Business and Professional Practice

Collaborations, Partnerships,

and Marriage . . .

When two people in business or professional practice agree all of the time, one of them is not necessary.

Things that function —from engines to entrepreneurial (doctors included) ventures– need friction. But it appears that just as many people seem not to distinguish clearly between assertiveness and aggressiveness, as those who fail to keep friction and arguing or temper tantrums separate. (Yes, I once worked with a short-fused surgeon who threw scalpels!)

This collaborative partnership subject emerged during an invigorating get-acquainted discussion I had this week with fellow LinkedIn contact, Robin Standlee, an organizational transformation specialist whose company, C-Level Consultants, LLC. is a collaborative partnership organization that works with entrepreneurs and nonprofits.

She pointed out that the strength of collaborative partnerships has a great deal to do with the care and attention given to defining relationship parameters. Clearly defining role responsibilities encourages partners to feel freer and function more productively. Leadership is the ultimate product.

Working with many partnership entities over time (and actually being one for 25 years) has allowed me a unique perspective on these kinds of work arrangements. I have seen partners scream, threaten and throw things at one another — even a fistfight once between two brothers! From surgical group practices and hospitals to IT, foodservice, transportation, and HVAC companies, no enterprise is immune.

The bottom line is that partnering courtships and honeymoons may flutter hearts and become engulfed in bird tweets and floating flower petals, but the realities that test every marriage will surely come to the surface once a relationship settles in. Defining clearly what to expect and who will do what and what will be jointly agreed to —the marriage contract— is critical to ensure business and professional growth.

When you’re serious about joining forces with another person or entity, the only way to make certain that everyone involved will stay involved, that healthy assessments are met with healthy counter-assessments (in other words, that honest and straightforward critiquing and constructive alternative thinking is encouraged) is to agree on a strong operating platform.

COLLABORATION ARTICULATION = Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. When the glitter goes away, will your partners still stand tall?

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HOW LONG

CAN YOU HOLD ON?

Maybe a year? Y’think? Six months? Hmmm? Three or four weeks? Whew! Hours perhaps? Ack! First of all, if your answer is “forever” or “a lifetime” or “long enough,” you may want to revisit your brain because if you’re not living IN it, you’re dangerously close to fantasyland.

One thing I’ve learned in this blessed long life I continue to have is that NOTHING on Planet Earth is permanent. Nothing! That may be no surprise to scholars who know that circa 2600 years ago, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said “Nothing is permanent except change!” (Pretty heady stuff for a guy that old, eh?)

Q. 

What are we talking about here?

Businesses? Families? Friendships?

Entrepreneurial ventures?

Professional practices? Our minds?  

A. 

All of the above!

We “hold on” in five different (yet mostly intertwined) ways:  financially, emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually. And most of the reasons we hold on are anchored in shifting sands. We have numbed ourselves with fear of failure. We have built artificial (and, admittedly, often flimsy) protective walls around our endeavors, pursuits, and ourselves.

So what am I saying? We should all run out and be more carefree? Take bigger risks? Throw away everything we’ve worked hard to earn? Change horses in mid-stream? Stop paying taxes? Buckle under to competitive pressures? Cut off shaky relationships instead of working them through? I’m saying it may be time to reassess what we’re holding onto, and why.

What’s the worst thing can happen by taking a couple of minutes out tonight and thinking through what is and isn’t worth it in your life —  your business or practice, your family, your relationships, your finances, your emotional stability, your intellectual pursuits and development, your body, your sense of spirituality and religious commitments.

Give yourself the benefit of doubt. Just dabble in this arena of yours for a few minutes. Think hard about what it’s all worth, and what you can and are free to choose to do right this minute by making a decision to change things for yourself for the better . . . and then choose it, and do it. It’s really not so hard –and can be fun– once you put yourself on the path.

Letting go may seem –and even feel– hard, but it’s a piece of cake compared with the stress and strain of hanging on to a piece of fantasyland. In the end, for all humans everywhere, reality wins. So why not grab it now and ride it to the finish line? — Your business. Your relationships. Your self. Old song lyrics:

“We may never pass this way again.”

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Are You Expired

Or Inspired?

When did you last check your expiration date? What did it say? What does it say now? What happens if you go past that date? You rot? You crumble? You turn green? You become poisonous? You get taken off the shelf? People pass you up and reach way in the back behind you to bring up some fresh dude who doesn’t expire until 2015?

