NO business is worth

your family!

     With the odds for success practically in the minus zone, it’s a wonder that family businesses–including, of course, formal partnerships–ever survive at all, never mind continue to be born on a daily basis.

     I mean I’ve always thought human beings were gluttons for punishment, especially in business and especially in family life. And here we have a non-stop wave of people actually putting the two lunatic fringes together, and calling them “family businesses.” 

     Maybe instead of LLC (for Limited Liability Corporation), these undertakings (pardon the expression) should be designated LMD (for Limited Maniacal Dysfunctionality).

     What kind of a nut case do you have to be to go into business with your brother-in-law? You never liked each other to start with. He’s a lazy good-for-nothing snail brain who prefers sitting in the back room watching TV and drinking beer to waiting on customers and stocking shelves.

     Oh, you’re a law firm? Sorry. Actually, that makes it all a whole lot worse; arguing over a TV and can of beer is nothing compared to suits and counter suits… and bad suits. Husband and wife team? HA! For how long?

     It takes a VERY special relationship for a couple, or any family members, to make things work in a business setting. There are natural authority and responsibility levels attached to family membership that almost necessarily spill over into the business.

     Family business partners need to work harder at not taking business too far into home life. It’s a good idea for couples to paint a red line across the bedroom doorway (one couple I know uses yellow “CAUTION” tape) to serve as a conscious reminder to separate business from personal life.

     Talking through business-related issues before heading home should be a goal if you want your personal relationship to stay healthy. When something needs to come home for discussion, do it in a home office, or porch or basement or backyard, but keep it away from the kitchen, the bedroom, the family room, and the dinner table.

     It takes two to tango goes the old expression; it takes two to drag business into personal home space. CHOOSE to detach yourself from potential confrontations. Home office? Keep it there when you leave the workspace. You need to work at this together. It doesn’t happen by itself.

     Father & Son, Mother & Daughter, Husband & Wife, Brothers & Sisters, In-Laws, Cousins, Aunts & Uncles: Talk to each other about it. More importantly, LISTEN to each other about it. RESPECT each other’s privacy and need for quiet time.

     When you push the limits, you push the relationships, and if one collapses, it all collapses. If you’re going to do this insane family business thing, do it in a spirit of cooperation and trust and mutual respect. Maybe then, you have a chance of making it work!     

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Hal@Businessworks.US  or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. 

Go for your goals, good night and God bless you!

2nd only to the government,

big business gets an F

All of us who own and operate or manage a small or medium sized business know that the world’s most incompetent excuses for “businesspeople” reside in dark, damp little squirrel holes of government and academia buildings. They are the poster boys and girls for business stupidity.

But right after these poor ignorant, unrealistic souls, maybe not even a full rung lower on the ladder, are the braindead, money-wasting corporate executives who spend half their lives in limos, cabs, commuter train barcars, business class airline seats, and fancy restaurants.

These are the hot-shot 9 to 5 executives who travel better, eat and drink better and live better, higher-income lifestyles than either the government doo-dahs or the academic muckity-mucks.

But that doesn’t make them smart, or productive, or successful.

Most of them are none of those.

It simply makes them people who don’t have what it takes to start and build and grow their own business ventures, but who are not quite as stupid as those who work for those who get elected.

They are also a hair more savvy than those who merely pretend to know what it’s all about, and who instead of doing, end up teaching young people how to do and not do the things they themselves don’t know how to do and not do.

It’s interesting to me, by the way, that so many of these corporate suits seem to think they are Henry Ford’s and Bill Gates’s and Mary Kay’s when they get anywhere near a calculator or Excel spreadsheet.

Reality is that this country is in dire economic straits today because of corporate mentalities that STILL don’t get it, that STILL are unproductive, that STILL squander taxpayer (and stockholder) money left and right. (Actually, I have fresh evidence from today, if anyone’s interested in details.)

What’s wrong with all this is not just the consequences of incompetence but the systems that breed it: educational institutions, government agencies, and Fortune 500 corporations.

