No 55 April 2005 Consider this:If you're like most business managers, you grew up watching a scruffy coyote futilely chasing a colourful bird. Now you're competing against companies started by twenty-two-year-olds who sleep under their desks. Be honest: In today's business world, who is chasing whom? In business today you are either a Wile E. Coyote or a Road Runner. If you're using old solutions to new problems and are pathologically in love with "Acme Products," you are a Wile E. Coyote. Become Road Runners-road warriors in a new era of supercharged, super changing business competition
So which are you?? BananasDavid Major, one of our members, commented that wherever in the world you go, the banana is the one food that is reasonably safe. It has its own natural external armour that protects what is inside from being contaminated by just about any animal or natural circumstances. Most people like bananas. I like them any way you want to fix them: Banana splits, banana sandwiches, bananas on cereal or in fruit salad, and of course, just a banana by itself. One of my kids will eat a banana dipped in chocolate. But before a banana can be eaten, there's some business to take care of -- the peel has to go. A banana peel is actually a double problem: it tastes bad and if you step on it you'll slip and fall. Everybody knows that. Indeed, the banana peel has become a metaphor for danger underfoot. So with two of the three things we know about bananas being bad, when we see a banana why do we first think about how good it will taste? Why don't we dwell on the two negatives instead of the one positive? It's because we know that if the banana is handled correctly by removing and properly disposing of the peel (including the strings, I hate those), we can have a pleasing and healthy result. So what if we looked at problems in our businesses the way we look at a banana: A good thing wrapped in a distasteful and possibly dangerous peel? Many of the problems we face in our small businesses won't have any worse odds than a banana -- 2:1, negative to positive. When you're presented with a problem, instead of dwelling on the negatives, imagine the possibilities. But just imagining won't get the job done. Just like with a banana, you must first deal with the problem's outer peel. Work on becoming an expert at properly disposing of a problem's peel so you can get to the good stuff. If you can make this your default approach to problems, I'm convinced that our world will change.
What is Success?I'm sure, like most of us, you've often read of someone from a 'humble' or disadvantaged background who eventually 'made it good'. I'll bet you were inspired for a while weren't you? Something inside made your chest swell a little, and for a few seconds you felt good yourself. Maybe for a few minutes you even thought to yourself that YOU could achieve something in your life. Then the realities of everyday living returned and you settled back into the usual routine. But what IS achievement? What IS success? Making a million dollars? Becoming a famous author? Conquering the fear of that PC? On one of the American broadcasts a year or two back (CNN perhaps), there was a news report about a 72 year old guy who had been kicked out of the oil company he started 40 years ago. So he started another company selling natural gas to Californian vehicle users. In his first year he ONLY made $1.5 million from his 'modest' company, and I would guess that he doesn't yet feel it's successful. So success is a relative thing. Over Christmas, I watched a tape of an expedition to conquer Mt Everest. To get to the top of that mountain even now is a team effort. Dozens of people are needed to get one or two of them to the peak. Yet when that happens, every member of the support team feels they have been successful. Seeing children or grandchildren take that first step and the reaction on that little face. Both child and family are ecstatic! For hours or days or weeks, they dine out on the achievement ... Isn't that success? In the Computers in Homes project with which I am involved I get emails from folk expressing their appreciation for helping them conquer their 'beast' of a computer. Isn't that a huge success for them? Some people conquer mountains while most of us merely observe. Yet our mountains come in many different sizes, and in many different forms. Learning how to use email is an everyday event to millions of us. But it's a virtual Everest to many. So how do we conquer mountains when we aren't born climbers?... Use what you have to the best of your ability. Uncover your strengths and use them to help you achieve what you want. If your immediate goal is to conquer your PC and the Internet, use your reading ability to surf the Web and read everything you can on the subject. The library is a good place start - there are the manuals written by the experts (I avoid them) through to the "..for Idiots" series through to the type with lots of diagrams and pictures in the children's section.. Leaning and achieving, is that success? If you're a reasonable writer, write an article on a subject you know about, and send it to a few publishers and Newsletter owners. What about businesses that produce staff newsletters. It's an awesome feeling when you first see your work actually published! It's interesting to note that women over 50 are one of the fastest growing users of the Internet. So if you find that your family has just flown the coop, why not start a simple Website about the ……. A huge number of new Internet users are older folk who are moving into new lifestyles. Their biggest strength - apart from their vast life experiences - is, so we are told, the spare time they have on their hands. For these folk, the opportunities are there for the picking. Think about the internet and how that might be used. A friend of mine who "retired" about 10 years ago was writing a gardening book. The hard copy book is still in draft form but his interest is in putting it into an e-book. He attended Seniornet courses, experimented with his PC, took advantage of his other hobby of photography and now we are waiting for the outcome. Is that success? So you don't have to be a mountain climber to achieve success. Start with sitting down and writing a list of everything you're good at. Don't be modest - no one else will see it. Then spend some time - NOT the next twenty years! - finding a way to utilise the strengths you already have. And before long you'll feel the same fantastic buzz as that child who walked, or the family who watched her, or the people who conquered that PC. But whatever you do, do something you really enjoy. Let's rethink failure."Any successful company is riddled with failures."
"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." ~ Henry Ford |
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