Business

Which Team Experience Would Best Serve Your Business and Life?

March 30, 2016 By kwmccarthy

This On-Purpose Business Minute originally aired in September of 2009 when I was trying to help my daughter, Anne, decide about college sports opportunities. This week I was speaking with a long-time friend about an almost identical dilemma his daughters face so I thought it was appropriate to reach out for crowd wisdom, especially those of you who might have had college sports experiences.

This On-Purpose Business Minute invites your wisdom in the comment section. Help my friend’s daughters and other high school and college athletes better ponder their decisions about college sports programs. Share your perspectives and insights by answering this question:

Which Team Experience Would Best Serve Your Business and Life?

To be the 26th player on a national championship caliber team? Or
To be a four-year starter at a smaller college?

Learn more about the UNC Women’s Soccer Program by watching the video trailer to Winning Isn’t Everything. This is a great example of an On-Purpose Team!

By the way, Anne decided to focus on her academics while at UNC Chapel Hill and not play soccer. She graduated in three years and has a great job with Automattic, the creators of WordPress, the platform for this website as a matter of fact.

As fate would have it, she arrived on the UNC campus as a freshman and on activities day discovered there was a women’s rugby club team. Fascinated, she joined the club, excelled and took to it. In fact, because of her promise shown in the fall of her freshman year, she earned an invitation to attend the College All-American & National Team training camp. She played rugby for a couple of years until she tore an ACL in her knee at a match at the University of South Carolina. Judith and I were at that match and I saw her go down on the field after making a tackle. I thought her shoulder was hurt, not her leg.

While recovering from the surgery she better realized the physical risks of rugby along with the demands of being a college athlete. She elected to stop playing her last year to focus on her studies. Today, she plays pick up soccer, her sport where she was an All-State Player in Florida; and she remains an avid fan of rugby.

How to Make Money?

January 14, 2016 By kwmccarthy

Regardless of whether you have a job or own a business, today’s On-Purpose Business Minute invites you to explore three aspects of what it takes to make money and make even more money.

Do you have the mindset, the multiplier and the mechanism in place to make money?

For most people, how much money they want to make isn’t the challenge … it is making that amount of money that presents the real issue. So let’s revisit this classic On-Purpose Business Minute and explore some simple elements to making money.

Study the people who made or make big money — Sam Walton, Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Stephen Jobs, or whomever comes to mind — and you’ll find the three essential M’s are present and to the creation of their wealth in a socially responsible manner and in a way that is meaningful to each person.

—————————

Do you have a favorite quote about money and wealth? Share it in the comments section. Here are some that I found valuable.

Abundance consists not alone in material possessions, but in an uncovetous spirit.

Charles M. Sheldon

Those who condemn wealth are those who have none and see no chance of getting any.

William Penn Patrick

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich; and is hence just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

Abraham Lincoln

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What Do You Do Best?

December 31, 2015 By kwmccarthy

As A New Year Rolls Around: What Will You Do Best in 2016?

This simple, yet highly clarifying question from this Classic On-Purpose Business Minute carries strategic value and importance to every aspect of your business and life. Your answer matters. Don’t get hung up on the perfect answer. Have a written answer that is in the ballpark. That alone will powerfully direct and clarify many decisions you face today and will face in the New Year.

The subtitle to The On-Purpose Business Person provides an important strategic statement that is so simple that one might miss the power and potential to transform your career and/or business.

Consider the centerpiece of the subtitle: Doing More Of What You Do Best More Profitably. It can transform your life, career, and business.

Have you read The On-Purpose Business Person? You’ll learn how to do more of what you do best more profitably.

Why Do I Need to Align & Integrate My Business?

December 10, 2015 By kwmccarthy

Within our business advisory firm, the single greatest “request” we get is about sales growth or income generation. There are lots of quick-fix remedies to tweak sales. There are marketing strategies, too, that can position the business for improved selling opportunities. Business strategy examples can only take you so far. Be specific. Worse, you’re selling your business short of specificity when you copy what others do. Your business is unique, so the business strategy and model need to capture that.