How do I know this? Before spending most of my career as a small business owner/operator, I was a college professor, a government employee and a Fortune 500 executive. That’s like the been there, done that thing.

Thankfully, I saw early on that none of these (academia, government, corporate) paths held out any promise of a successful life journey for anyone with energy and ambition and common sense and basic business instincts.

And here’s what I conclude: 

. . . when we can ween ourselves from societal dependence on misguided government, fantasyworld academia, and thieving corporate America . . . and put wind behind the sails of small business . . . only then, will we turn this ship around! 

# # #  

 Hal@TheWriterWorks.com or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. 

Go for your goals, good night and God bless you!  

SELF-EMPLOYED?

Defragment and

give your SELF a

stimulus package!

     There’s plenty of unused storage space in your mind, believe me. Even if it’s just a little teeny bit true that Einstein supposedly only used about 10% of his total brain capacity, where does that leave the rest of us? I mean, give that about 27 or 28 seconds of think time right now.

     Think about all that extra (empty?) space in your brain that’s available to put to work. Leave it plugged in tonight and just click on accessories> defragment. By the morning, VOILA! You’ll be ready for anything.

     Maybe we should sort out who’s working where first. That way, when you’re all freshly defragmented, you’ll be in a position to make more of what you’ve got, or jump into something different.

     If you work for a big company, raise your hand and leave the room. If you work for someone else in a small company or you work for an organization of some type, or you’re in school learning how to work for somebody else…or you don’t work (Wow! What’s thatlike?), you’re probably not reading any of this anyway because you’re too busy surfing FaceBook.

This now leaves us with the heart of the businessworld: YOU!

    You run and/or own and/or manage a business,

OR you are self-employed.

     Oh, there’s that nasty hyphenated word again: self-employed. This simply means that you run AND own AND manage a business. I love you for that…but don’t get yourself worked up over my affection because what do I know?

     Federal and state government leaders don’t think you count.

     Obviously they haven’t a clue about how Apple and Microsoft got started in garages by self-employed geniuses. Anyway, don’t hold your breath waiting for some kind of  stimulus package since “self-employed” doesn’t count as a small business in government circles.

     I saw a handful of governor-conference-attending governors on CSPAN last night, including I am sorry to say, Delaware Governor Jack Markell who clearly doesn’t get it…who thinks his small business job creation plan to help established small businesses get bigger is going to have big economic impact.

     Sorry Jack. You need to get real, and talk with (LISTEN TO) some of Delaware’s thousands of self-employed small businesses –the ones that are NOT established, that are struggling to get established to see what they need to get up to 3 or 4 or 11 or 25 employees…and TIP: it’s not more loans!

     Making stimulus package room for startups and struggling self-employed is like making disk space by defragmenting. Clear out the junk, the spam, the space-wasters.

     You see what I’m saying here about brain capacity?  Defragmenting cleans up your harddrive. The same concept will clean up your brain, and help you focus on how to be more productive with your time and energy.

     You can be sure of not getting government support, so what can you be sure of? Your SELF! And how do you make that start to work for you? The same ways that Messrs. Jobs and Gates made their one-man-band garage ventures start to work for them.

     They made the choice. They worked hard at their ideas. They didn’t give up when things looked bleak. They didn’t worry about stimulus packages. They put their heads down and charged. You can do that too! Start tomorrow morning…after you defragment tonight!     

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Input aways welcome: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in    subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  

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So go get a new family!

     Do these kinds of situations sound at all familiar, or am I just imagining…???

• The owner’s wife in charge of collecting receivables takes the task too personally because –through her eyes– she can only see that some deadbeat is preventing her from pleasing her husband since she can’t afford to serve him the kind of dinners he most enjoys.    
• The owner’s son is not as business-minded as his mother. She’s constantly berating him for wasting too much time playing around with creating new advertising approaches, and not paying enough attention to customer service, billing, and inventory.
• The two feuding sisters are always trying to outdo one another’s sales accomplishments, and neither is willing to handle growing staff problems.

