Botany Bay BEC -- Mental Toughness

I am aware of my desire

Mental Toughness

The success or failure of running a business probably has more to do with the physical and mental feelings of the person involved than with almost any other activity in life. And yet, few entrepreneurs really have a plan to remain as ‘visionary’ as they were when they started.

Be aware of yourself as well as your business

Awareness is always the beginning of change. The small business owner who perceives what is happening in the present, who sees things in all their multiple aspects – both internal and external – has a tremendous advantage over a competitor who is less aware.

If the marketplace is in flux, you should be aware of impending change. Being unaware of market conditions can hurt and sometimes kill off a venture.

Being aware of such unpleasant realities as tax obligations, new competitive pressures in the marketplace, or looming increases in rent, utilities, or other fixed monthly expenses will help you make good decisions.

Unawareness usually consists of not knowing that you don’t know.

In developing a new venture we can quickly find ourselves in trouble if we ignore the many risks that may arise.

How aware are you right now?

Detached observation happens in the present – right now.

“Dear friend”: “Cease worrying about who you were, and who you may someday become. Bury the dead past, and trust not the future. Stay here. Most are sadly lost to regrets about the past, and fears of the future, lost to the ordinary, anxious thoughts that imperil our existence. Only by staying here can you ever change”.

Link your awareness and your experience

Awareness develops, in part, from experience. Experience is the history of events in a particular sector and what an individual has learned through those events.

Make a short list of characteristics of your business.

A hypothetical sample list might say : “We are an office supplies store, located in the heart of the business district of a small southeastern city. We stock 1 015 different products. We employ 5 people full time and 12 part time. Our carpeting is blue and somewhat frayed and our walls and ceiling are a cream colour. We have windows that give us natural light and look out on a busy street. Most of our customers come from a radius of 12 miles and are predominantly male. We have relationships with about 30 different suppliers”.

People are usually aware of their weaknesses but often tend to be in denial.

What I know and do well in my business:

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Things I need to know and skills in which I’m weak:

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“The things we see every day are the things we never see at all”.

Talking over ideas with another person will almost always expand awareness – even if all you learn is what you don’t want to do!

Harness the positive power of attention

Do what you are doing while you are doing it. - A Zen principle

Attention is closely linked to awareness. If awareness acts like a light illuminating the darkness, attention gives you the ability to direct that light where you choose.

When you pay attention, you learn.

Attention is a bit like breathing – everybody does it, nobody really notices it. False! Not everybody “does” attention very well, and if you do have it down you will notice it.

The main benefits of focussing your attention well are:

Better results
More clarity
Higher creativity
Improved learning.

How do you make yourself aware of your weaknesses

Focussing your thoughts and energy on an idea or project is what makes the project happen! Conceptualize it as the flow of the jet stream that builds to a certain power and pushes the aircraft into the air.

Flow is that state of highly focussed but relaxed attention.

In the mode of flow, fear of failure recedes to practically zero. All matters not bearing on the activity of the moment are pushed far to the periphery of the mind.

Listen first, then respond
Practice active listening
Employ body language that supports listening
Ask information-seeking, not argumentative questions.

Using these powerful techniques, you can bring your awareness to your conversations and focus your attention on the techniques so that you employ them effectively.

Many people focus but do not action, e.g. write a business plan and leave in the file to gather dust. Balance between focus and action is one without the other doesn’t work.

Times I listened well:

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Times I listened poorly:

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Keep your attention strong and sharply focussed

Attention has two major components: (1) strength and (2) focus. Be aware of how you do or do not concentrate.

Weak attention is characterised by a lack of energy
Weak attention can be traced to something as simple as lack of adequate exercise, poor nutrition, or other health problems
Your attention may not be so much weak as it is wondering.

The following steps will heighten your concentration:

Improve your diet
Start (and continue) a well balanced exercise programme
Use your mind regularly
Practice daily meditation.

Attention and work styles

Peak hours
Pace
Duration
People contact
Distraction tolerance.

Peak hours

People have natural cycles that govern their attention capacities. Your ability to focus, in other words, fluctuates during the day. These cycles are different from one person to another.

Pace

Some people seem to rush from one task to another as if there were no tomorrow. At the other end of the spectrum are the plodders. “Easy does it!” is their slogan. The important thing to note here is that one pace is not necessarily, or always, better than another.

Duration

How long can you effectively concentrate on any one project? An hour? Two? More? Hence, the expression, “Let’s sleep on it”. Again, know thyself! Figure out what works best for you.