What you need is a universal tool to address your unique needs — that’s The Service Model (below). Here you have both a tool to create and build business strategy as well as analyze and improve what exists. Regardless of whether you are the CEO of a major corporation or a commissioned salesperson with a territory, you have a Service Model by either default or by design.

At On-Purpose Partners we help our clients assess the underlying strategies, structures, and systems — the foundations of an organization found at the bottom of the Service Model (Purpose and Plan). Slight misdirection here only gets amplified throughout every line item on the P&L and the corporate culture through the People, Processes, and Performance.

Service Model 1-page worksheet & instructions

Most clients call because they have a “Performance” level problem — such as not enough revenue. So they’ll do the quick fixes to performance or dig a bit deeper into the Process area (Marketing). Or, they’ll gin up the sales team with incentives to meet current objectives at the risk of sustaining the relationship.

In other words, they start where the problem appears and try to fix it there. There’s merit to this, but if there are persistent problems, then this doesn’t address the root cause. In fact, it tends to create a frenzy of latest gimmicks. It becomes almost addicting activity.

Addressing Process matters such as Marketing or Training looks at systems for solutions. This is a smart move because if the system has flaws then the Performance will suffer. I’ll venture a guess that 98% of most consulting work is hired in the Process and Performance level.

The challenge, however, is that the Purpose, Plan, and People levels are too often neglected or assumed to be properly working. Here’s why. The responsibility for these levels falls to the leadership and management of the organization. It is hard to self-assess. Much like a fish doesn’t realize it is swimming in water until it is out of the water, leaders and managers rarely have the perspective to see their own context.

What To Do:

Define your Target Audience (Customer). Then, remodel your business by starting at the bottom of the Service Model and work your way to the top one level at a time.

Call it business alignment or getting everyone pointed in the same direction; the bottom line business objective is sales growth and profits. When the people and business strategy are confused on the inside, the customer or client experience is diminished. Losses mount in profits and people. It can get ugly!

Here’s how to create a better result for your organization. Know that alignment works but it stops short. Start with your goal or a vision, pare to the core, create alignment, and continue working on the business and with your team until all are more fully integrated.

Step 1: Setting the goal or writing the vision is typically the easy part. It may take time and some thinking and noodling with your brain to clarify it in writing, but get it done in writing.

Step 2: Alignment comes in many forms. Here are a few:

The On-Purpose Principle: This is the purpose of the person aligned with the purpose of the organization. If this alignment doesn’t exist, then everything else is manipulation or feels like manipulation. Work must be a meaningful expression of one’s life.
Strategic alignment within the business means, for example, that the business strategy informs the marketing strategy which informs the sales strategy and provides for tactical direction. Social media in particular needs to align or it is just a waste of time. Use the Service Model to guide you.
Customer alignment means the business is highly designed, built, and oriented to serve the customer while uplifting the team.
Project alignment means that the team players seek a common outcome or objective.

Alignment is an important and solid step but it falls short of what is needed. Business process engineering or re-engineering efforts are directed toward business alignment. When a business is missing its core strategy then there is no cornerstone for aligning and building.

As a business advisor, I consistently see money poured into tactical execution (Performance) when the strategy is deeply flawed. The waste of money and effort is monumental. Worse, I see good money chasing bad business designs time and again.

Websites provide a great example. So you’ve finally gotten your website launched and you’re waiting for the visitors to start finding you thanks to your investment in SEO (Search Engine Optimization and Google AdWords). It isn’t happening, so you invest even more money in your SEO and AdWords campaign. But what if the website, itself, isn’t welcoming or fails to present a call to action? Much of the investment in SEO and advertising dollars is wasted or hopelessly inefficient.

“Getting the business aligned” is often heralded as the cure for what ails the business. It is important, but it stops far short of what is really needed.

Step 3: Now that the goal is set and the strategy and structure are in place, turn to the relationships. Does your team understand the purpose of your organization? Have you clarified and communicated the purpose? Do they have a sense of call and contribution that allows them to get beyond the inevitable personality and preferential differences? Do they see their individual and collective contribution as so important that they can work as a team toward the greater good?

