Management

How Are You Learning to Be in Business?

April 19, 2018 By kwmccarthy

Most people in business really don’t know what they are doing when it comes to the business of business.

It doesn’t mean they aren’t successful. It means they generally aren’t as successful as they could be. In a moment of candor, most of us will tell you that we’re plowing into virgin territory regularly. And what we’re doing for continuing education is generally a hodgepodge from a variety of sources.

A great solution is to join a peer learning group. More on those later in this post.

If you own a business and you don’t understand the foundations of business, then you’re likely functioning at 50% or less of your potential. Where else can you get an ROI (return on investment) like that for such little effort and energy expended?

Learn to be a Business Person

Most management and business training tend to be job specific or skills related. Overlooked are the fundamental concepts of business, the free enterprise system, and basics of what is called “general management” and business leadership. It is expensive to learn the basics of business.

Most businesses are built by—as Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, calls them—technicians who have an entrepreneurial seizure. They haven’t got a clue about being in business. Look no further than the professions of engineering, medicine, and law, for example, for really smart people who often don’t have a clue how to do business but are in business or own one. At least the professions have enough honesty to call them practices instead of businesses. : )

For years I’ve asked the question, “How did you learn how to do business?” The typical response is “School of Hard Knocks.” In other words, trial and error is the teacher—a cruel one at that. Check out the results of this small study I conducted with attendees of a previous webinar. (click on it to see a full-size version)

A small percentage of people have undergraduate business degrees or an MBA.

Candidly, as a man with both an undergraduate business degree (BS from Lehigh University) and an MBA (University of Virginia Darden Graduate School of Business Administration), I’ll confess my college degrees prepared me with concepts, tools, language, and business context. They didn’t, however, turn me into a businessman. Degrees accelerate learning but they don’t make the person quite like being on the job does. We can’t avoid the School of Hard Knocks, but we can be prepared to learn the lessons faster, smarter, and less hard.

Becoming a Better Business Person

What are some of the ways to improve as a business person?

Business consultants are an effective means for business improvement. Match a consultant’s strengths to your weaknesses and your business will prosper. Use consultants to set-up, fix, and refine systems where you lack the expertise or time to learn. This is especially helpful for those one-time set-ups such as an accounting system, putting up a website, or succession planning.
Executive and business coaching are ways to improve as a business person on the job. Having someone come alongside and “teach you to fish” is important.
Peer business owners outside and inside your industry. Generally, these are casual meetings where you learn from one another. Golf is often played!
Associations often provide industry-specific training and resources. Tap into your association and see what they have to offer. Another great source is your Chamber of Commerce or local business development center. They often provide very reasonably priced training with local experts.
Read books on business and leadership: Shameless plug coming … Read The On-Purpose Business Person and The On-Purpose Person. Together they lay the groundwork for leading a business and leading your life.
Peer Learning to the rescue: One of the most overlooked programs for business training is non-competitive, facilitated, peer learning groups. In Napoleon Hill’s classic book Think and Grow Rich, he introduces the business idea of mastermind groups. These are generally self-managed versus having third-party facilitators who prepare the agenda and lead the group. Peer learning groups are also called business roundtables or CEO groups. The power of having peer learning grows your learning exponentially because the groups typically involve business training, reading business books, special learning programs, or technologies. In other words, they combine all the ways we learn plus the many benefits I’ve outlined in this On-Purpose Business Minute.

Here are some recommended resources for peer learning groups:

CEO: Colleagues of Executive Online: John Smith, the founder of CEO, pioneered the concepts of business roundtables for Christians in 1989. In April of 1990, I joined one of John’s CEO groups. He’s been a mentor and friend ever since. John now offers virtual groups leveraging video conferencing. I’m a co-chair of a group with John.
Vistage International: I know several people who participate in, speak to, or chair Vistage groups. Generally, Vistage members are running businesses with a minimum of ten or more employees. Dave Zerfoss in Charlotte, NC, is a personal friend and top-notch chair. Connect with him directly if this interests you.
C12: I know Buck Jacobs, the founder of C12, as well as many members and chairs. C12 is designed for the Christian business person. In Orlando, connect with Kevin Respress.
Peerspectives Roundtables: Peerspectives is both a group as well as a specific technique developed by the Edward Lowe Foundation. The Peerspectives technique provides a structured approach to problem-solving and sharing. A friend of mine, Steve Quello, uses this approach in Florida.
Christian Roundtable Groups are sponsored by Truth@Work and are designed for solo owner or SOHO operators.
The Advisory Board has been around for decades. I don’t have personal experience or relationships there but given its long-standing presence, I have to believe they offer excellent value and opportunity to grow.