     Having worked with hundreds of family businesses (from trash collection to surgery practices), I can assure you –since the popular shrink notion is that every family is dysfunctional– that your family business is not unique in it’s breadth and depth of problems.

     It is —on the other hand— unique inasmuch as it takes some very special give-and-take tolerance levels to be able to work day-in-and-day-out with the people you’re related to, and have grown up with.

     Having a history with others can be a positive and rewarding and affectionate experience, but working with those you have a history with can present many challenging opportunities.

     Opportunities? Aha! Therein lies the answer to family business problems. Would it be fair to say that the primary difference between whether someone views any given situation as a “problem” or as an “opportunity” reduces itself to how that person chooses to view it? 

Behavior is a choice… how we view it and how we do it!

     Okay, so some family members thrive on choosing “problems,”  yes? Oh, but you know what? It takes two to tango. YOU don’t have to choose to make a family-problem-chooser’s problems YOUR problems!

     Choose instead to walk away. Or choose to change the channel in your head from a confrontative talk station to easy listening. Or choose to offer choices.

     Above all, choose to be aware that it is a choice! That awareness alone will carry you through some of the rough spots and help keep others focused on what’s important. 

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Food-for-thought

thoughts . . . 

on leadership.

What are yours?

     “Making the right choices,” says America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “is the most important part of leadership. Every other element–from developing and communicating ideas to surrounding oneself with great people–relies on making good decisions.”

     “Humans,” says Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan, “are the only species on earth that will follow a totally unbalanced, unstable leader.” He goes on to say that “Balance comes from all four parts of ourselves–intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and instinctual–in alignment”

     Author/management consultant Marvin Weisbord says in twenty-five years, the leaders he has learned the most from have “certain knacks. They focus attention on valued aspirations. They mobilize energy by involving others. They face the unknown without answers.”

     “The ability to step up to the plate and provide the necessary leadership is the key determinant of achievement in all human activities,” says motivational guru Brian Tracy. “Great business leadership,” he says, ” is characterized by honesty, truthfulness, and straight dealing with every person, under all circumstances.” 

     Leaders, says one of America’s great entrepreneur successes Deaver Brown, “are often like the Pied Piper, turning around to find a group following them wherever they go. They can ignite their followers almost at will.They have the remarkable talent of being able to inspire devotion and loyalty, mustering excellent performances from average people.”

     U.S. President General Dwight David Eisenhower defined leadership as “the ability to get a person to do what you want him to do, when you want it done, in a way you want it done, because he wants to do it!” 

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Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

“Leaders have to control their

emotions under pressure.”

Rudy Giuliani, Time Magazine’s “Mayor of the world”

     We’re reminded to be kinder than necessary because everyone we meet is fighting some kind of battle. If that reminder is only half true, we’re talking about a lot of pent up stress. Bottled up anxieties = emotions under pressure. Leaders, by virtue of being leaders must rise above that.

     Forcing your brain to functionin ways that are totally opposite of what you are feeling can be a daunting if not overwhelming challenge, but not one that’s impossible. Why? Because you choose your behavior. You choose whether you will reACT or reSPOND to any given situation.

     Being aware that you have that choice and consciously making that choice is a fairly conclusive bit of evidence that you are indeed someone who is in a leadership position. This is not to say that you need to be unfeeling or insensitive about other people and situations. It means you need to control your feelings when you’re in the pressure-cooker!

     The best starting point for this is to follow the 4-step 60-second exercise spelled out at:

http://halalpiar.com/2009/05/4-steps-in-one-minute-zero-stress/

     Next, recognize that not only is the act of leadership a choice, but so too is the designation that empowers the action. Or, as some have more succinctly put it: if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen!

     Remember too that leaders are both born AND made, but that leadership doesn’t fall from the sky! 

