TIMELESSNESS

Surely you jest! The closest we’ll ever get to this state of existence (and still be living) is on vacation (or drugs!), or by meditating or exercising. Reality dictates that timelessness is not a condition of most employment, unless you’re an Astronaut.

~~~~~~~

So what’s a poor creative business type to do to achieve a big enough taste of nirvana, be inspired to greatness and  innovative genius . . . and to prompt meaningful sales?

First, manage your time more efficiently. Pay no attention to corporate trainers and consultants who advocate that life is not about managing time but should instead be about managing your self more efficiently.

CREATIVITY IS NOT SPAWNED

BY EFFICIENCY.

Creative expression evolves from dreaming, trial and error, inspiring examples, hard-nosed research, brainstorming, testing, communication, and often from sleeping on your ideas.

You’ll do –for example– a better job of creative marketing or website design after watching an animated movie, or after taking a walk or jog through the woods or a park, or along a waterfront.

You’ll get more creative traction out of playing with a toddler, or a puppy, or visiting your local ASPCA adoption offerings, or a nursing home, children’s hospital, school, theatre or day care center.

In other words, get yourself up and out of your element, away from your “normal” day-to-day environment.

ROUTINE EXPERIENCES

DON’T STIMULATE CREATIVITY.

Total immersion in the exceptional, extraordinary, bizarre, unexpected, and unusual DO.

Savvy creative directors send their writers, artists, and designers to different kinds of events to broaden their horizons and enable expanded thinking directions. It’s not unklike getting up from your desk, drawing board, computer, or workbench to take a short walk, a break, a stretch, or to get a cup of coffee. This also translates to not eating lunch in your workspace.

When we make a point of achieving little hunks of timelessness in the consciousness of our daily work efforts, grabbing at it whenever possible, we will perform better than those who don’t, and better than we normally would when we don’t take time outs!

# # #

FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116

Open   Minds   Open   Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Great Medicine is not

 Great leadership

 is not always transparent!

Every winning sports and business team has a sparkplug — THE one most enthusiastic, energetic, pumped-up, mover and shaker who ignites her or his teammates and gets them focused on achievement. 

Combined with what most of us might designate as leadership qualities… trust, authenticity, integrity, empathy, compassion, active listening, speaking clearly, sense of humor, teaching by example, et al…the single sparkplug ingredient, the piece that brings it all together, comes quietly from inside… and is not always transparent. 

“Sparkpluggyness“  is not tangible, obvious, or even evident in many cases. It is a fire-in-the-belly sense of desire and mission. True leaders exude it, and usually without ever even noticing or acknowledging it. It’s something that “just happens” as many have shared along their career paths.

So how does one begin to cultivate and nurture the characteristics that lead to rewarding practices of inside leadership? Do boosters work? Energy drinks? Coffee? Drugs? Ginseng?

One might best begin with a large dose of self-esteem, let that percolate into self-confidence, add a dash of deep breathing, proper exercise, enough rest, nutritional foods (and obviously eliminate addictive tobacco and alcohol products along the way), and work at mastering the ways of dealing best with your own stress.

Try whatever comes along until you find the one thing that best works for you. Is it jogging? Lifting? Yoga? Massage therapy? Playing with a pet? Pursuing a hobby? Swimming? Gardening? Painting? The answer is different for every single person. But you’ll never discover what’s best for you if you aren’t continually experimenting.   

This is all about getting in touch with your inner self and firing up that furnace. If YOU don’t know what makes you tick, you’ll never be able to know how to best figure out what makes other people tick, and how to best deal with them to get them motivated.

Even Maslow’s Theory of Motivation relies one-hundred percent on a manager’s ability to “size up” others to be able to best reward them at a level that’s most meaningful to THEM. If you give me a plaque when I most want a more impressive title, you’re wasting my interest and sense of teamwork. You will not gain my commitment.

This little piece of leadership need not be for public consumption: The more you know about what makes YOU go, the closer you are to understanding and motivating others, and the more you can succeed at getting others to achieve, the better a leader you become and the more you will accomplish, transparently or otherwise.

# # #

FREE blog subscription: Posts RSS Feed

Hal@Businessworks.US   Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Is Your Vision Statement

A Mission?

Does Your

Mission Statement

Have Vision?

You’re getting ready for 2012 and you’re confused? Gee, hard to imagine . . .

Just because the media and politicians tell us the economy is getting better? Just because we’re looking at a healthcare reform that has absolutely nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with costing small business more? Just because enemy combatant terrorist situations surface from those we’re told are not really terrorists, and from circumstances that we’re assured do not exist? Just because global warming hoaxsters had us running to refrigeration investments?