People

contact The degree of people contact suitable for each of us constitutes a major work style. Many entrepreneurs prefer a substantial amount of people contact. This is not true for all.

Distraction Tolerance

Distractions, changes and interruptions are part of everyday life in business. Some of us tolerate distractions much better than others. The main thing is to know what your tolerances are.

Recognise mind-sets that help or hurt your company

It is the mind that makes good or ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.

Prior to 1954, many of the world’s best runners – thought that it was not possible for a human being to run a mile in less than four minutes.

Roger Bannister of England broke four minutes running the mile.

Thirty seven other runners were able to run the mile in under four minutes over the next 12 months. After so many years of runners attempting unsuccessfully to break the four minute mile, what happened to change things? What happened was that one man’s “doing the impossible” rewrote the mental model.

How mind-sets affect your perceptions

We might not be rich, but we have our health.
Money is the root of all evil.
Save your money for a rainy day.
Money doesn’t grow on trees.
When I was your age we were so poor I had to …
A penny saved is a penny earned.
It takes money to make money.
Is that money burning a hole in your pocket?
The rich keep getting richer.
You work all day, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.
Mind sets only last for short term people generally regress to old existing habits.

Let’s see what other mind-sets you bring to your venture by completing this list. Some expressions regarding money I remember from childhood:

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Mental models have overriding impact on whether we:

1. See ourselves as attractive to others – either for our physical appearance or our way of dealing with people (and hence, “salable”). 2. Operate in an organised or disorganised fashion. 3. Are able to ask for help from experts in various areas where we are weak. 4. Manage to get along with a spouse or business partner or our staff. 5. Can judge when it is reasonable to take a risk – and how much of a risk to take.

It is important that you (1) become very aware of your mind-sets and (2) turn your attention on those that may be holding you back from achieving your goals.

Mental models to spur business

Most successful business people share some mind-sets with others who have achieved their goals. Some of these mind-sets are:

I can learn from everything that happens to me or around me.
I retain my power when I take responsibility for my actions.
I am more productive when I focus on solutions rather than on problems.
I learn from my mistakes.
I fail only when I strop trying.
I share credit with others who have been part of a successful effort.
My limits are largely self imposed – and I can change them.

Mind-sets for entrepreneurs

One important reality of mental modes is that the models that may have been very helpful to us as employees are often counterproductive for us in developing a business. Once we are building our own business, all too often we try hard to manage our lives in much the same way we did when we were a salaried employee.

A common mind-set of corporate employees is that it’s good to be a highly trained specialist. Entrepreneurs need to develop the mind-sets of generalists.

Persistence and patience

Persistence is critical for changing mental models.

At this point you have learned to be aware of everything going on around you, focus your attention and identify and change your mind-sets.

Understand the influence of feelings on business

Expressing feelings was long taboo in the workplace, probably because that arena was so dominated by men, and “real men” were not supposed to cry. Human beings believe we must be masters of our emotions. This mastery means never letting fear get the best of us.

We have often been living in denial. There truly can be things on the horizon that threaten the stability or even the survival of the enterprise we head. Falling back on such macho maxims as “grin and bear it,” “just tough it out,” and “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” may not always be the best mental or emotional approach.

Feelings are the language of relationships

Feelings are the body’s way of “talking” to you about what is going on in the environment right now.

Why your feelings are important in business

Your skill with identifying, experiencing and expressing emotions helps build relationships, and relationships are at the heart of building a business.

Know your emotions
Manage your emotions
Motivate yourself
Recognise emotions in others
Handle relationships well.

Good feelings raise productivity

When people feel cared about and supported, they will do their utmost to live up to the trust of those who support them.

Feelings awareness aids conflict resolution

Answer these four questions:

What are you observing?
What are you feeling?
What are your unmet needs?
How can you frame a request to meet your needs?

Improve your emotional intelligence

Everyone has ideas or mind sets about feelings and where they do or don’t belong in the workplace. Whatever you currently believe is either a help or a hindrance to experiencing, expressing and managing feelings.

Be aware of your feelings

Ask yourself, “What am I feeling right now? Am I feeling engaged by this subject? Fearful? Bored?” Don’t judge these feelings, just notice what you are feeling and write it down.

Your feelings provide a feedback system

Feelings tell you how you are responding to your environment. You may even think of feelings as feeding information back to your body, mind, spirit and your life in general.

