Is Your Business Still Flat During This Economic Recovery?

Bad Habits Can Leave You Out In The Cold

Habits are a nasty thing to get hooked on.  Most of my habits are bad ones.  Once I get hooked on them I produce a lot of unwanted results.  I keep on producing those little unwanted results because my habits remain in force.  My habits drive me to remain on track to keep doing what I have always been doing.  Hence, whatever the results are that come from my business models becomes the environment of how my business produces its life.  It lives with the results of my habits.  My habits run the show.

Let's face it.  Our bad habits dominate our results.  They dictate what we will or will not receive from our business efforts.  It is typically no simpler than that.  Our habits rule our results.  They dominate the pattern of results we receive.

How do we modify our habits?  What kinds of things must we do to make the right kinds of adjustments in our business leadership style to produce better results?  Where can we tweak the things we are doing wrong?

This is where most business owners find themselves operating.  They get trapped by their own minds doing their own things in their own ways.  They have developed these routine patterns that have become their trusted habits for how they prefer to lead the businesses they own.  They become settled in with their habits as they are.  They therefore, in turn, remain bound by those unfriendly results.  The bad results their bad habits produce.  We protect them with all of our heart.

When I got up this morning, I did exactly the same routine I did yesterday morning.  Did you know that?  I moved my patterns in essentially the very same ways I moved them the day before.  I did my habits.  I did them just the same as you did yours.  Oh yes, once in a while I change it up.  That gives me some false sense of control.  I might make my coffee after I start my blog work.  Usually I make my coffee before I start writing on my blog.  I switch it up once in awhile so I can give myself the illusion that I am still in control.  The truth remains, I am not.

Our habits drive our controls.  They dominate how we move, how we think and how we respond.  Habits clearly control what, when, where and how we move in our business worlds.  Our habits become our boss.  They may not actually clock in and physically show up to work each day but they sure know how to climb into the mind and place their quiet little hands onto the control grips of the steering wheel.  Trust me, your habits drive your ship.  All we do is work overtime on making sure we believe that is not true.

How do we combat this quiet little flaw?  How do we make sure our habits remain on the up and up?  How do we make sure we are not quietly controlled by the little things that hinder our success patterns?  How do we remain honest with this little subject?

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Innovative Business Versus Current Trends

Stay Current But Innovate Always

It is not easy owning your own gig.  Some of the greatest winners in business have travelled the roughest roads to victory.  In the world of small business ownership bumpy travel is par for the course.  Most self-taught business owners come to their business life with limited resources.  Add to the fact that we have limited resources for managing how to professionally recognize market trends well, we also come up with some very unusual thoughts and ideas.  We employ many of those strange ideas every single day in our business walk.  Some of those ideas work, but many do not.  We also have some unique leadership styles.  Some leadership styles suck, while other methods work very well.  Every business owner gets to experience all of the pains their efforts produce as they move closer to the victories they desire.  I have not met one business owner who has been able to escape this simple reality.

In most cases, a private business owner is usually self-taught.  Most of them come from the ranks of being very unemployable.  I have met hundreds of self-employed business owners.  The lion's share of them are not especially bright when it comes to operating all of the necessary facets of a well run small business.  Neither was I.  I missed on a lot of important cylinders.  We all came to our own ownership patterns because we were not especially good at allowing someone else to tell us what to do.  As a result, we became truly unemployable people.  We make very poor followers.  Our next best option was to run our own gig.  Hence, business ownership.  Welcome to the expensive school of hard knocks.  I be one of those students!

Trial and error offers some very expensive lessons.  Even though those lessons are expensive, they are effective.  We learn quickly what works and what does not.  We get our education straight from the world of reality.  No spin, no tricks, no magic and no fooling.  Our checkbooks become our leaders.  That checkbook balance allows or kills many of our great ideas.  We do exactly that which we can no longer afford!

If a business owner survives this messy start and these messy lessons, they move on to the next level of operations.  They graduate to the world of survival.  Instead of truly failing, they learn how to hang on and make each penny stretch beyond where it was supposed to live.  These are the true entrepreneurs who work on making their future business happen, above the closure line and below the make it big line.  This place they learn to master is a place that most owners feel controls their destiny.  This becomes the next level a business owners reaches.  They find just enough success to keep their model alive and produce just enough reach of success to offer them a few monetary victories here and there.  They remain bound.  This is the place where most survivors of a small business learn to manage.  It becomes their little prison where they can live out their lives without being employed somewhere else.  Welcome to the truth.