~~~~~~~

We’re probably feeling like confusion is nothing new, right? So why not live with a little more?

Well, here’s why: The business you own or manage doesn’t need to be as misguided and convoluted as politicians and the media. Remember they get paid for creating confusion. Your success depends on keeping things simple.

Keeping things simple starts with attitude, awareness, and hard work.

First off, don’t let anyone tell you to work smarter and not harder. That’s baloney! Every business success comes from hard work. Next, don’t let people confuse you about the characteristics and values of Mission and Vision Statements. [No, they are NOT the same!]

A Mission statement is essentially a declaration of intent, challenge and pursuit. It is your goal statement that clearly and succinctly explains what you plan to accomplish over what specific period of time and by what means. It is action-focused.

And, like every meaningful goal, your Mission Statement needs t0 be specific, flexible, realistic and have a due date. [Without all four criteria, you’ve nothing more than a wishlist fantasy!]

A Vision statement is a summation of where you see your business in 5-10 years. It is a picture you paint in your mind and share with others. It answers the question: If you succeed in your mission, where will you be?

It’s a set of words that best describes what you imagine to be your future state of existence, and how you expect (hope) to be viewed by others: your employees, associates, vendors, customers, markets, industry or profession, and community. It is dream-focused. It’s primary value is to inspire pursuit of your Mission.

What’s your Mission for 2012? What’s your Vision for 2020?

Oh, and in the same fashion that it helps to start ANY mission with 20/20 vision, it is often most useful to put your 2020 Vision on the table (to keep focused on it) while you develop your 2012 Mission (or while you think up the ways to get where you want to end up).

~~~~~~~

More FREE insights on

 2012 “LEADERSHIP”?

Come visit me at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s site and comment on my Guest Blog posts:

LEADERSHIP TRANSPARENCY

“I” IS FOR INTEGRITY

and “T” IS FOR TRUST.  

# # #

FREE blog subscription Posts RSS Feed

Updated From the Best of Hal’s Christmastime Business Posts . . .

The quickest fix for

You are NOT

“going into” 2012!

You are making it happen!

You’re an entrepreneur!

Thumbs up! Thumbs down!

 All thumbs! Thumb a ride! 

Thumb this!

Did you ever notice how many things you use your thumbs for? Did you ever notice how much you use any part of your body for tasks that you never stop to pay attention to, until that part gets sick or injured or stressed beyond functioning? And you wonder how you could have ever overlooked how critical all of your parts are?

Isn’t it the same with your business? Don’t you have tasks and functions to deal with, approaches to take, routines, habits and checklists to observe every day?  And when something goes wrong, breaks down, or isn’t where you thought you left it… or not performing up to snuff, or communications get muddled, you become an EMT?

Okay, so you’re good in emergencies,

 but you really can’t make a living in

 business functioning as a firefighter.

Being able to respond quickly and adapt quickly are genuine entrepreneurial strengths, but too often they become crutches and can readily lead the leaner into business failure and a nonproductive way of life. True leaders wear many hats and know when to trade off one for the other. Thumbs go up! Thumbs go down! Thumbs hitchhike!  

Cute, Hal, but what does that mean? It means that truly successful business owners and managers are those who exercise flexibility in the ways they move, the things they say, the leadership styles they exercise, the assignments and presentations they give and the WAYS they do these things.

Process is what matters most — HOW things get done, the steps involved, can often be more important than what is actually done. Isn’t that a lot like how you say what tou say is at least as important as what you say? Well, the key to process is flexibility… being ready, willing, and able to “turn on a dime,” as the old expression goes.

“Turn on a dime!”

Thumbs are a good example of flexibility. They can turn from up to down in an instant. Think of your thumbs as the gateway to flexibility and spontaneity — flexible fulfillment. Have you ever seen a thumb direction opposite of a facial expression (or an internal feeling?)?  Thumb direction is the harbinger of thought process.

Remember the childhood exercise of putting all your knuckles together as you interlock your fingers and close your palms together so that your fingertips are hidden (reciting “here’s the church!”), then point your two forefinger tips together in the air (reciting “here’s the steeple!”) and then guess what’s next… remember? 

Throwing out your thumbs and wiggling your other six fingertips (reciting “open the doors, and look at all the people!”)? So, even since being a tyke, your thumbs have been the doors that open your vision to what’s going on inside. What happens when you look beyond the thumbs of your day-to-day business?

“The journey to discovery,”

said Proust, “consists not in

having new landscapes,

but in having new eyes.” 

When did you last “Thumb Through”some of those pages that describe where your business has been, where it is, and where it’s going? Close your eyes for a minute and think that through before skipping off to your emails, or back to Twitter or Facebook. And remember it’s the process of how you think about it all.

Startup Fever