So there’s my short list of recommendations for bolstering your business skills, concepts, and relationships. If you are serious about growing your business to the next level, then run, don’t walk to find yourself a peer learning group.

Is Your Career In The Midst of A Tough Shift? (part 2)

February 15, 2018 By kwmccarthy

Career Advice?

Early in my career a well-intended business person told me, “Keep your personal life and your business life separated.” At the time, I remember questioning that advice. Perhaps if I had pursued a career in Corporate America that Industrial Age advice might have served me well.

I ignored that advice and followed my heart with the guidance of my head.

Today, I wholeheartedly believe just the opposite is not only true but the healthiest approach to living life and having well-being in your person, work, and relationships.

I’ve been a business owner for over 50 years.

It started with selling candy on the school bus. I tended to eat my profits. My older brother did collections and my parents’ dental plan covered the cavities. Heading down and staying on a path of independent business ownership eventually led me to be in the business of helping clients integrate their work and life to be on-purpose. For over 25 years, I’ve been sharing that message with anyone who would listen. Today, the world is ready and hearing this message.

But what if your life feels compartmentalized, scattered, and struggling with a Tough Shift? Now what? The disintegration of life and work may be an effective (and necessary) survival tool for working ill-fitted jobs, but is dying better than thriving?

Integration of life and work is where it’s at.

On-Purpose can help you to live into your greater calling and find your happiness.

Put on-purpose business principles and planning to use in your personal and work life. As a business advisor my focus is principally on company growth through improving the business acumen and leadership capacity of the people within a well-defined business strategy. We help our clients create On-Purpose Business Plans. You can do the same for your career by creating a life and career plan, especially leveraging ONPURPOSE.me, the online 2-word purpose statement discovery tool.

Over the years, many a client has come to me seeking life and career advice.

Usually, the call comes when they’re in the midst of a tough shift—job loss or job dissatisfaction. Most of us struggle with time management, but that isn’t the underlying issue. We’re fighting financial worries, but that isn’t the true problem either. We’re trying to steady a shaken confidence, but that isn’t the problem.

The real problem is we haven’t identified what’s most important … really important–willing-to-pay-the-price-important.

We take on too much.
We spread ourselves thin.
We never develop our true strengths, passion, and purpose.

The idea of spreading our risks actually compounds it. Try excelling at something you’re not called to do. No amount of extra time, energy, and effort can produce a truly satisfying result. We’re simply off-purpose. What a waste!

If you find yourself in the midst of a tough shift, such as out of work, underemployed, on-the-fence about your future, or downright unhappy in your present job, then On-Purpose^® is a fun, workable process designed to free you to be true to who you are.

Here are some suggested resources:

Read The On-Purpose Person.
Run Want Lists and Tournaments to get very clear about what’s most immediately important. Use The Discovery Guide free preview.
Mary Tomlinson rocks as an On-Purpose Personal Leadership Coach
Hire a coach to help you. There are plenty of talented, capable “life coaches” available. Mary Tomlinson is delightfully exceptional at walking clients through the entire On-Purpose personal planning process using On-Purpose Peace. We also have other recommendations to On-Purpose Pros as life and career coaches.
Make appointments for your dream! If you don’t, no one else will. You’ll always be subject to fulfilling the dreams of others while your dream dissipates through the days spent instead of invested.

Go into this planning process with a focus on your life and you’ll come out with a life and career plan that informs your vocational aspirations.

Smooth out the tough shift and step your life into a higher gear—on-purpose!

Are You Doing Business By Design?

January 25, 2018 By kwmccarthy

Most start-up businesses begin with great intentions but are at risk of being haphazardly led with little to no regard for the founder’s spirit or original intent—even when the founder is still running the business! It is a costly loss of strategic advantage, employee and customer engagement, and business profits!

