Motivate Yourself First

I recently gave a talk before Cavan County Enterprise Boards recent Awards Dinner on the topic of Motivation, with reference to the current economic climate. The reaction to the talk was extremely positive and also the feedback was particularly interesting.

I told the group that there are times I think when we forget the basics and lose ourselves in worry about things we don’t really need. This leads to suffering on a personal level that is not necessary and totally within our own control. Cutbacks and reductions can have an overly negative effect on us if we do not see that often these are necessary to moving forward. Often we attach meaning to things that causes us grief and worry. The way to address this is to sit down and think about what is really necessary at the end of the day and what of those things we worry about  are supports to our Ego rather than to our well-being and happiness.

Entrepeneurs and Small business owners in particular need to remain motivated and optimistic despite the current travails and to influence and motivate those around them as well. Someone once said “Sincerity is the secret - if you can fake that you can achieve anything!”. Well it can’t be faked, the people around you have a good idea whats going on really. So the feeling of motivation has to be real and come from within. Taking action every morning to bring a positive outlook into play by focusing on the positive things in our life can set the mood for the whole day. And bringing it to work influences those around us particularly small business owners.

The folks from Cavan had an interesting perspective. They reckoned the Celtic tiger hadn’t done much for them and so they didn’t miss it. “We never had too much around here anyway” they said and so we don’t miss it either. And this from as chirpy and cheery bunch of people as I’ve met. You know when you see what some have lost in terms of happiness and clarity in their lives its great to see that some have held on to what matters.

Aidan Higgins

Stay Foolish?

Steve Jobs is well known as the creator of the Apple Mac, the iPod and the iPhone. Without formal qualifications he became a world class innovator and thinker and he is someone who has made an impact on our world. I came across this speech he made at Stanford. I was taken with his 3 key points - some elements of which are developed from other angles in this blog. Have a look and enjoy - its well worth the 15 minutes. 

 

Success in hard times.

Is it always true that if we work harder we will do better? In times like we are passing through now, if we put our heads down and push are we doing the right thing? What happens if we are already working very hard and if we are already expending more of ourselves than we like and leaving nothing for our personal lives  - the wringings from a dishcloth. Is this sustainable?

The term work smarter is very old. However the term applies still to the concepts of using your efforts more wisely.  What about working more intelligently? A friend of mine once said to me - smart is short term - intelligence is long term. I see a lot of well meaning managers and leader, leading by example, burning the candle at both ends and bringing their people with them. For a time the work culture in  Japan for instance precluded you leaving the office before the boss left even if it meant staying until midnight. Corporate in Japan had to turn off the lights in their buildings to make people go home. Bosses mean well and often lead this way - “work harder and we’ll get through this!” 

But what about working more Intelligently. What about waking up your people to Awareness and making them more Emotionally Intelligent? What about using training to improve the success of your people, who properly motivated use these new skills to be better in all facets of their jobs. We have been hearing for years that we need to engourage people to be leaders and to strive independently for their team in their own interests as well as the teams. Well what about giving them the tools to develop their Self Awareness, Self Regulation , Empathy and Social Skills, all of which are directly related to success.

In 2004 Stanford’s Graduate School of Business stated that “Emotional intelligence skills such as vision, building relationships and developing people are more important to leadership success than typical leadership traits, such as external/market orientation, financial acumen and planning“. This study involved 265 corporate executives, directors, managers, business owners, and consultants.  Sir John Egan, former head of the Confederation of British Industry, BAA and Jaguar is quoted as saying that “It is the really inspirational leaders who stand out in a crisis…Emotional intelligence is a big plus in hard times“.

I met someone the other evening - a small business owner  - who said that becoming aware of his personality type made an immediate difference to the running of his business. He said he was able to re-organise his and others work to match his strengths. I have watched how the processes that improve awareness and Emotional Intelligence build better teams, comradeship and networks in business.

Better still its something we can do something about. Its not “out there” with the financial difficulties, its internal. We can get our people awake and working better together by applying simple techniques and opening up their awareness of themselves and others quite readily.

And success breeds success.

Aidan Higgins

Entrepenurial Advice

I was at the ISME conference last week and I went along specifically to see Jerry Kennelly, founder of Stockbyte which he sold a few years ago for 135 Million dollars having grown it from his original ideas on Digital Imagery to take a world leading position before selling it to Getty Images. Jerry had a short slot but he managed to squeeze through his vibrant and fun personality and some very good advice. I smiled at the overlap between what he pronounces and the content of my own lectures on Entrepeneurship. This was nice as some of my Students from UL were in attendance.  However I laughed even louder at the one main difference - and I took it on as good advice - I’d heard it before quietly whispered - but coming from Jerry it had to be a diamond :).

Jerrys suggested that you are either a Disruptor or a Disruptee in business as change is eternal. He also avowed the importance of his people as all successful Entrepeneurs do. His main advice was as follows:

Know eveything about your space, competitors, profitability and make it a global view.
Passion and the energy it creates helps you execute more accurately.
Timing is crucial - pick your window.
Make sure the Idea is sustainable.
Urgency is key - Milestones must be delivered “in Months rather than years”.
Get there first even with an imperfect product - get out ther eand start making money.
Start with the End in mind - plan your exit from the beginning.
Network as Much as you can - and collect business connections and skills.
Communicate what you are doing and why to all your stakeholders all the time.
Link reward to performance - Bonus!

And last…

Sack the gobshites!

On this last point which I might add was in huge letters on a big red screen, I found myself in agreement. It was put a little roughly perhaps but the point was well made. Jerry suggested that those who will not perform often corrupt those around them so not only do they waste resource but they drag other resource down the plug-hole with them. They damage everyone else - so protect them and the group as a whole action is critical. I have some experience of employees like this who do not respond to motivation or work well within a team ethic. It is important to move fast, adhere to process and depersonalise the issues but Jerry makes a good point in my view.