If this describes you, or you worry about it, or you think it’s inevitable, you’ve got a problem, brother (sister), and it’s time to take a few steps on your own behalf. First off, do a few chin lifts and take some deep breaths.

Don’t run to look in the mirror. Just imagine yourself looking driven and productive and successful as you once were, or perhaps you presently are but feel like you’re on the wrong side of the hill.

Contrary to popular belief, life is not all about discovery. It’s about making the most of what you’ve got to get yourself and others to where you and they want and need to be. It’s about energy and drawing on strengths, acknowledging but by-passing –not struggling to overcome– weaknesses. It’s like knowing what you can and are willing to spend before you go shopping.

Yes, you’re right! That’s called leadership! Genuine leadership has no expiration date. It may shift gears at certain ages or after certain accumulated experiences, but true leadership –like true grit, true integrity, true honesty, true passion– doesn’t fade or need to reinvent itself. It simply is.

How to get it? How to keep it? How to have it take you far beyond someone else’s (or your own) imagined idea of your expiration date reduces itself to being forever on the alert to what INspires you rather than to what EXpires you. So it’s a matter of attitude? Hmmm! That’s over-simplified! Hmmm? There’s more to leadership than attitude! Hmmm?

Well then, if leadership is all about attitude, what does anyone need to read a blog post for, since attitude is a matter of choice, and we can just choose it? Do you trust yourself to just choose it, and stay with that? So maybe the difference between expiration and inspiration is self-trust? Hmmm.

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STOP HIRING CONSULTANTS!!

 CUTTING EXPENSES

DOESN’T MAKE SALES!

To paraphrase an old presidential quote, “It’s the government, stupid!” America’s entrepreneurial leaders are grasping for a lifeline to avoid being swept out to sea by the daily onslaught of misdirected government speak and arrogant government attitude — a trickle-down mindset — harbingers of total economic collapse. And it could be just around the corner.

Forget all that stuff your grandparents used to preach about turning out lights and closing doors to save money. You might save electricity and keep out drafts, but in small business, that kind of save money mentality has been the ruin of many startup ventures. In reality this government-style thinking process accomplishes nothing on the road to survival and growth.

NO ONE EVER MADE MONEY FOR

A BUSINESS BY SAVING MONEY!

Biting into economical practices does not make sales. Only sales make money! “Ouch!” you proclaim, “but I’m not a sales type!” Well, then, become one. Or find one. Or give up your business and go to work for the government. Or show some guts and stick it out. You can make your idea work if you stop taking government advice about how to make it work.

This is not suggesting you do an entrepreneurs gone wild act. A mainstay of our current government, though it may be, this post is not about spending. It’s about what you can do now to turn your business around and stand up to the sleazy, ramrod, phony compassion-soaked policies of the current administration that is desperately trying to control small business.

Just because you have an exciting idea and some startup funding doesn’t mean you can let your enthusiasm run rampant. Business success is about extraordinary customer service and relationship-building. It is about channeling energy and making the most of opportunities that present themselves within your realm of pursuit.

Chase one rainbow at a time! And remember that the best leaders are those who make leaders of their followers.

Running recklessly in too many directions at once will simply produce frustration, exhaustion, and distress — especially in this bare-bones economy. But you CAN run a bare-bones business. After all, small business is based on TRUST. Got some?

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Beware GEEKSPEAK!

GEEKSPEAK. It’s another name for Tech Talk. Too many tech people are talking to too many tech people in too much tech-eeze and the real world of small business owners, professional practice principals, and even top corporate management is passing them by. If you are looking to make sales and grow your business, think twice about GEEKSPEAK overload.

In other words, don’t let website designers write words for your content. They haven’t a clue about effective marketing writing. Don’t let IT people decide on what and how to communicate with clients and customers and prospects. They know not where they come from . . . nor, it often seems, where they’re going when it comes to clarifying issues for non-IT people!

Don’t let your business messages get caught up in branding lines, site content, collateral/promotional material copy or news release text that contains language your grandmother wouldn’t understand. Nothing is so complicated that it can’t be simplified. Nothing is too technical to be communicated in easy-to-understand language.

When I ask you what time it is,

don’t tell me how to make a clock!