Measure the intensity of your feelings

Measuring feelings on a scale of 1 to 10 will help you quantify their intensity. You may at first think that what you are feeling is boiling rage, but if you recall another moment when you were on the brink of exploding right through the top of your head, you may decide that, no, this anger’s not a 10, maybe an 8, or maybe only a 7. It helps to do this.

Express your feelings

Now that you know what you are feeling, what is the best way to express your feelings? Many of us have to get over a lesson we were taught as children: It is bad to tell others how you really feel about something.

Grin and bear it. Don’t get bent out of shape. Don’t take things so hard. Lighten up. If this is your mind set, you have a lot to overcome. There are inappropriate or counterproductive ways of expressing your feelings. For instance, telling someone, “You drive me crazy with the way you handle your project,” or “You’re the cause of all my headaches because of your lack of savvy when handling customer complaints.” To say that others make you feel some way or other is to deny that you have any power over your own feelings or your own circumstances.

Do not say, “I feel that …” What follows, typically, is not a feeling at all, but a thought or an idea for a course of action.

Remember that your expression of feelings is subjective.

Expand your feelings vocabulary

Too often we limit our expressions of feeling to a handful of objectives. Here are some suggestions:

Affectionate

Discouraged

Afraid

Distressed

Aggravated

Eager

Amazed

Embarrassed

Angry

Encouraged

Annoyed

Enthusiastic

Anxious

Envious

Appreciated

Excited

Bewildered

Fascinated

Bored

Frightened

Cheerful

Glad

Concerned

Grateful

Confident

Hostile

Confused

Hurt

Curious

Impatient

Delighted

Interested

Depressed

Irritated

Disappointed

Lonely

Loving

Satisfied

Mad

Secure

Nervous

Sensitive

Optimistic

Shocked

Overjoyed

Surprised

Pained

Thankful

Peaceful

Troubled

Perplexed

Trusting

Proud

Uncomfortable

Regretful

Uptight

Resentful

Worried

Sad

Some words people use to express feelings are really expressions of a feeling and an interpretation combined.

Abandoned

Misunderstood

Accepted

Neglected

Attacked

Patronised

Belittled

Rejected

Betrayed

Threatened

Blamed

Unaccepted

Cheated

Unappreciated

Criticised

Unimportant

Disliked

Unloved

Distrusted

Unworthy

Ignored

Used

Inadequate

Victimised

Avoid words that have a manipulative nature to them. Such words are:

Ashamed

Worthless

Guilty

Wrong

Stupid

Manage your feelings

The reason most businesses do not encourage expression of feelings is the stereotypical notion that “feelings get in the way”. This can indeed be the case if people are not managing their feelings very well, and are expressing them in a destructive fashion.

To manage your feelings well, you must know:

What those feelings are
How intensely you hold them
How best to express them so that others will take your expression as useful information.

Redirecting feelings

You redirect your expressions of feelings to gain a positive outcome. Re-read the previous sections to help you choose the right words.

Manage anger

You must first understand where it comes from. Underneath most angry feelings lies the frustration in not getting your needs or wants met.

Still deeper under the frustration lies hurt.

A boss who typically explodes at his or her employees is angry because they are not, somehow, matching up to the boss’s expectation of how, or in what time frame, a piece of work will get done.

To manage your anger, instead of letting it rule you, try these exercises:

Breathe deeply for four or five minutes
Write down your feelings and the circumstances that triggered the anger in a journal
Vent with a caring friend (ideally not someone involved in bringing up your anger).

Managing fear

To manage fear you must first notice when you feel afraid. Underlying most fear is the thought that you will not be able to handle what you think may happen (having others discover your mistakes).

Extreme cases of fear include paranoia or panic attacks. These waves of emotion can be so immobilising that some people are afraid to leave their homes.

Be aware of others’ feelings

Understanding this process is already the beginning of abating the storms that rage inside.

You can increase your awareness of others’ feelings by becoming a better listener and empathising with others.

Awareness of others’ feelings leads to a heightened capacity for helping others to manage their feelings appropriately.

Once you are in touch with your own feelings, you are equipped to be more sensitive to the feelings of those with whom you work.

Once you are aware of the feelings of those around you, you can begin to manage your own emotional reactions to others’ feelings much better. Managing your responses will help tone down the anger, fears and other emotional responses rising up from your employees, customers or clients.

There is a significant difference between large and small business attitude towards a persons feelings.