In this pile of business owners pops up a head or two once in awhile.  Those heads pop up as they look for better ways to grow larger.  Once in awhile, one of those small business owners works their way out of that crab pot.  Those few business owners get enough gumption and create some interesting ways to grow up and out of that crab pot existence.  They are also able to fight off the gripping claws of the other crabs trying to pull them back inside the pot where the rest of them remain.  A few work their business in a growing way.  They become the hated few who create our interesting world of jealous activities.  They become the few business owners who win well at what they produce.  They are sometimes the ones we envy the most.

Let's take a look at how these few winners produced the victories they experienced.  How did they climb out of that crab pot of living?  How did they survive that small business trap?  How did they win when nobody else could?

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Cronies, How They Can Hurt Your Business.

Cronies Become Part Of Your Inner Circle Of Trust

Every business has a network.  Every business develops a small set of people that 'hang-out' with what that business model tends to represent.  Take a short walk through the halls of every business model and you will find a small group of people who are there to support what that business model represents.  Each model has its own group of frequent supporters.  Small sets of supporters come packaged with every business model.

Good or bad, these strong supporters come to our side.  They can be found standing next to the ugly stuff we do in our business models.  Trust me, every business model practices doing some ugly stuff, somewhere, somehow.  No exception.  There is no perfect model.  Perfect business models just simply do not exist.  They all have faults somewhere.  Mine do.

Even the business models that are suffering and failing in business, the ones who are spinning out of control, have developed a small network of supporters.  That group of supporters can often be found dressed with armour that builds up their support and protects how they feel about that failing business model.  They will step out and protect its leader from criticism and ridicule.  These supporters are the cronies that come packaged with the things each business model ultimately does.  They become the cronies that stick by the side of every failing business model.  I have mine, you have yours.

Even the worst of business designs will have a small group of supporters who will come to its aid when the chips are down.  We all develop small circles of these supportive cronies.  They become our friends.  They become our confidants.  They become our protection.  They support what we are doing wrong.  They cover our bad trails with creative deflections that whisk away the ugly stuff we all do once in awhile in our business models.  Every business model has this small segment of crony support when the chips are down.  We lean on them when the weather gets ugly.  We appreciate their protectionism.  We feed what keeps their support alive, even if it hurts the future of our winning potential...even if it supports what will not correct our ruined ways.  We circle around the cronies we find.  They become our special friends.  

This is often where a few business leaders host some of the most trouble in their leadership ways.  They pick out their supporters in counter-productive ways.  They are not as careful with whom they bring close to the inside halls of what they do.  They struggle with the development of their inner circle lines of support.  They allow the selection of their group of cronies to build at a random pace with mistaken interpretations and ill-fated energies of effort.  Crony support can hurt how the leader attempts to correct what is truly going wrong with the activities performed by the business model they guide.  Cronies can become the hidden distraction that interferes with good design.  I have seen it occur hundreds of times.  I have seen it infect some of the greatest business minds.

Every business model occasionally develops some form of incorrect practices.  We all get caught up in doing wrong things.  We decide to do what will not work.  We decide to make what will not sell.  We decide to practice what kills our growth.  We decide to ignore some changes that must be made.  We decide to avoid what cannot be avoided.  We decide to deceive what is not deception-able.  Every business model steps in the poop once in awhile.  We all are guilty from time to time.

During those wrong times of practice we find out who our best cronies are.  They are the ones who stand by our side.  Come heck or high water, there they are. standing right next to the ugly stuff we are finding to do.  They are supporting our ways with that supportive thing that comes with how a crony behaves.  They seem not to mind how deep the mud becomes just as long as they are allowed to offer what they show support to do.  They come to our side when the hurricane is at its worst.  They are our cronies.

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Adapt To Change, Properly.

My wife and I have gone back to reading Alvin Toffler's classic of the 70's, "Future Shock."  We treat the read as a little reminder project.  We sit down each day and read a small segment from an old paperback copy we found in our basement archives of old books.  We find time each day to read it to each other out loud, one small segment each day.  It has been an interesting project.