Some companies get it right and thrive. The Walt Disney Company’s 2-word purpose can be stated as Creating Happiness. They do a great job of living into that purpose.

Susceptibility

Most susceptible to this drifting from the founder’s spirit and intent are large organizations and institutions where work is highly fragmented across divisions and/or countries. Specialization must be paired with a sustainable corporate culture that honors and innovates upon the strengths of its past.

For example, did you know that universities and colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other Ivy League colleges were started as seminaries to train and equip ministers in the Christian faith? Today, these academic bastions of intellectualism and secularization are so far from their founders’ intent that their roots are obscured, if not outright ridiculed.

Candidly, most large businesses have lost a measure of their soul, and so they resort to conveying and communicating corporate values as the “fix” to the deeper loss of authenticity and congruency. When values need to be more codified and communicated than caught, then ethical business problems are predictably on the horizon.

Right behavior can be reinforced, but it can’t be legislated.

Hellegation™

Least susceptible to drift are micro-businesses or one-person entrepreneurs, freelancers, and such—provided they have clarified what matters most. Otherwise, they’re susceptible to the “chasing bright shiny objects syndrome.”

Solo owners face a different challenge, however. Founders of these SOHO (small office, home office) businesses are typically wearing far too many hats and are preoccupied with personally providing production, sales, and customer care. They’re easily caught in a vicious swirl of learning, working, and selling or overwhelmingly stuck in procrastination.

Fortunately, their passion to perform typically enables them to muscle through and deliver on a small scale basis. My term for this is Hellegation™—a condition where the solo owner has no one to delegate work to in order to be freed up to focus on more important matters to the health and well-being of the business, its customers, and society.

Years ago, I had a client who was starting an IT business. He got so lost in his software development, he soon forgot why he started a business. His intent was to help clients, employees, and his family, but he lost sight of the larger picture—becoming buried in the details. His strategic confusion produced a bewildering business design supported by a confused business infrastructure.

In my client’s case, lines of code were the means for creating value and making a contribution. He, however, got caught up in the making of money (financial profit) versus creating a profit for everyone (adding value). The true value of his business wasn’t code or cash but grounded in how his software improved the lives and productivity of his client companies and their customers.

By Design, On-Purpose

It sounds so basic, but the fundamentals of business really don’t change. Ultimately business is about people serving people. As today’s On-Purpose Business Minute encourages: do business by design. Clarity of purpose is your market advantage (or disadvantage if absent!). The difference from company to company is its business style, design, model, and infrastructure in alignment with its purpose, i.e. being on-purpose.

Any kind of plan or business plan for small businesses tends to be scarce. Who has the time to plan? or so the thinking goes. Understandably so because the plans are really not all that appropriate or useful in many businesses (see: What is the Purpose of a Business Plan?). Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean strategy and planning are useless and meaningless. They have a specific and powerful place in a company of any size.

(Special plug: A couple of years ago I met Jim Horan, creator of The One Page Business Plan. Here’s a great planning device for businesses of all sizes. It is, however, especially apropos for solo owners.) I also offer The Service Model as a similar but different way to analyze, build, and design your business. You can purchase instructions and a worksheet at The On-Purpose Shop.

Having a strategic context for building your business matters.

The On-Purpose Business Plan is a 9-minute video providing the essential steps to integrate the business design, plan, model, and infrastructure to reach and serve your customer base. This “map” of what’s needed is too often a missing perspective for those leading organizations. Admittedly, the agenda is full so connecting this many dots seems like busy work. In fact, it is vital business work to the development and growth of your team, culture, and business performance.

Regardless of whether you are an entrepreneur of a one-person show or the CEO of a billion-dollar business, as your business advisor and designer, you don’t call me until there’s a problem in the business that your team or you can’t fix yourselves. Your SWOT Analysis only takes you so far.

Stuck?

Let’s assume that you are competent at delivering your product or service, but the business isn’t growing. That means problems lie in the design of the business or the leadership or both! Conversations and conventional wisdom swirl around business infrastructure, business planning, and the business model, but it is like a fish swimming in water trying to see water—you won’t see it because you’re too close to the matter.

Times like this demand depth, not shallow manipulations of the status quo under the guise of change management. In the strategic depths of an organization, a slight adjustment in understanding, a tiny shift in strategy, or an orientation toward greater alignment ripple powerfully into positive results.

