Get Inspired and Reach Your Goals

What are some of your bigger goals or dreams that are sitting on the shelf because life has gotten too busy for you to even think about them?

You might be thinking, “I will get to them next month, next year.” Well, we know how that goes.

The year passes you by and those desires are still sitting on the shelf, collecting dust. Then the frustration begins to creep in because there is a deep longing inside you to bring these dreams to life.

Here are a few suggestions to get the momentum going while continuing to live your day-to-day life:

Week One: Clarify what you really want. Nothing will happen until you get clear about your goals. Find 30 minutes of private time during one day this week and take out a pad of paper to do some creative scribbling, drawing or journaling about what you would like to see unfold. Maybe you would like to take a trip to Portugal, learn another language, plant an herb garden, write a book or remodel your bathroom. Perhaps a lifestyle uplift by taking more alone time for yourself, or beginning an exercise program.

Week Two: What are the large steps that need to happen to reach your goal? If it is to plan a trip, write down all the steps involved, such as research on flights, hotels, travel sites you are interested in. If you want to write a book but don’t know where to start, maybe the first thing you need to do is to read a book about writing a book. If you want to plant a garden, but you’re not sure what you would like it to consist of, one of your large steps (I call these Mile Steps) would be to spend some time researching plants or flowers. You aren’t actually doing any of this work yet, you are merely writing these steps down. By seeing your large goals broken down into smaller steps, they are much more palatable and easier to swallow.

Week 3: Break it down into daily action steps. Take your Mile Steps from week two and break each one down into small increments. For instance, take your garden research and break it down into 10 minute increments per day. I call these Mini Feats, or small steps of accomplishment. Read your ‘how to’ book for 10 minutes each day. Try doing three Mini Feats per day toward your larger goal, and by the end of the week you are at least 15 steps closer to attaining it. If you say you don’t have 30 minutes somewhere in your day, I have to reply, “I don’t believe you!” Wake up 20 minutes earlier, take 10 minutes during lunch, watch one less football game during the day … I could go on.

Week 4 and on … Make sure you write down your three Mini Feats for each day and give them a time, like an appointment. This way you will be much more committed to making them happen. For more momentum, plan your Mini Feat’s the Sunday of each week. You will be that much closer to your dream by the following Saturday! You don’t want to look back in 10 years and realize that you’re still at the same place in your life then as now. Even if you love your life now, growth is a necessary part of your involvement on this planet. Every single day of your life is precious. Embrace it, and those you love, to the fullest.

Technorati Tags: Business, business success, dreams, Goals, inspiration, life purpose, love, personal development, self help, self-discovery, spiritual, Success, wellness

Inspired Thinking with Adnams CEO Andy Wood

Adnams have long been on my list of Inspiring Companies (see blogroll on the right).  I wrote a short article about them last year which you can read here : -

Avoiding Mediocrity – An exemplar of sustainability

Adnams is the Southwold based brewing firm founded in 1872 when George and Ernest Adnams purchased the Sole Bay brewery with the help of their father. The business has grown steadily and won great acclaim for their beers, and recently many awards for their sustainable achievements.

Since 1990 the business has expanded to include wine and leisure retailing. Today the business is focused in three areas – Brewing and Brands, including its tenanted estate; Hotels and Managed Houses; and Wine and Shops including the Cellar & Kitchen chain of stores. In 2009 improved growth and profitability led to turnover of more than £50m and in their peak summer season employs more than 400 people

Last week I got the chance to interview Adnams CEO Andy Wood (right) about the business, its authentic values, and strategy for sustainable development.

You can listen to the interview here : Authentic Business Directory – Adnams plc

I would love to hear your comments about Authentic and Sustainable business – post a comment below.

If you would like to discuss how I can help you develop and implement your own sustainable and authentic business strategy then please get in touch.

James Rock – MD and Chief Business Designer

Technorati Tags: authenticis

Saving our way to prosperity…

You can also get an audio version of this podcast here: Listen!

Have you noticed for the last few months that the phrase “Efficiency Savings” seems to crop up in whichever newspaper or magazine you read, or on any TV news show that you watch? Governments, Local Authorities, and Private Companies all seem focused on achieving savings, in some case up to 40% in certain areas. Unsurprisingly, reaction from customers and employees is a mixture of doubt and fear about what it means for them.

I guess this is understandable. The economic downturn has forced us all to reconsider what we do, and to make do with less… but sometimes the result isn’t quite what we expect.

In my wide experience as a consultant I have heard “Efficiency Savings” used many, many times, and the phrase is abused time and again. Greater efficiency means either achieving more output with the same resources, or the same output with less resources, and the latter is what is usually inferred when the phrase “Efficiency Savings” is used. But in most cases I have found that output also drops as well as input and this inevitably harms effectiveness. I call this phenomena “Saving our way to prosperity” and it constantly amazes me how many management teams believe it will work. But the reality is that this type of cost-cutting is unsustainable – short term cost saving without re-inventing the way things are done only stores up problems for the future. I’ll give you an example.

A client I worked with needed to make “efficiency savings” to satisfy shareholder demands for greater short-term profitability because they wanted to sell the business – and greater profit means higher shareholder value. So it made an assumption that if field service engineer calls were increased from 4 calls per day to 5 calls per day then this 25% improvement would allow them to make 20% reduction in headcount – simple logic – and after all it was only one extra service call per engineer per day…! So the board instructed the management team to make the savings and crack the whip harder to make sure that service engineers hit their new targets – they then sold the business for an increased price and were very happy. A great result for the exiting shareholders, but for the company the result was disaster – overworked engineers could’nt hit their new call targets without considerable overtime, and service parts stock had not been increased to reflect the additional calls so they found they could’nt fix equipment even when they got to customers sites, so re-calls needed to be added; service-call lead-time increased from 1-2 days to over 2 weeks; when challenged by customers about the delays service engineers blamed management for the issues; dissatisfied customers quickly raised complaints; customer service staff became inundated with complaints and repeat calls from customers and the firm lost key service contracts; and the predicted cost savings never materialised – overtime pay increased dramatically, cash collection took longer, whilst turnover dropped by 10% and staff turnover in the department increased to 200% per annum leading to big unexpected and unbudgeted additional recruitment and training costs. The new business owners soon found they had to re-invent the way things were done, and it took 18 months of hard work to turn around the situation and get employees and customers back on board again.

