend a great deal of energy complaining about their customers. We hear statements like:

• They are high maintenance
• They expect me to drop everything for them
• They have no idea what they are doing
• They are always complaining about us
• They are stupid

And more often than not this is being said in front of other people! And the culture of the business is one in which complaining about the customers is a cool thing.

A second observation. Business owners whose attitude is 'our customers are a nuisance' are constantly battling up hill. They never achieve the success they want. In many cases they never get off the ground. How could they; after all they don't like the very essence of their business, their customers. And their customers can feel the negative vibes.

So if you know a business owner who falls into this category do him a huge favour. Sit him down, pour him a drink and tell it to him straight; close down your business and save yourself lots of stress and money.

Or try the better way. Sit her down, pour her a drink and explain to her that if she does not change her attitude about her customers she will not succeed. Tell her to take the first step to a successful business by instilling this non negotiable rule into her company ~ there will be no complaining, no whining, no negative comments about any of our customers. That's all. Just start there and in time she will see results.

Fragmented Focus Treadmill

Are you stuck on the Fragmented Focus Treadmill? You know the feeling; running and running ever faster and getting absolutely nowhere. No real purpose other than keeping up with the relentless movement of the treadmill's belt. No focus beyond staying upright on the treadmill.

The Fragmented Focus Treadmill is harmful to your health and to the health of your business. It causes great stress without any reward and it stops business growth in its tracks.If you have one or more of the following symptoms you are stuck on the treadmill:

• Tired, overwhelmed and concerned about the future
• Reacting to situations rather than being proactive
• Working on urgent things to the detriment of important things
• Working harder and harder but achieving nothing of importance
• No personal life outside of the business
• No clear vision of the future
• And to make it even worse you have lost your passion for the business

The first step to get off the treadmill is to develop a plan to map out the future of your business. This is not the back of the envelope that has scribbles on it about the revenue you want to generate. It is a carefully thought out strategic plan with a clear picture of the future (3 Year Objectives), the 1 Year Goals to take you toward your three year destination and the strategies and actions necessary to achieve the goals. The criteria for an effective plan are:

• It's measurable and realistic
• It's documented
• Your entire team knows it
• It is used on a daily basis; not locked away in a bottom draw
• It is flexible because we expect the unexpected

The Fragmented Focus Treadmill is one of the barriers to business success. Once your plan is done and you have tentatively stepped off the treadmill you must now stay off. Next time we will cover some tools you can use to stay focused and therefore stay off the Fragmented Focus Treadmill.

Delegate

The owner is often the barrier to achieving success with the business. One of the main causes is that she does not have enough time to do everything that needs to be done. The last post dealt with some tips on how to find more time. Now we are going to deal with the biggy ~ delegation.

If there is one thing business owners are really bad at it is delegation. They either refuse to delegate on the erroneous belief that they are the only ones who can do everything to the quality they want. Or they delegate badly and so it doesn't work, which reinforces the belief that noone else can do it as well as them. So today we will cover Delegation 101.

The first step in successful delegation is to identify what should be delegated. For this we have the Strategic Focus Delegation Worksheet. It is a simple tool that works! Picture 4 columns. The first (and widest) is called Activity; next is one headed Me!, followed by a column headed Delegate? and finally one called To Whom. List the activities you do over a number of days so there is a good chance of capturing 90% of the things you do. When you think you have captured everything work through the list putting a tick mark in the Me! column next to the activities that only you can do. Then work back through the list and place a tick mark in the Delegate? column.

When this is complete you will have a few activities with no tick marks; they are probable ones that can be discarded. To those activities that you have decided to delegate assign a name of a person or a job title in the To Whom? column. You are now ready to delegate! For purposes of this blog, which is all about delegating successfully, we will bypassing the topic of recruitment and assume you have in place the person who will be the delegatee. This is what you:

1. Clearly identify and agree on your "expectations"
2. Show the person how to do the job
3. Watch the person do the job correcting where necessary
   
4. Let him do the job and you check the results
5. When you are satisfied that the job is being done to your expectations you have delegated!
6. From time to time check the results

Follow these simple steps and you will soon be delegating like an expert ~ and finding time to do the things you love to do ~ and achieving the success you want with your business.