The higher level concept is integration. Strategically, purpose is the point of integration. Alignment deals with tangibles and direction. Integration deals with the people plus the intangibles and tangibles to create a wholeness to the organization. It provides a fabric to the culture and brand of the business that translates to the customer experience being extraordinary.

Work on alignment, yet remember to go the next step to create integration of the business beginning with the purpose, plan, people, process, and performance. Integration gets you to the gestalt of business where it works effectively and efficiently.

Do you need some one-on-one work on your business? Do you want me to help you create the path to being on-purpose? Contact the office to arrange an advisory relationship. Small Business Advisory Packages are available for one-on-one help with me (Kevin). Need more information? Call: 407.657.6000 or email us at info@on-purpose.com.

Is a Startup Business a Smart Career Move?

December 3, 2015 By kwmccarthy

Are you unemployed, underemployed, or just plain finding that your corporate job is slowly sucking the life out of you? Are you gasping with this suffocating sense of being stuck with just enough air to breathe, yet barely enough to thrive? Is some combination of your income, lifestyle, family relationships, and health suffering because of dissatisfaction and frustration with your present work situation?

Start Small. Keep Your Overhead Low. Work Hard. Pray Unceasingly.

Starting a business isn’t just for people with business degrees and experience. Motivation, hard work, and a willingness to learn serve any budding entrepreneur.

Plan ahead for starting your business off right. In time, you’ll ease into the transition. Sometimes it is thrust upon us from necessity. Regardless of whether it is a retirement, layoff, job elimination, or simply what you want to do, starting a business is a smart move.

Here’s my list of 10 compelling reasons for starting a business:

Escape the rat race. Get out of that corporate job and transition to more meaningful and enjoyable work.
Personal expression. A business can be a creative outlet for a hobby or passion.
Independence. Set your own hours, decide who you want to target as your customers, and don’t have a boss.
Retiring to work. Retirement looms in a few years so growing a business represents a smooth transition and new sense of work identity.
I need the income. Your small business may provide extra income to cover the bills for braces, college, and vacations. As it grows it can replace your current salary and become full time.
Tax breaks. A small business is a vehicle for deducting some existing expenses from your tax return. Consult your CPA, but when the business picks up a fair share of the bills, it can ease the household budget.
Ambition. A small business can become a big business! Put your ambition to work.
Change the world. A business can be the means for you to truly change the world with your business idea, invention, or service.
Plan B Security. A sour economy can be a ripe time to start a business. In such times it may be the means to provide for one’s family and self in the event of a job loss or cutback. Security matters.
I can do better. Many businesses have begun because the founders knew they could do better than their employers or what was offered on the market. I’ve seen women-owned businesses blossom simply because the founder wanted equal pay in parity with men and to do better for her family.

Do you need to be the next Elon Musk of PayPal, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Steve Jobs of Apple, or Bill Gates of Microsoft?

Not really … but what if you could be? Are you ready to trust your dream? Starting a business may be one of your smartest moves yet.

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin

How Is Your 2020 Foresight?

October 6, 2015 By kwmccarthy

This On-Purpose Minute originally aired on January 5, 2010, at the turn of a new decade. Today in October 2015, let’s do a follow-up check-up on how life is looking (up?) for you. The lessons from this OP Minute still remain — except 2020 is less than 5 years away!

Short-term vision or thinking often distracts us from focusing on what really matters most to us. What would it be worth to you to clarify what is most meaningful to you? Would you invest 60 minutes of your life today to set a more clear course for the next 5 to 10 years? It seems so minor an investment for so much to gain, yet we’re often “too busy” with the non-important to define what truly matters.

Give yourself a strategic advantage by knowing what matters most. Download The Discovery Guide, my free tool designed to help create want lists and tournaments. It is superior to typical goal setting tools because it helps you gain laser focus. Improve your time management and your personal life improves. It isn’t too late to plan today for your 2020.

Original post in 2010!

A new year brings a rebirth of possibilities. What then does a new decade bring? Let’s look ahead to 2020 to plan what can be. Too often I find myself looking a day, a week, or even a few months, but too rarely ten years ahead. The calendar change to 2010 offers a natural opportunity to peer into the future and plan what could be.