So when you look at making efficiency savings make sure that you plan for success by engaging employees and customers in co-creating the new processes that will deliver savings whilst simultaneously increasing customer satisfaction; be authentic in staying true to your core purpose; and be creative in using Design Thinking to re-invent how you do things.  The result CAN be lower costs combined with long-term sustainable growth and increased profitability – the true way to future prosperity….

I would love to hear your own examples of companies that got this either right or wrong. Leave a comment below.

If you would like to discuss how I can help you make your efficiency savings sustainable then please get in touch.

James Rock – MD and Chief Business Designer

Technorati Tags: authenticis

Facebook …Simplified

Facebook …Simplified

In case you did not know, the way that facebook works is when you are a member of a  page the program automatically feeds posts back to your news feed wall…. so any information that people post will show up on your wall, unless you UN-Join the group / page it will keep doing it. If you are not happy receiving group messages, the way to stop receiving them is to un-join the group. Not that I want you to leave any of our groups… but I do want to be helpful!

The same thing happens with Friend Requests …the moment that you send a request, if the persons Privacy settings are not on LockDown, You will start to see their posts appearing on your wall. (It is built into the program, it is not because people are sending you everything that they do online…it is a program feed that pulls the most popular things (based on people clicking like) as well as the most recent posts.

When I spoke with an old friend of mine that I had not spoken to in awhile, he called me a spammer…. it was simply because he did not know how Facebook’s auto feed program worked, once I explained it, he apologized and understood. I was not me, it was the program…so if you have friends who share lots, it is likely that Your Facebook is covered with posts by them… if you share lots, keep in mind that you are probably covering your fiends news feeds.

(Lack of knowledge and a persons Perspective can create misunderstandings …so do take some time to learn the program before RE-Acting … when you are educated you can come from a place of understanding.)

Think about your Facebook Goals… when you are there to uplift and motivate others, it can make a real difference to your own experiences. Instead of meeting people by making them go directly to your website…focus on them… otherwise it is like trying to sleep with someone on a first date …or french kissing a stranger before you even know their name.   Be the same genuine person that you are offline , online… you will go much further and be of real Value to your online world!

I hope that this information is helpful.
Wishing YOU the very best.
Humbly Yours,
Marcia

P.S. I started a Facebook page that you may find helpful.. It is called How to: Your Guide to Social Networking & Social Media. Feel free to share any great information that may help others online experience.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, help, How to, Marcia Johnson, networking, sharing, social media, social networking, twitter

The value of being Authentic…

You can also get an audio version of this podcast here: Listen!

I had an interesting meeting with a CEO this week. Our discussion focused on his desire to develop his business Authentically but he was worried about the opinions of significant and vocal shareholders who are constantly pushing him for short-term profitability.  He felt that board meetings had recently become something of a battle zone, and despite a track record of success he felt both insecure and angry that these shareholders are taking such a short-term perspective. This isn’t a new phenomenon of course, its a well known fact in publicly quoted companies, and is often one of the key reasons for under-investment.

Our conversation reminded me of an interview I heard recently with the owner of a Japanese family business that had been trading for more than 100 years. He attributed the long term success of the business to a philosophy of “growing like an oak tree not like a water melon….” He knew that slow organic growth made for a strong business with “A Heart of Oak”. He had seen many businesses that had pushed for aggressive and acquisitive growth that had failed or been taken over and integrated into other companies. I thought it was a good lesson for sustainable business.

But the Oak Tree metaphor didn’t really help my client… he could see the long term benefits, but he needed help to convince his shareholders that adopting an authentic approach can deliver increased shareholder value in the short-term too.  So we sat down and brainstormed just some of the benefits, which include:-

Increased Sales

• increasingly customers seek to do business with sustainable companies, and with those that fulfill a social need;

• customers of authentic businesses tend to tell their family and friends and these word-of-mouth recommendations results in more business; and

• happy customers keep returning – so customer retention is higher.

Reduced Operating Costs

• a true sense of purpose helps everyone focus on core competence, and reducing distracting activities;
• marketing spend is lower since word-of-mouth overtakes advertising and special offers as the principal source of acquiring new customers;
• staff turnover is reduced – resulting in lower recruitment and training costs;
• staff feel more rewarded – since money isn’t their key motivator – resulting in greater productivity; and
• suppliers are more helpful since the respect you show earns their loyalty – they go that extra mile to deliver on time, help develop new products, and find joint ways to reduce total costs.

Improved Shareholder Value

• sustainable growth and steady contracts leads to increased P/E ratios;

• increased profitability is multiplied by the higher P/E ratios to deliver higher shareholder value; and

• business success attracts more potential buyers – increasing competitiveness in the buy cycle.

The above benefits now need to be quantified, but the CEO feels reassured that he can justify investing in developing an Authentic business strategy, and adopting Authentic leadership across the organisation… Is this an opportunity for you too?

Why not get in touch for an exploratory chat about the benefits that your organisation could get from Authenticity…

James Rock

Chief Business Designer – CULTIVAR Consulting

Technorati Tags: Authentic, authenticis, authenticity, CSR, cultivar, exit, Shareholder value, strategy

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