It simply takes more time and is harder work. But it’s often the difference between an enthusiastic buyer and a puzzled, overwhelmed one. Suffice it to say that all communication — interpersonal, impersonal, and otherwise, takes more time and is more work. Decide on what you want as a result, and if the extra effort is worth it.

Promoting and presenting complicated diagrams and examples only serves to underscore an oblivious, uncaring attitude to the markets you’re trying to reach. What’s the old axiom? Keep it simple, stupid! And don’t make the excuse that the prospects you seek understand tech talk because odds are pretty good that their bosses who need to approve purchase decisions don’t.

Sourcing people ultimately report to financial and/or operations people who hold the purse-strings. If those folks don’t understand a GEEKSPEAK message, they simply shut down their budgets. And why not? Would you buy something for your home or car that you have no sense of value about, can’t relate to, or fail to understand what you’re getting for your money?

Bite the bullet and give your business communications — especially to your customers, clients, and prospects — the extra effort that will make what you have to say clear from the git go. Not sure if what you’re saying comes across? Ask your grandmother.

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Hal@Businessworks.US 

“Whaddayadonfermelately?”

In today’s instant gratification world, many professional healthcare practices, B to B firms, and customer service business owners hear some version of this question with increasing regularity. Not a bad thing to be asked. Huh? Well. because there’s always room for an answer when you know what the question is.

In fact, NOT hearing some version of “Whaddayadonfermelately?” is far worse than being asked because the unasked question itself portends a “not much” answer.

Savvy proactive service business owners and managers never allow any form of this question to surface in the first place. Their secret? Regular, ongoing “How Goes It?” inventory exchanges. Meetings and discussions (note NOT text messages or emails, which are too superficial) that chunk up and evaluate workflow, deliverables, and performance.

These usually daily or weekly assessments (which generally best occur on Monday mornings to set up the week ahead) are typically followed by a call to action — adjustments in the timing, speed, quality, quantity, agility, relevance, attitude, goals, roles, responsibilities . . . whatever steps will help ensure productive forward motion from point to point.

And when you were a kid (no doubt possessing prototypical entrepreneurial characteristics such as resentment of authority in school and reluctance to follow rules), you might have thought report cards were nonsense — or perhaps unpleasant harbingers of parental lectures?

But “report card” dynamics in service businesses –especially when they’re self-imposed– have saved many client accounts and relationships from collapse. Instead, as  some family elder likely forewarned us as children when we had clearly overstepped or under-achieved, it’s a good thing to “nip it in the bud” when it comes to following a problem direction.

When you, the service provider, take the initiative to nip problems “in the bud,” by requesting regular, ongoing feedback and assessment from your client/customer/patient, you are exercising a form of positive preventive maintenance. And this is not even to mention the other values attached to the client’s impression of your commitment.

Asking for feedback is an admirable posture all by itself but, more importantly, you are opening the communication expressway to allow for more give and take, and a healthier more communicative and more rewarding relationship that operates from a position of strength and confidence, instead of one of cowering and covering your butt.

How do YOU feel about doing business with s0meone who makes assumptions instead of asks? Or someone who disappears when the going gets tough or when you have issues to discuss? Hmmm?

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

 OVERWHELMED?

Make Decisions.

The most overwhelming thing about being overwhelmed is getting your decision making mechanism activated. The holiday season gives rise to getting your personal leadership gears stuck. People to see. Places to go. Events. Gifts. Special meals. Family reunions. And always, there’s business and career. So much to do and so little time.

“Personal Leadership”? Yes, I did mention that. As in leading your SELF  through all the excitement, clamber, congestion, over-indulgence temptations, and disheartening year-end assessments, to a place of reckoning.

That translates to getting UNstuck by getting back in touch with your ability to prioritize and make decisions. There’s really no place else to start except with yourself. If you aren’t healthy and moving forward, how can your business be?

Here’s an old standby method that always works and will help you get UNstuck now. . .

START by listing the 6 critical personal leadership categories at the top of your Word page or Excel grid or piece of paper: spritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, mental, financial. Then itemize random points/parts/ issues that need attention under each heading. Maximum 3 minutes for each column. (If it takes longer to think of, it’s not critical!)

Then, consolidate all items that can be addressed in a bundle fashion or that may represent duplication of effort.