First of all, one thing is for sure.  The human condition does not accept change very well.  It will process change, sometimes by force more than by choice, but to embrace that process comfortably is another deal altogether.  Just because a music enthusiast does not prefer to accept cassette tapes or digital recordings does not mean they are able to remain where eight track equipment was onced processed.  Eight track formats simply disappeared!  The change was forced upon those who preferred to remain with eight track music.  It was not a choice.  Change happened with or without the acceptance of the user.

The human condition has been faced with this kind of process for a few decades.  I remember when the cover of a popular trade publication several years ago, I think it was Business Week, showed a picture of a business guy who had a deer in the headlights look on his face with the caption reading, "Change Or Be Changed!"  As sophisticated as we might like to be, we do not accept change very well.  We often times wait until it is forced upon us.  Then with no useful choices remaining, we comply.  What's more, our compliance is covered with bits and pieces of sprinkled dissatisfaction.  We are not easily convinced to buy in.

Welcome to business leadership.  The art of convincing groups of people, stakeholders, institutions of finance, customers and associates all coming together at one time producing the growth of synergy that is required to help the model win big.  Getting the whole lot to buy-in at each changing corner of strategically timed movements that include all of the elements of change so they can become the call of the day to mold out the final 'look' that represents success...this becomes the deal.  Welcome to the art of business leadership.

There is no crystal ball to help business leaders manage their changing futures properly.  Alvin Toffler's book proved that many predicted and useful outcomes did in fact occur.  However, it also found that some of the more telling scenarios that were once predicted never saw the light of day.  If a business leader was to choose one of those specific scenarios to follow they would have become dead wrong in their business plans.  The future holds too many uncertainties.  Analyzing all of the variables correctly is a serious crap shoot.  Business leaders truly recognize this complicated process.  Missing the mark is very doable.  Ask Mr. Johnson of J.C. Penney's about this truth.  It can become extremely common.  Many business leaders face this challenge on a daily basis.  It plagues their efforts to grow and prosper well.  Even the smart ones can easily miss the mark.

The landscape of planning for business success today is beginning to reveal how abstract it can truly become.      Very few winners circle the streets with loads of success and these losers are easily found in every living community.  They are not rare commodities.  Struggling business models are everywhere.  In fact, much more are losing financially than are winning.  The files of finance are chocked full of millions who struggle each day to move forward.  The world is littered with hurting business models.  Even the big establishments that have institutionalized their winning ways are fighting to find the next successful corner.  Just take a look at Microsoft, Dell, Chase, Disney, Motorola, Hewlett Packard, Boeing, Apple, Proctor and Gamble...the list can fill a bathtub with reams of paper that reflect the strategies of how much these business leaders work on keeping away from the potential for failure.  Their futures are uncertain.  At least Toffler got that part correctly predicted.

Page two.

Which Entrepreneur Are You? #1 or #2?

Hal Gregersen is a respected author and professor of innovation and leadership.  He does his teaching through Insead, a private graduate business school.  Insead specializes in MBA programs.  They are among the many platforms available for business minds to find useful ways to expand and prosper.  Hal Gregersen is one of the leading teachers of business innovation that harbors his work around this platform.

About a week ago or so, Hal was reported in a story written by The Wall Street Journal.  It described how the DNA might appear similar in the common 'profile' for entrepreneurs.  I believe the piece was written as an excerpt Hal delivered at an innovation conference.  Anyway, the gist of the story centered around the common links entrepreneurs have that are identifiable and predictable.  Hal described the similar types of characteristics found in entrepreneurs.  His focus was aimed to identify what makes a successful entrepreneur.

I liked the article.  It was useful.  My interest was peaked when he described how successful entrepreneurs foster innovation, creativity and a culture of winning.  These are common traits to those who win often in the world of business.  Unfortunately, the world is full of entrepreneurs who do not possess these kinds of traits. They do not honor creativity.  Many do not like to risk their patterns of work with innovative experimentation.  They therefore, remain non-innovative.  In fact, most lose more often than they win.  This is not a good representation of producing a winning culture.  It would be safe to venture a comfortable guess and report that most entrepreneurs lack these three special sets of skill Hal described in his presentation that was reported in The Wall Street Journal recently.  His description of common traits that produce successful entrepreneurs is not very common.