     What is this elusive quality all about? TIME magazine (which I don’t think gets very much right in general, but happened to here) had this to say about designating Rudy Giuliani as “Mayor of the World” and as the 2001 “Person of the Year”:

For having more faith in us than we had in ourselves, for being brave when required and rude where appropriate and tender without being trite, for not sleeping and not quitting and not shrinking from the pain all around him.”

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“You’ve got to stand

for something, or

you’ll fall for anything”

— Aaron Tippin, Country Western Performer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hja0XND8Ms 

     The business world seems to have a mission to have a Mission Statement for everything these days…Sales Mission Statements, Customer Service Mission Statements, Corporate Mission Statements, Financial Mission Statements…

     And many of these, I believe, are merely token lip service public relations-type tongue-twisters with no teeth that hang framed on walls and plastered onto every ad and document and website in bordered shadow boxes, flaunted as if they were flags of honor and integrity!

     First of all, any company that has to be boasting about a Mission Statement (no matter how goody-goody it might sound) is simply indulging itself in mental masturbation.

     If your business is as great as the pursuit of its Mission, the people you want to know it, will know it without you having to strut it across every stage. Your behavior and the behavior of your business is what constitutes your “brand” and people will know you by your brand, your conduct.

     That having been said, there is a need in every organization (even sole proprietorships) for an internal “Leadership Mission Statement” that owners, operators, and managers can rally around and bring into daily practice. “You need to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

     It needs to address HOW your business leadership will function and communicate with others inside AND outside your organization. Why? Because –no matter what business you’re in, no matter what quality or value of goods and services you offer, no matter how industrious and honorable you may be– 80% of your business is communication!

     If you don’t have a Leadership Mission that focuses attention on the processes and ways you will strive daily to communicate clearly (including, importantly, active listening practices) with associates, staff, customers, prospects, vendors, community, industry and the rest of the world, you are setting your company up for failure.

     I’m not talking about a PR or media or customer service policy  manual, or some empty suit theory. I’m referring to a genuine statement of leadership conduct that calls on human communication best practices at every level… in letters, emails, on the phone, in-person, in presentations, and in all marketing related materials, publishings and broadcasts all of the time. “You need to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

What’s the guideline to use? Trust and Authenticity.

With special thanks for inspiring tonight’s blog post to a strategic alliance partner of mine, Andrew Jackson, who sent me the link to the music video source of the headline quote above. 

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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When your back’s

against the wall…

lean!

     That’s right. Let the wall hold you up. It will keep you standing, give you a better position to fight back, and allow you a place to push off of. Besides, being backed against the wall is more likely to make you a tiger than a pussycat.

     Tigers win at business. Pussycats do not. Tigers growl and claw. Pussycats purr and head for the litter-box. [And who said a business blog couldn’t be like Animal Channel?]

     I read and hear and see it everyday. It’s as if a thin coat of discouragement Spackle has been swiped across America’s small businesses. There are not as many smiles. [Please don’t stop smiling. Even forced smiles will eventually lead to real ones, maybe even produce a laugh or two!]

     When your back’s against the wall, turn around and examine the wall. Odds are it’s stronger than you. It’s probably been around a few years, without food or water, or without even using the bathroom…though it does likely have a roof over its head.

     Next, talk to the wall (especially if it’s brick, so you finally will know what all those people mean who claim to liken their discussions with their hi-tech-self-absorbed teenagers being “like talking to a brick wall!”).

     Okay, so now you’ve leaned against the wall that your back’s up against, you’ve looked at and appreciated and respected the wall, you’ve talked to the wall…what’s next?

     We need only drift back a few wonderful years ago when that question was never openly posed for worldwide consideration but received an earth-shattering response nonetheless.

     Are you thinking back and remembering? The assertive response to a none-question, offered in a stern but reassuring tone of voice by none other than the great leader of the free world, who is clearly a “one of our greatest presidents” candidates:

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”  

I say to you here and now once more, in the immortal words of Ronald Reagan, as if he were here to consult you on your business trials and tribulations:

Tear down this wall!