Next– and always with the understanding and expectation that priorities can change in an instant– assign priority number values to each item in each column. Maximum 1 minute per column.

NOW, assign * or ** or *** to each #1 item in each column, then to each #2 item, etc. Take *designated #1 item and attack it. NOW. When it’s done, move on to *designated #2 item, and so on, through **designated #1 items, etc.

Always be prepared to re-prioritize based on what may end up in your face that changes the circumstances. The trick is to use determination and stick-to-it-ive-ness to take each challenge to a point of resolution before moving ahead to the next one.

When you clear the decks of issues that jam up your personal leader-ship skills, go for the rest of the overwhelm. You will be enormously more successful at business, career, and family leadership when you simply start making decisions about how to first deal with you so the rest of what you do is coming from a position of strength, and a true leadership posture.

Oh, and take lots of deep breaths and make it fun whenever you can. Those are choices, you know.

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Hal@Businessworks.US    302.933.0911

 DON’T SURROUND YOURSELF

WITH YOUR SELF!

Besides the number one ailment of entrepreneurs –being under-capitalized– a close second place is awarded to the All-American crushing entrepreneurial ego! This business venture is my idea. I can do it better than anybody. I want people working with me who will ask how high when I say “Jump!” Yup! BTLS (“Born To Lose Syndrome”) it’s called.

Generally speaking, and it’s unfortunate, most people who start, buy or inherit a business or professional practice tend to think the opposite of proven success experience, at least at the outset, and completely blow off the idea of hiring and surrounding themselves with those who are better, smarter, wiser and more experienced than they are. 

Don’t rely on my opinion. Ask any successful business owner or manager you know. You’ll find that those who truly make a difference with the pursuit of their ideas are those who surround themselves with excellence. It’s the mark of a true leader. If you have an ego problem, work at it. If you don’t, it will kill your business or practice.

Accept the fact that someone who has studied and practiced law or accounting or IT or training or marketing or operations, or finance is probably better equipped to make and recommend decisions in their areas of core competence than you are, even though you are great, have great ideas, and are probably a better salesperson than you could ever hire. 

Rule of thumb for successful startups and departmental streamlining: Find and hire the best, smartest people you can in every area of the business that you do not have exceptional command of. Support them. Encourage them. Challenge them. Reward them. And, above all, respect them and listen hard to their recommendations.

DON’T SURROUND YOURSELF

WITH YOUR SELF!

Although it is commonly misunderstood –and many attribute the categorization of being “a jack of all trades” to the word, “entrepreneurship”– entrepreneurship is in fact a really unique form of leadership. It’s unique because it carries the added burden and challenge of being creative while it benefits by the opportunities that creativity produces.

Carry, in other words, entrepreneurial spirit into all that you do while you drop the limitations that entrepreneurial ego fosters. Surround yourself with high quality, high energy people who know more than you and focus –not on competing with them, but–  on being their leader and the spokesperson for your brand. Success will come MUCH quicker.

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

AS ZIG AND ZIGGY SAID . . .

“We should enjoy life while we’re here

’cause there’s no here, there!”

(Worldclass cartoon character Ziggy)

“You can have everything in life you want,

if you will just help other people

get what they want”

(Worldclass motivational sales guru Zig Ziglar who left us this past week,

to hopefully join Ziggy for some fun and enjoyment “there”!)

What’s the point? Entrepreneurs have a way of becoming so driven and preoccupied by the race to achieve their ideas, they rarely take enough time out to enjoy what they already have, like family and friends, and life itself. They can also become so readily entrenched in “doing” for themselves and the growth of their ideas, they can often forget about helping others.

If, like many entrepreneurs, you think you have been put on earth to better mankind by pursuing your great ideas to the exclusion of taking time outs for your self and your family and friends, or to the exclusion of taking time to help others in their moments of need, you might want to revisit your sense of reality and the purpose of your life and business leadership.

My recommendation for how to proceed with this thought for the next minute is to simply take one more step and have a little fun by entering “Ziggy” in the search window to the right, then scan the three blog posts that surface, then enter “Zig Ziglar” in the search window and scan the fifteen or so blog posts that mention or quote him.

I promise –that between the two quick searches– you’ll be amused or prompted to action, if not both. Most assuredly, you will be as I have been by re-skimming these posts, enlightened. I stand humbled by the inspiration I draw from each. You?

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474