Let's call his defined three traits the #1 set of successful traits.  Entrepreneurs who are #1 carry these behaviors.  They push for a culture of winning.  The expect to win, at all times.  This is true even when they are currently losing.  They believe beyond doubt that their ways will win out long term.  They believe in what they know, do and seek.  They question their path, direction and patterns with constant adjustments for moving closer to winning big.  They are bent towards adjusting to win.  That is what they do best.  It is very difficult to teach this style of leadership.  Successful entrepreneurs know when to turn, when to change and how to do it with better sets of reasonable results.  They harbor some magical sense that tells them when, where and why.  They have a nose for winning.

Let's go one step deeper on this subject.  Successful entrepreneurs may not actually be able to write a book on how to win big.  In fact, most might not even be able to articulate how they saw what they saw that gave them the insight to move in the ways they moved to win.  They may only be able to report how they could 'feel' the win coming and what it would take to make that win happen.  What might come up missing is the measurable indications that fell on their path of success that caused them to move in the ways they finally moved.  The pure logic might be hard to find.  This slippery pattern is very common territory for entrepreneurs who live in the #1 pattern for winning traits.  Their instincts work overtime without much to telegraph why they do what they do.  They just have a unique sense for producing winning cultures.  It is more magical than definitive.

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When Business Leaders Search For Help, What Do They See?

Madness comes in all shapes and all sizes.  In the business world, madness comes a lot from the sheer fact that many of us get quietly trapped into doing a lot of things that hurt the most.  Even deeper yet, a far larger cause for madness comes from not doing the things that help the most.  We commonly avoid what hurts the most because it will obviously hurt the most.  It is within this kind of business leadership that eventually causes the most madness.

I am usually hired by business leaders who have become terribly trapped inside the walls of this kind of world.  Their business leadership has run off the course of healthy patterns.  It has gone off that course in a very subtle but serious manner.  Furthermore, they are business leaders who believe they are not off course.  They are also business leaders who know something is going very wrong with their business models but they do not believe they are the source of that misdirection.

This kind of pattern is as normal as the sun comes up and sets each day.  I witness misdirection and failed leadership on a regular basis.  I see terrible leadership patterns rooted deeply in the souls of the business leaders asking for help.  They come to the request and repair table with preconceived notions about what is going wrong with their business models.  Most of the time, none of the notions they carry reflect anything true about how misdirected they have become in their own leadership patterns.  That kind of view is not in sight.  It is missing from the landscape of described problems.  They do not usually see themselves as part of the problem.

Therefore, most of the madness we find as we begin the work to determine what has gone really wrong with their business models, is not really found.  We usually do not begin to nibble on the real problems of the business affairs until much later in our repair work.  It takes time to finally discover the true source of the leadership errors.  The mirrors do not come out in the early part of business repair.  Self discovery usually comes to the table of repairs at a later time.  It must come to that table in a more carefully orchestrated fashion.  Most business leaders operate inside a firm pattern of established ways.  They usually believe they are in charge, on the right track and doing their work in the correct fashion.  Very few believe they are the source of their troubled business ways.  It is what it is.

I have listened to hundreds of business leaders describe what is going wrong with their business models.  Not once have I ever met one that has described how wrong their own leadership has become part of why they are missing the mark.  Not once.  Never.  Yet, when my work is deeply entrenched inside the repair process I discover the sources of their most challenging ways and those challenges are often times caused by the poor leadership patterns those business leaders are initiating and employing.  This happens every single time. It has been one hundred percent true.  That observation includes me.

Therefore, as much as I do not desire to become one of those advisory assistants in the repair process of their troubled business models that stereotypes each one of them as a misdirected leader...I continue to end up standing on the very things they are doing wrong in their own style.  My efforts to avoid those natural tendencies to stereotype all of them as misguided leaders is usually wasted by the sheer fact and plain truth that the source of their ills is coming from them.  It is usually true.  They are commonly the source of the problems their business models face.

Guess what?  My business models suffer the very same challenge.  We as leaders become the key source of our own misguided plans.  We are the problem.  Time and again.  We cause the wrong things to happen.  We protect our ill-fated ways.  We support the inconsistencies that hurt the most.  We devise the best protective killers of our business potential.  We are the culprits.  We are the source.  We do the most damage.

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