Looking for some guidance? At On-Purpose Partners we have coaches trained in the On-Purpose^® Process who can help you. Whether you need an hour or a defined program to help you, know that we’re here. Explore here.

Are You Setting Goals?

September 3, 2015 By kwmccarthy

This is a classic On-Purpose Minute that first aired in August 2010 so the September offer regarding The On-Purpose Leader Experience is out of date. Alternatively, consider reading The On-Purpose Person and downloading the free preview to The Discovery Guide.

Another option is On-Purpose Peace, a six-session, small group study for Christians reading The On-Purpose Person.

Goal setting is really the poor man’s way of doing strategic planning. Guess what? For about 95% of what you want to accomplish, writing out your goals will get the job done. If you want to take something to the next level, however, you’ll need to invest in strategic thought and planning. Otherwise, you’ll remain mired in mediocrity.

Research shows that as few as 1% to as many as 10% of all people write down their goals. Why not more people? Here are some of the excuses I’ve come up with. What’s your reason for not setting goals?

I don’t have time to write goals.
I’m not really sure that’s where I’m supposed to focus my effort and energy.
Image via Wikipedia
If it is meant to be, then it will happen.
Goal setting is a waste because my goals never come into being.
Who am I to set goals?
No one else I know sets goals.
I don’t know how to write a goal.
What if I don’t reach my goal?
What will other people think? They might think I’m crazy.
I have too many goals to write them down.
I don’t believe my goals can be realized or are realistic.
Goals don’t motivate me.
Goals are too basic for what I need to get accomplished.

Behind every rationale for not setting a goal is a tragic assault on hope and possibilities fed by irrational thought. OK, so maybe you don’t have Killer Goals; that’s still no reason for not learning the process and getting started. In fact, set that as your first goal.

Lose the Excuses, Gain Your Sanity.

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin

Are you getting caught in the Work Trap?

May 13, 2015 By kwmccarthy

Three things prompted me to write this article.

First, the realisation that I need to get my working life into perspective and to practice what I preach!

Second, an article I recently read by Travis Bradberry on ‘How successful people work less and get more done’.

Third, a few weeks ago I had a complete weekend off – went boating, caught some fish, walked and talked with my wife Angela and our chocolate brown labrador – Poppy, (yes, dogs talk too) and generally chilled out.

Nice!

So much so that Angela and Poppy have talked about it nearly every day since!

And I want to do that more often as increasingly I’m working longer hours and often over weekends too! (Those of you who own a business or have high responsibility as an employee know how easily it is to get trapped into 24/7.)

I think there is a serious condition called the Work Trap and we need time to ‘unplug’ (no longer ‘unwind’) from the day-to-day to get more perspective, think more deeply and reflect on the bigger picture of our lives.

… people who work as much as 70 hours per week
only achieve the same amount as people who work 55 hours …

A new study from Stanford found that productivity per hour declines sharply when the work week exceeds 50 hours and productivity drops off so much after 55 hours there’s no point in working any more. Apparently, people who work as much as 70 hours per week (or more) only achieve the same amount as people who work 55 hours.

Successful people know the importance of shifting gears on the weekend to relaxing and rejuvenating activities.

Those who have participated in our Power of Your Purpose programs, will recall the activity where we work together on building your ideal On-Purpose day or weekend. Both of these create space and quality time for the things that matter most – your core wants and top priorities which align with your Purpose and Values.

This might be less difficult than you think!

Activities that successful people do to create life integration on weekends

So, drawing on the post by Travis Bradberry, here are practical things that successful people do on the weekend to re-enter work on Monday morning feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

1. Disconnect
Disconnecting is the most important weekend strategy on this list, because if you can’t find a way to remove yourself electronically from your work Friday evening through Monday morning, then you’ve never really left work. Making yourself available to your work 24/7 exposes you to a constant barrage of stressors that prevent you from refocusing and recharging. If taking the entire weekend off handling work e-mails and calls isn’t realistic, try designating specific times on Saturday and Sunday for checking e-mails and responding to voicemails. Scheduling short blocks of time to attend to emails will alleviate stress without sacrificing availability.