The simple articulation of a 2-word purpose statement is the tiniest of acts—but the most potent of all strategic initiatives.

Tweaking the fundamental design of the business is not for the faint of heart. Eventually, failure to do so will be manifest in every facet of the business … and that’s costly at every line item on the budget. Strategic business design can elevate the business to the next level of performance, profits, and expression of its purpose.

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The On-Purpose Business Person provides a solid framework for any person at work to learn how to be strategic and to approach their work as a business owner. Click here or on the image to the right to purchase it for $16. It is also available on Kindle for $9.97.

Get The Service Model worksheet here!

Humility Matters: Who Is Keeping You Real?

December 14, 2017 By kwmccarthy

So you think you have this on-purpose thing mastered in your work life?

Yep, as you’re getting more and more on-purpose you’re being sought and placed into positions of leadership. Your star is rising.

Now for the bad news — there’s a downside to being on-purpose.

Guard against the arrogance of being on-purpose or, ironically, you’ll end up being off-purpose.

Success can breed a winner’s arrogance versus a servant leader’s confidence and humility.

Who is keeping you grounded and real? It better be someone!

Are you a business leader looking for an executive coach to give you a true perspective on your personal self-importance reading? Below are some great referrals for you and me. Tell ’em I sent you.

1. Mary Tomlinson in Raleigh, NC. Email Mary. Mary has a stellar corporate executive background at Walt Disney World plus 16 years of being an independent coach, consultant, and speaker.

2. John Smith (yes, his real name), my mentor. Email John. John has a decades-long career in the ministry of serving CEOs.

3. Dave Vogelpohl is a senior-level business advisor with both big business experience and small business consulting insights. In recent years, Dave has been doing a lot of church consulting—when I’m not bugging him to help me sort out options.

4. Kevin W. McCarthy. Yes, I’m available for business advisory services to help individuals and organizations to be on-purpose.

What Is Your Cost of Poor Direction and Communication?

July 13, 2017 By kwmccarthy

At a client management roundtable I facilitated, the participants emphasized the lack of direction and communication. Their sentiments were echoed and validated by an employee survey. When asked to perform a financial assessment on the cost of poor communication and direction, within two minutes these leaders had calculated over $12 million in costs or 25% of the company’s gross revenues.

Is this high cost an exaggeration? Not at all. Their experience is typical.

Through the years I’ve invited clients to assess the cost of being off-purpose. Consistently, it is a breathtaking percentage of revenues. Here’s why: every line item on the financial statements is affected. The effect, however, is mostly indirect so the true cost is out of sight on the typical performance metrics.

Broadly insufficient direction and communication reflect on the top leaders. Experience tells me it isn’t that the top leaders won’t direct or communicate, it is that they don’t know what to communicate.

Direction and communication are deep strategic matters residing in the office of the CEO and C-suite.

Purpose, vision, missions, and values form the basis of core strategy that informs the business plan. Generalities instead of strategic clarity muddy direction and communication. When the leadership and management team are fuzzy, then the supervisory and frontline people are left guessing what to do.

Interestingly, those who “guess” better than most, get promoted. They imagine being in management will give them the opportunity to manage better than they were managed. In fact, they soon discover they’re just closer to the source of the problem and are even more exposed to the risks of managing through the mud. This can lead to a feeling of being squeezed between upper management and frontline workers.

On one hand, one wants to be loyal to their employer; yet, on the other hand, it is really hard to defend dumb policies and procedures with no basis of strategy or logic. In top management’s defense (to some degree), it is a fine line to walk between leading and managing versus dictating and micromanaging.

If you are the CEO, figure out your strategy and direction and commit yourself and your team to being true to it. Sell it consistently with great internal communication and reward right behaviors.

One of the great movie lines of all time comes from the movie Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman. The chain gang prison captain says to Luke after rendering a whipping on him, “What we’ve got here is … failure to communicate.” Watch Video.

Indeed, we do have … failure to communicate. Imagine being in my shoes and seeing huge gains and savings to be had in a business, yet the leader is out of the comfort of his or her experience or they assume they are communicating.

Expecting others to be mind readers is frustrating for everyone.