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The World’s Greatest Expert

on Death and Dying–

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD

–Points to Five Stages:

• Denial and Isolation
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

     She said we –all of us–  must experience each of these five stages to one degree or another in the order they are shown above with every loss experience. The only exceptions being instances where people get stuck in a given stage and never get beyond it.

     So as business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs, some of us experience bits and pieces of these five stages everyday with daily losses.

     Kübler-Ross said that losses are not limited to human death, and can  include the loss of a limb or faculty, or ability… loss of a valuable possession (a home, a car, a business), loss of companionship (including divorce and separation), loss of freedom (including jail), loss of a job, loss of a client, loss of a prospect or opportunity, loss of self-esteem, loss of authority, etc., etc.

     And to a lesser degree, we even experience these stages when we lose a dollar, a photograph, a letter, an address, a contest, and so on.

     So what’s the point? Healthy successful people do everything humanly possible to channel all their energies and mental focus on reaching the level (or “Stage”) of ACCEPTANCE as quickly as possible, and on maintaining themselves at that level as permanently as possible.

     Everything else is non-productive. Everything else leaves us feeling deflated and defeated and negative. Some people stay in these places their entire lives. Some are institutionalized. Some do themselves in.

     Stages 1-4 are pure torment. We must go through them, but the goal needs to be to move through them as rapidly as our minds and bodies allow us to. Getting through the maze may take friends and rescuers to stand by shoulder to shoulder. We have all performed that function for someone else, but perhaps have forgotten?  

     Keep always in the front of your mind that no matter how out of control it may feel to be stuck somewhere in denial and isolation, or in anger, or in a bargaining position, or a state of depression, it IS a matter of choice!

     The minute we choose to accept loss, the quicker we can get on with a happy and productive existence and make the most of the short time we each have here on Earth…make the most of the relationships we’ve been blessed with: with other people and places and purposes.

     We need not choose to lock ourselves into suffering and misery. Life and business life are way too short to have wasted time and energy with anything besides being happy and healthy and in active pursuit of our dreams.  

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Are you a Zippity

or a Doo-Dah?

“You can never resolve a problem by condemning it.”

–World-famous author/consultant Wayne Dyer

     They may not always be right, and they might not always do things right, but Zippity’s get things done!

     Doo-Dah’s typically bungle what they attempt and rarely make attempts on their own to get things done anyway. For a Doo-Dah, it’s easier to make excuses than to take action…easier to complain about a problem or condemn it, than to attack it or solve it.

     How many Doo-Dah’s surround your business and personal life? Stop reading here for 30 seconds, and count them. Think about it. Go ahead: count! I’ll wait. How many?

     Are you helping them? Are they helping you? If you’re not gaining something by association, you’re losing. There is no middle ground. Either you are doing a good deed by spending time and energy (and perhaps money?) with each, and can afford to do that, and want to do that…OR you are losing speed, quality, credibility, and success.

[It may be useful here to remember that achieving the success you seek will surely afford you greater opportunity to help more Doo-Dah’s, if indeed that’s a goal for you!] 

     Distancing yourself from Doo-Dah’s may seem cruel, and may be impossible when family is involved. Ha! Hit a nerve there, huh? Well, considering that most shrinks will tell you that everyone has a dysfunctional family, it should be no surprise that you ended up with a Doo-Dah brother-in-law or uncle or cousin or parent or child.

     But guess what? If you don’t start taking steps sooner than later to surround yourself and your business with Zippity’s, you run the risk of falling prey to the disengaged incompetence of the Doo-Dah’s now and forever after. It’s your choice.

     If you really can’t let go of being Mr. or Ms. Do-Gooder and you’re not into switching to a priesthood, nunnery or social worker career, then you’d better learn to live with your business and your life being universally uneventful, stale, and stagnant…an investment in the status quo.

[Can your business survive that? Can you?]

    No, it’s not a likely scenario if you are actually still reading this. And assuming you are still reading this, get yourself Zippity’d and stayZippity’d.

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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