2. Minimise chores
Chores have a funny habit of completely taking over your weekends. When this happens, you lose the opportunity to relax and reflect. What’s worse is that a lot of chores feel like work. So if you spend all weekend doing them, you just put in a seven-day work week. To keep this from happening, you need to schedule your chores like you would anything else during the week, and if you don’t complete them during the allotted time, you move on and finish them the following weekend.

3. Reflect
Weekly reflection is a powerful tool for improvement. Use the weekend to contemplate the larger forces that are shaping your industry, your organization, and your job. Without the distractions of Monday to Friday busy work, you should be able to see things in a whole new light. Use this insight to alter your approach to the coming week, improving the efficiency and efficacy of your work.

4. Exercise
You have 48 hours every weekend to make it happen. Getting your body moving for as little as 10 minutes releases GABA, a soothing neurotransmitter that reduces stress. Exercise is also a great way to come up with new ideas. Innovators and other successful people know that being outdoors often sparks creativity. Whether you’re running, walking, cycling or gardening, exercise leads to endorphin-fuelled introspection. The key is to find a physical activity that does this for you and then to make it an important part of your weekend routine.

5. Pursue a passion
You might be surprised what happens when you pursue something you’re passionate about on weekends. Indulging your passions is a great way to escape stress and to open your mind to new ways of thinking. Things like playing music, reading, writing, painting, or even playing with your kids can help stimulate different modes of thought that can reap huge dividends over the coming week.

6. Spend quality time with family
Spending quality time with your family on the weekend is essential if you want to recharge and relax. Weekdays are so hectic that the entire week can fly by with little quality family time. Don’t let this bleed into your weekends. Take your kids to the park, take your spouse to his or her favourite restaurant, go to the movies and go visit your parents. You’ll be glad you did.

7. Schedule micro-adventures
Buy tickets to a concert or play or get reservations for that new hotel that just opened downtown. Instead of running on a treadmill, plan a hike. Try something you haven’t done before or perhaps something you haven’t done in a long time. Studies show that anticipating something good to come is a significant part of what makes the activity pleasurable. Knowing that you have something interesting planned for Saturday will not only be fun come Saturday, but it will significantly improve your mood throughout the week.

8. Wake up at the same time
It’s tempting to sleep in on the weekend to catch up on your sleep. Though it feels good temporarily, having an inconsistent wake-up time disturbs your circadian rhythm. Your body cycles through an elaborate series of sleep phases in order for you to wake up rested and refreshed. One of these phases involves preparing your mind to be awake and alert, which is why people often wake up just before their alarm clock goes off (the brain is trained and ready). When you sleep past your regular wake-up time on the weekend, you end up feeling groggy and tired. This isn’t just disruptive to your day off, it also makes you less productive on Monday because your brain isn’t ready to wake up at your regular time. If you need to catch up on sleep, just go to bed earlier.

9. Prepare for the upcoming week
The weekend is a great time to spend a few moments planning your upcoming week. As little as 30 minutes of planning can yield significant gains in productivity and reduced stress. The week feels a lot more manageable when you go into it with a plan because all you have to focus on is execution.

Final comments

Trying to implement all of these at once will be overwhelming. So next weekend pick one or two of these to get you started. Commence with the ones that will give you the most meaning and fulfilment. Start planning your weekends intentionally. None of these will happen unless you are really serious about breaking the Work Trap.

While you are planning your next weekend, get some overall perspective back into your life and ask the big questions:

What is the ultimate purpose of my life, work, or career?
What am I living for?
What do I want my life to be about and stand for?

Wait for the answers to emerge from deep within you. They will come. Just give them time and space.

One more tip.

Start observing yourself more. Watch your actions and thoughts as you develop deeper self-awareness about your life and work. We are all so self-absorbed we give little time to being self-aware.

So now it’s up to you but many people find a coach useful for accountability. If you need some assistance to get you going, please give me a call or send me an email.

This is too important to be left to chance.

Queensland, Australia

Business

Activities that successful people do to create life integration on weekends

Final comments

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