Light your entrepreneurial fire

Desire creates: it makes something out of nothing; it is the start of all great ventures.

Desire is the one quality that most entrepreneurs seem to have in abundance.

You might call desire drive or passion or self motivation or enthusiasm. Whichever term you use, you probably have a gut feeling that that quality is what gives you the energy to struggle for success.

Powerful teams form around a leader who comes to work exuding enthusiasm for the venture, by verbal cues, gestures and facial expressions.

You can lack other qualities, such as organisation, vision and top-flight communication skills and still get off the ground if your desire is strong enough.

Where does desire come from?

What makes certain people passionate about their life and the ventures they undertake while others languish in lukewarm torpor? The truth is, no one is entirely sure.

Often, desire is a reflection of an individual’s personal power.

The ebb and flow of desire is something else that often eludes explanation. Age too plays its part. However, the impact of circumstances cannot be discounted.

Bring your awareness and your focusing capacity to bear on your desire. See how you respond to these questions:

What is my level of desire for my venture right now?

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When was my desire highest?

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Why was it high then?

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What helps to stoke my desire?

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What can I do now to put myself in touch with the best of my desire?

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Raise your level of desire

Desires usually are not all or nothing? They are like a dimmer switch that can be turned from very low to full brightness.

Is it desire, enthusiasm, or excitement?

Enthusiasm, in other words, bubbles up within us from the wellspring I am calling desire.

Occasionally, enthusiasm might break forth in excitement. With excitement you may be prone to move quickly and talk in high energy spurts. You blurt out “Wow! Our fourth-quarter earnings are going to be up 20 percent and next year’s looking great, too!”

Desires trigger feelings

Feelings – depend to a large extent on your underlying desires.

You desire to experience beauty in your life. So when you come face to face with it, as when driving along the ocean, you see the glorious panorama of a perfect sunset.

Even negative emotions have a relationship to desire. You desire to live in a safe environment. So when you walk through an area you consider “safe” and see a store window pierced with bullet holes, you shudder with fear. Your desire to be safe is threatened.

Remember your moments of burning desire

Ask that storage place of happy memories in your mind to play the film clips of your “best moments”.

Focus your attention now specifically on your business life. Recall the idea stage, the planning stage, your first day in the business.

These memories can be like fuel to keep your passion burning when times are tough or uncertain.

Write your best memories on the lines below:

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Self-motivation is the key to enduring success

People who are self-motivated, who can call up desire and enthusiasm when they need it, are very entrepreneurial.

Self-motivation is being a self-starter. It is an essential trait for any entrepreneur.

Acknowledging your own energy and your positive points contributes greatly to your level of self-motivation. Just telling yourself: “Hey, I’m doing a good job here. I’m making progress. Things are moving, and I’m part of making it happen”.

Sell with desire

Desire impacts sales more than any other area of business. If you don’t have the desire to sell, you will find it difficult to get on the phone or show up in person to sell your product or service. Desire makes you feel “up”.

Win battles through self-discipline

Self-discipline, a core part of self-motivation.

Discipline implies that what you are doing is something you might rather not do – or at least not right now. Self-discipline calls you to force yourself to put forth the required effort to get the result you are after.

For some people, discipline equals a loss of freedom. But freedom to do what? To fail in business?

Recall when you had to exercise strict self-discipline to reach a goal. Write down these memories below; they will become the trophies that remind you that you have what it takes to succeed in business.

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Build the “It’s all worth it!” mind-set

Believe that in the end all your sacrifices, creativity, hard work, and stick-to-it-iveness will pay off. You’ll be glad you went through it all.

There are risks and unknowns, rewarded with the exhilaration of learning not only to survive the effort – but to thrive in it, to draw great pleasure and satisfaction from it and to know it’s all worth it.

Create positive feelings

The capacity to create or at least positively influence, your feelings is an invaluable skill for people building a business. Here are some approaches:

Eliminate negative self-talk
Affirm yourself and your people
Do the “YES” exercise. Just repeat it out loud to yourself two or three times right now” “yes, Yes, YES!” Better still, shot it out “YES!!” Doesn’t that feel wonderful?
Visualise the successful outcome you desire
Hire a coach
Recreate yourself through recreation
Have fun on the job.

Test your inner game EQ: Desire

Rate yourself from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong) on how much each statement reflects your current state. Go with the first answer that comes to mind as you read each statement. Circle the number that best represents your capacity in each quiz item.