Suggest you see Jerry at a theatre near you soon …

Aidan Higgins

Intrapreneurship

Innovation is the competitive advantage in business. However while those managers with the time to think, who are focused on where the ship is going rather than just keeping it afloat, are recognising this - getting it done is an all together different affair. The issues around culture, creativity and competition are myriad and complex however many of the requirements are addressed by promoting entrepeneurship within the organisations - or intrapreneurship.

I heard a story recently at a conference by the very impressive Bettina Von Stamm which illustrates the usual mindset. Researchers started with 4 chimpanzees in a cage (all having a great time I presume screeching, scratching etc)  which are left to their own devices to form a group. A bunch of Bananas is then put on the roof of the cage and the chimps, naturally, climb up the cage to get the bananas. After a while the researchers started to hose the cage (and Chimps hate being wet) with water everytime they went for the Bananas. Of course it did not take long for our hairy cousins to figure out that going for the Bananas was a no-no.  Being researchers, they then introduced another Chimp who when he saw the bananas immendiately went to get them with the resultant hosing of him and his cellmates. So the next time he went for the Bananas his cellmates stopped him. And this became the norm - every time a new Chimp was added and he went for the bananas the others stopped him. After a while the researchers stopped the hosing and eventually they had a group of Chimps who had never been hosed. And yet still they refused to go for the bananas and stopped any new member going for them either.  

So what happens when your people try something new. Do they get hosed? What is the culture in your organisation? When you are trying to get innovation off the ground so you address the culture and/or the ingrained practices of the past.

An entrepreneurial approach means making and leaving the space to be individualistic, creative and to make mistakes. Making mistakes is learning and only by making mistakes can truly new ideas emerge. There is a very old joke about a sculptor being asked how he created a wonderful stone piece depicting a wolf replied that he just kept cutting away pieces that didn’t look like a wolf. This is the process of arriving at the final solution.

Entrepreneurs make their own space and take a completely different approach to  developing business. They attack niches, they are small fast and maneuverable, they are creative in product, service and the way they approach sales. If things don’t work they can quickly change and go again. Being their own boss is often about not being restricted, not being held back - being let get on with it. Away from red tape and slow decisions.

So Intrapreneurship is about providing this environment for your people. One very good example of this is the story of BBC news online which is on its 10th birthday this year and which has 14m unique visitors each week. This was grown on a greenfield site - with a new team and new culture and entrepreneurial ethos - outside the notorious (then) bureaucracy of the BBC. It was difficult for the BBC hierarchy not to interfere and there were also difficulties at the grey areas between the new and the old organisations which were resolved with creativity and flair. It is a credit to them and to the visionary management that truly grabbed the bull by the horns and an excellent example of what can be accomplished.

There is another upside to this. The number one reason employees leave  - when the lower tier Maslow factors are stable - is not being let do their job. If you can cut the red tape,  give the space and let them get on with it then not only do you beat your competitors but you keep your best people.

Worth considering…

Aidan Higgins

Instinctive

There is a story that tells of an old Entrepeneur, nearing the end of his years, being asked what he might have done different in his life and answering sagely that he would “pay more attention to his instinct” next time around. By this he meant following his gut, taking notice of what his heart was telling him, listening to his own inner voice.

Instinct or intuition is what you know but don’t know how you know it. Sometimes you don’t even know that you know it. If you are still following after that tongue twister let me tell you about one of the many things I learned from Dick McHugh or to give him his full title Dr Richard McHugh SJ PhD.  Originally from the US, and now based at the Sadhana Institute in India where he worked closely with Tony de Mello, Dick is one of the worlds foremost teachers of NLP and has played his part in developing its practice on a global level with, amongt others, Dr Richard Bandler and  John Grinder I have been lucky to meet Dick and worked with him during his summer courses here in Ireland and I remember how I struggled initially with the concept of the sub-conscious.

Most of us who go through the standard academic route develop the mathematical, verbal and logical centres of the mind that reside in the left hand side of the brain. Creatives and Artistic types tend to develop the other side of the brain, the right side, and for the most part the rest of us do not. The old wisdom of there being a link between left handedness and an artistic temperment are true in that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body. However the point of this is that the right side also has direct access to the sub-conscious and therein lies our instinct.

NLP is a branch of Cognitive Psychology developed from ideas originally conceived by Milton Erikkson and is based on the understanding that we are the sum of our experiences, and thats our body is linked directly to our subconsious and therefore provides a gateway to read its messages and also alter our reactions.  These experiences are laid down over the period of our life and form our emotional and sometimes reasoned reaction to places, people and things. Many of these experiences are not remembered consciously but in the sub-consciuos and Dick’s course centred on reaching the more negative of those laid down memories and altering our emotional reaction to them, thereby altering the relevant actions.

With much time spent reaching into the sub-conscious one finds that pathways are built which make it easier to reach in and/or listen to the sub-conscious on a minute by minute basis and thereby gain direct access to an area full of learning and buried lessons.  This is important, especially for those “head versus heart ” decisions.  And this is where the sub-conscious learning comes into play.

Often you hear about people using intuition or gut feeling to make decisions in business and personal life. Sometimes when asked they do not know how they formed the decision to act. What is often the case is that if thinking is not funneled through the logical left brain it is not classed as thinking. Not true. Often for example we make decisions which protect our very lives using just the sub-conscious, and if its good enough for that then why not less important decisions?

How you “see” what others don’t, know when others are stumped and make decisions when there are no “facts”……

That’s instinct folks.

Aidan Higgins