You can hire 2 kinds of people.
Those that are better than you.
Those that will obey you.
The first will grow your business.
The second will use it.
The first should be paid more than you.
The second will tell you.
Which would you choose?
Are they really No.1?
Our best loved workshop is ‘The Ideas Factory’
The people we work for love it.
We love it too.
Ideas are always just ideas until they fly into action.
New ideas are new because they have not happened before.
Ideas can be exciting to discuss but that delivers short term euphoria.
Ideas tried, tested, improved, engaged, dismantled, rebuilt, improved really work.
Next time you generate an idea, make a new promise.
It’s this;
“Let’s try it”
Until then you won’t know.
When you try – you will
Why don’t you get your team together for a new kind of Workshop?
Here’s the trick.
Ask everyone coming to tell you a story.
The story must be a story about a lesson learnt.
What did they learn?
Why?
What changed?
I bet we won’t make the same mistake.
Some people create.
Some people refine.
You need both.
Creators are restless, curious and full of ideas.
They are not good at seeing things through.
Refiners are solid, safe and attend to detail.
They are not good at ideas.
Really good work comes from fusing the two.
Superb work is not in creating the idea, it’s in refining it.
Look at your team.
Which is which?
Do you need to reshuffle the pack?
A business is either growing or dying, full stop.
To keep growing you need to keep feeding, inventing and working hard.
All very basic but often forgotten.
A business won’t grow on hard work alone.
It grows because the market wants it, needs it and employs it.
If it doesn’t, they will let you know and quickly too.
When the men in sharp suits appear on TV calling for the Government to ‘intervene’ ‘act’ ‘reduce’ or ‘write cheques’
I worry.
I worry because their job is safe and sound bites at prime time don’t save jobs.
An association must be relevant and must be today.
Sound bites and sharp suits don’t control the market.
The market controls the market.
Wouldn’t it be far better to invest money in ideas, education, initiatives and understanding the market?
Or perhaps that doesn’t suit the men in suits?
We are all different.
We see the world through different lenses.
Clever people accept difference.
Not so clever people argue the point.
We choose our own path.
In work, we stay or we go.
In the end, we choose.
Next time one of your staff leaves of their own accord, don’t look through their lens, look through your own.
What you don’t like I might just.
What I like, you might not.
What I say I might regret.
What you say may define your past and your future.
As the saying goes, we are all free to choose.
Can I add?
…. And not so free to impose.
1. Ideas come from bad ideas
2. Ideas come from developing an ordinary idea
3. Ideas come from inspirational leadership
4. Ideas come from lively debate
5. Ideas come from watching people, especially children
6. Ideas come from a passionate purpose
7. Ideas come from adversity, trouble and danger
8. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie
Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
9. Ideas come from putting ourselves in your shoes
10. Ideas come when we don’t look for them
If you do, congratulations you are very special.
If you don’t Shhhhhhh……………………………………
A few years back I gave a one day Seminar.
A young girl stood out.
Not because of what she said but because of how she said it and her attitude.
She suggested a new, innovative and highly creative idea.
I was impressed, hugely impressed.
The rationale was great, the logic, everything.
Big Boss sat beside her.
He scoffed and scorned, she kept her dignity.
He kept talking about “In my experience”
I wondered why his past was predicting the future.
Naturally, she left.
This week she popped up again working for a brilliant leader.
She brought the idea.
He bought it.
They flew.
Incidentally, Big Boss is struggling to stay afloat these days.
You don’t know the future so next time someone says “I have an idea”
Listen.
In fact, listen very carefully.
On a country trip I realised the speed and passage of time.
I also realised the death of a product and the need for constant innovation, invention and initiative.
A rural phone box had died.
A sad carcass was all that remained in the pretty little village.
The brand name had faded far from its former glory and the death was painfully slow.
For me, it’s not long ago that these ultra modern, sleek, shiny steel boxes were new, brand new.
Today, mobiles, modems and everything else have killed what was once new.
Survival comes by constantly reinventing, moving and trying.
Death, just like a firework, will be yours if you don’t reinvent the minute your product is successful.
I’m not saying this is essential.
I am saying it’s a good compass and a good guide.
When you start a business is your motive to make money?
Perhaps have freedom?
Maybe to challenge yourself?
Or something different?
All fine, all essential, all valid.
However, next time, think about adding this;
“Will what I do make what already exists – better?”
That’s how you break the norm.
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