Build Strong Business Habits

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle Entrepreneurs, perhaps more than salaried workers, live or die according to whether they can capitalise on the habits that already bolster their chosen endeavour. Do you fear cold calling? How much business are you losing because you are letting fear rule your behaviour? Perhaps you have never acquired the good habit of being able to remember people’s names. When you meet them on a second or third occasion, you have to apologise and say, “Excuse me, but … what was your name again?” If networking provides the link that holds your business together, you have an incredibly weak link. Have you come to believe that saving receipts and writing down travel mileage is something only trained CPAs ever do? All these behaviour quirks relate to the habits you have developed from early childhood on. So how can you come to grips with unwanted habits, really change for the better, and keep the magic happening month after month? Habits are formed by repetition. They are like an airplane running on automatic pilot. The patterns associated with the habit are engraved on our brains. Habits are controlled by the subconscious mind.

See the habit

You can’t change a habit until you see yourself doing it. So the first step to getting rid of an unsupportive habit that is holding you back in your business is to heighten your awareness of it. Fix your attention on this particular habit, maybe by having a meeting videotaped or by asking someone you know and trust to give you a signal during a meeting that says, “There you go, doing that obnoxious gesture again.”

Four cycles for altering behaviours

Not knowing that you are not good at something: unconscious incompetence
Knowing that you are not good at something: conscious incompetence
Consciously becoming good at something: conscious competence
Becoming able to do something without thinking about it: unconscious competence.

Simply put, we move from now knowing that we are doing something ineffective, to knowing but doing it anyway, to trying out a new behaviour that is more effective, to doing the new behaviour so that it begins to feel natural and work effectively.

Change habits the way you change mind sets

Just as mind sets or beliefs affect all areas of your life, so do habits. A mind set that will help you in your endeavour to upgrade your habits is, “I’m getting better and better every day at changing my habits.”

More time, and more effort are needed to change more pervasive habits. The “catch yourself in the act” method, however, still works. You want to regularly move your awareness closer to the act itself.

Put a price on bad behaviour

An excellent tactic that will work for all kinds of habits involves calculating the cost of allowing the undesirable habit to continue. Costs might include: procrastination = missed sales opportunities. Missed deadlines = stress. Inability to handle conflict = damaged business relationships.

Calculating the benefits of a good new habit

The individual who shirks cold calling even though she should be out knocking on doors or phoning people to promote their financial services firm.

Business habits: negative and positive

Negative business habits

Not checking in with current customers
Forgetting people’s names (especially customers’ names)
Putting off recordkeeping or doing a haphazard job of it
Giving up too soon on likely prospects
Not having goals that are clear and attainable
Not writing your goals down and not reviewing them periodically
Not welcoming the opportunity to solve customer complaints
Overseeing employees’ work too loosely or haphazardly
Telling everyone that your way is the only way
Not seeking advice from experts
Doing marketing “only when you need to”
Acting as if you know it all
Operating without a business plan to guide you

Positive business habits

Following up with prospects promptly and cordially
Remembering names
Doing recordkeeping every week
Using a tickler file and calling customers and prospects
Setting and updating goals
Having an open door policy with employees
Acknowledging good work
Telling employees – in private – about areas they need to work on
Trying to hear and understand other people’s perspectives
Reviewing important issues with a coach, consultant or mentor
Doing marketing and sales every week
Studying industry developments
Reviewing and updating your business plan every six months

What a great return for changing just one habit!

Don’t lie to yourself

“This behaviour isn’t so bad – lots of people do it.” This lie reinforces or supports our laggardness or messiness or whatever it is.

Common lies linked to habits are “It doesn’t matter,” or “It doesn’t do much harm,” or “Now isn’t the best time, I’ll get to it later.” Usually in a subconscious fashion these are the kinds of things we say to ourselves before, during or after we practice the harmful or unwanted habit.

What are the most common lies you tell yourself about your ineffective habits?

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Reward yourself for making a change

What gets rewarded gets reinforced and gets done right, as organisational development specialists are fond of saying.

Define specific rewards to get you to change the habit that is currently your target.

Track your results

“Anything you can track, you can manage”. Track your bad habits and then track your efforts to eliminate them or substitute good habits.

Display your progress on a graph. Such displays powerfully convey three aspects of the effort:

The goal or end result
Where the effort is at any given moment
An implicit call to action or participation

The call to action is not so much spelled out as implied.