Purpose is the beginning of clarity in life and business. It pays big dividends to be on-purpose.

How Do I Become A Leader?

April 25, 2017 By kwmccarthy

In a conversation with a very financially successful woman she confessed to me “I am not a leader.” Her sincere, albeit inaccurate, self-assessment stunned me. Not only did I respect her as a leader, I knew a number of others who shared my opinion of her.

It didn’t matter what I or others thought of her. She didn’t see herself as a leader, so she wasn’t. But I did have a long conversation with her to share some of what is in this On-Purpose Minute video and text.

Just as I believe we’re on-purpose persons in creation, I believe we’re all leaders in creation, too.

Here’s why: We are all leaders at some place, in some topic, at some time, or with some people. Clearly, there are those of us who are more naturally front and center in visible positions of leadership.

The conversation with the woman got me thinking about those who don’t see themselves as leaders. With this On-Purpose Minute, my hope is I can awaken you to your leadership in small areas so you can leverage these as building blocks to grow your personal leadership.

Here are Five Tough Shifts in your thinking to become a leader:

Recognize where you presently lead
Relabel yourself as a leader
Know yourself better
Practice your leadership skills by leading your life better
Realize you won’t please everyone

Feel free to add your suggestions in the comment section below.

This is a classic On-Purpose Minute. The On-Purpose Leader Experience is NOT being offered this May. Below is a link to a preview of one from May 2012.

Here is a link to a preview of The On-Purpose Leader Experience.

Are You Managing Your Profits?

March 9, 2017 By kwmccarthy

Profits are the lifeblood of any business. Without them, the business dies. However, the body of the business is your strategy, structure, and systems that are organized and managed in such a way that profit is the natural outcome.

It is so easy to get focused on managing to a profit that we forget the body of profit creation. Avoid falling into the pit of managing numbers and forgetting that profits are the result of a team of people being well led and organized to serve a customer base with sufficient value to produce a profit.

Your profit and loss report makes a statement about what matters most in your business leadership. “Follow the money!” was the advice of Deep Throat, the Watergate secret informer. Following the money reveals much about the priorities of the business leaders and managers.

Your definition of profit frames your leadership and management methods. If net profit is only about the dollars and cents, then your cost of doing business is likely too high because you’ll have high turnover of team members and customers. Profitability is a financial as well as a human measure for adding and creating value. Ignore either one and your P&L will suffer. Invest in both and you’ve increased your probabilities for profiting.

Everyone profits when we recognize it is profits AND people, not profits or people.

Yes, financial profits matter. Integrating people and profits is the role of leadership and management, respectively. So how are you doing?

In the long run, your business’s valuation will reflect the attitude and excellence of the corporate culture you’re establishing. Short-term fixes (coupons and discounts) to stimulate profits are drug-like highs and can often undermine or compromise the core values of a business. This sends your best employees scurrying to the doors because it signals leadership panic plus a loss of stability and commitment to the people and brand promise.

Want to increase your profits? Increase your contribution, capacity, and capability to add value to your employees, customers, and stakeholders. Always look for substantive ways to create fundamental improvements in profitability. Everyone profits when we recognize it is profits AND people, not profits or people.

Who Cares About Leading The Business?

September 29, 2016 By kwmccarthy

Leading the business carries responsibilities. Being a business advisor and strategic management consultant for more than a couple of decades, I can tell you the single, simplest, most overlooked root of more problems in organizations is the failure to articulate, communicate, and execute based on the purpose of the organization (Po). Its absence is massively expensive; its presence nourishes the corporate culture for productive and efficient growth in people and profits.

Someone in charge, however, has to care. Is that you who is leading the business?

This lack of deep strategic clarity muddles every aspect of the organization. People, process, performance, profits, customer service, and operations are just a few of the functional areas informed by a potent, simple, 2-word purpose statement.

Yet, purpose statements are amazingly misunderstood, unappreciated, and under-engaged. In businesses, I’ve seen the benefit of the leadership team knowing and executing on their purpose produce a 25% or more increase in sales and even greater percentage increases in profits.

Are you finally ready to set a strategic cornerstone and write your purpose statement? Remember, it is just a beginning but an essential start. I recommend that all business clients first write their personal purpose statement before they do the business statement.