Visualise your end result

Professionals in many fields – from sports to music to showbiz – mentally imagine themselves playing the perfect round of golf or playing a symphony at a world class level.

Make your imaging as real and as detailed as possible.

Now bring feelings in to play. As you see the changes taking place in your mind’s eye, let your feelings speak to you of how you will feel about yourself as the new, more efficient you.

Increase your personal productivity

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening an axe

Entrepreneurs need to improve on efficiency using their time and energy, and that of their people.

Personal productivity is the lifeblood of your venture

You arrive at your desk and consult a well thought out list of to do assignments for the day, keep distractions to a minimum and move through the list with crisp efficiency.

So many things to do, so little time.

Getting a solid grip on the concept of personal productivity is the key to winning the battle against distractions and off target prioritising of what needs doing.

Make giant leaps in productivity

Setting and revising goals
Writing action plans
Jotting down to do lists for each day
Prioritising items on each day’s list
Noting what works well and what doesn’t
Sharpening your focus
Fine tuning routines and schedules
Acknowle1dging results.

Write to do lists

To do lists are the cornerstone of a good personal productivity system and commonly take the form of:

Items written on an erasable board
Items written into a portable planner
Items logged into a pocked sized electronic planner
Items posted on slips of paper on a bulletin board adjacent to your desk.

Periodically review your list. Look at it first thing in the morning, without fail. If you make sure that everything you intend to do gets on your comprehensive list – and if you check that list regularly – there is no way that anything will ever fail to be done just because you forgot about it.

Prioritise your goals

= Extremely urgent
= Urgent
= Very important
= Important
= Routine

Sharpen your focus

Much of good personal productivity comes down to being focussed on just what you are doing, moment by moment.

Becoming sharply focussed involves learning how to concentrate your attention intensely, on whatever you are doing. It takes practice, but is well worth your patience and effort to develop.

Procrastination
Interruptions
Stop/change/start
Meetings
Delegation

Curing procrastination

The primary cause of procrastination is fear.

Behind procrastination is the belief that if you put off deciding or doing, the outcome will be better or the fear will be less or the problem will go away on its own.

This one undermining habit can torpedo all your other efforts to building a successful business. Because of procrastination you may never reach many of the goals you have set.

Here are eight steps you can take to overcome either an incident or a pattern of procrastination.

You must become more aware of your procrastination
Calculate for yourself the costs of procrastination in each instance
Uncover the lie behind each occasion of procrastination
Define the worst case outcome – that which you fear the most and that which, in all probability, is keeping you from acting
Resolve that you will not let procrastination bog you down
Take some action, even if you have to jump into the middle of something
Follow up by taking one step after another until the action is completed
Reward yourself when you have completed the process.

Evaluate your business systems

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link”.

Production affects accounting and sales policies. Those matters affect advertising. Your use of all communications media, both internal and external, impact on such things as efficiency, morale and productivity.

One way of configuring your systems is to divide them into three groups: technical (equipment), operational (processes) and human (people to people relations).

See the big picture

Systems thinking views organisations as a whole. Everywhere you look you see interrelatedness, and you start to realise that your venture does not exist in isolation from the world outside it, but that it is part of a larger system.

When you begin to think in systems, begin to see those gears meshing as your venture develops, you get a clearer sense of the big picture.

Many small business owners do not think very deeply about what systems they will need to support the growth and goals they set for themselves.

Why are systems to important?

Systems are like the punch press that stamps out the widget.

Systems affect behaviour. Systems such as policies for employees, a crisp dress code and cordial customer service demeanors and level of politeness will encourage one set of behaviour.

See your business as a motion picture – not a snapshot

Step back a view everything in motion in and around your operation as a dynamic process.

Many businesses fail because they let gradual change creep up on them and wipe them out.

The American auto industry provides an example of such myopia. In the early 1960s the Big Three manufacturers dominated the US market. Japanese auto makers had managed only a 4 percent share.

Not until the early 1980s, when the Japanese market share had climbed to a hefty 21 percent, did American automakers react seriously.

Year by year, the changes in the auto industry were not dramatic.

Small incremental change that goes unnoticed by an entrepreneur can be more lethal to the business than the one time major or dramatic shake up.

The feedback loop in business systems

The feedback will be there whether we realise it or not. Businesses that end in bankruptcy could have seen “the handwriting on the wall”, if they had known where to look or were not indulging in denial of the evidence. Feedback will show us either that what we are doing is taking hold or is provoking resistance.

However, you may indeed want to structure feedback more formally. You can do this by deciding you want to measure things such as customer flow, month by month revenues or employee productivity.

There is merit, too, to more highly structured ways of soliciting feedback, such as having interviewers buttonhole clients on their way out of a business and ask a list of ten specific questions.

Here’s a metaphor that we all can readily appreciate: There you are, already under the shower, and suddenly the water feels too hot! What do you do? You step back and turn the faucet towards “cold”. But you go too far. Now the water feels too cold. So you jump back again, and keep adjusting back and forth until you get the temperature just right for you. Now you can take your shower in blissful comfort. Business is very much the same.

Use patience in absorbing feedback

With our propensity for the quick fix, we hanker for feedback to hit us in the face and then propel us in the direction of making the needed adjustments right away.

The way you treat your customers will always come back to affect your business. But the effects do not usually come back immediately. Sometimes it takes months, even years, for the effects of your customer service policies to loop back either to help you or to haunt you. Thus, an important element in any feedback loop is the waiting period.

Using a new business strategy, or launching a marketing campaign, all come packaged with built-in feedback loops. It may take months, or in some cases even years, for you to know whether these decisions were effective or not.

Small businesses have an advantage here: their businesses, and therefore their systems, are smaller and less complex than the systems of giant corporations.

Use systems thinking in your business

A small restaurant. Analysis shows that the premises are being inadequately utilised for the market demand that is present. Solution: Add breakfast and create a buffet line for dinner. Price the breakfast and dinner buffet attractively to increase customer flow.

Energise our work environment

We shape our buildings and then our buildings shape us – Winston Churchill.

How many times haven’t you found yourself saying, “I like the feel of this place”. In brief, the environment in which you work is extremely important to the morale and productivity of both you as owner-manager and to your co-workers.

My work atmosphere generates feelings of:

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Measure your energy levels

Dull atmospheres tend to drag people down. One way to judge an atmosphere, therefore, is by noticing whether you feel energised or drained while you are in it. On a scale of 1 to 5, what energy level would you say that your current work atmosphere promotes?

Make your workplace warm and friendly

You as owner-manager are responsible for establishing the right working mood for everybody who works for you or with you, and for your clients or customers too.

Your workplace is attractive but is it orderly?

An office or work site where things are kept in disarray will drain the energy right out of you. Instead of being able to lay your hands on a file in five seconds, you may spend five minutes.

Look around you and see what you have created. Count the costs. The junk? Get rid of it.

Some people actually thrive on a chaotic atmosphere. A squeaky clean environment, full of neatnik commandments about “keeping everything in order”, will drive this breed crazy.

What is the purpose of your workplace?

List all the activities performed at your workplace to help you create a more ideal and functional environment. How many of these do you perform in your workplace?

If you work alone, but have others come to your office for project development or other work, ask a number of your clients to join you in brainstorming to create the ideal atmosphere for you and them.

Quality in your work environment

Match furnishings with the values and goals of your business.
Match furnishings with standards in your industry.
Match furnishings with your target customers’ expectations.
Match furnishings with your budget.

Arrange your furniture

Too often furniture is placed in a room without adequate attention to effect, functionality or traffic flow.

The psychology of colours

Different types of businesses call for different moods and colour creates mood. Red is fiery and conveys the image of roaring energy. Yellow also packs plenty of energy. Blue is a soothing colour. Blue encourages relaxation and rest – like a calm sea.

In general terms it works well to use cool colours such as green or blue where conditions may expose employees to relatively high temperatures.

Plants add life

Living plants bring nature right indoors. Not only are their appearance and freshness pleasant, but they also make oxygen.

Achieve productive synergy in your business

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole clear, glorious life lies before you. - Andrew Carnegie

What exactly is synergy? It is a combination of actions or effects that leads to a total effect that is more than the sum of the parts.

Synergy is extremely important to your business.

Years ago, Adam Smith gave us one of our better descriptions of synergy in the economic process. He took the simple example of a single woolen coat worn by a day labourer and described it as “the product of the joint labour of a great multitude of work(ers).” Among these he named shepherds, sorters of wool, dyers, spinners, weavers, sewers, transporters, merchants and others. Without the collaboration of thousands of hands, he said, even those who wore inexpensive garments could not be clothed.

Botany Bay BEC
21A Dalley Avenue, Pagewood 2035, Telephone: 61 2 9316 5877, Facsimile: 61 2 9666 5141
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