Incommn

Being present, taking measure, introducing CoreValue Software

The 21st Century Business Round-table is heading to session #3 in Northampton and session #2 in Springfield. Our theme this year links mindfulness and enterprise success for you, the mindful entrepreneur.

First, Happy Birthday to my INCOMMN partner, Daniel Lieberman! Daniel is the editor and chief writer for this newsletter, and he started the Don’t Eat Lunch Alone (DELA) lunch-time networking and discussion sessions. He and I joined forces to further our visions of resilient enterprises and resilient communities. All that for such a young man is astounding! (aw, shucks, thanks! — Ed.)

Measuring the Right Thing: How Alaska Airlines Does it

What is the measure of “age?” Does it really tell us much about who a person is, and what he or she is doing? Some of us celebrate, and some get worried as they count the passing years. But is it age that matters, or is it something else: fulfillment, achievement, accomplishment, satisfaction, happiness, a sense of wholeness? At any moment (at any age) in life, each of us can take measure: “Who am I? If not now, when?” The same for our businesses and organizations. Alaska Airlines, one of the few airlines, and in some recent years, the only one, to be profitable in North America, employs over 50,000 data points daily to measure how well it’s doing. It’s been an astonishingly successful enterprise with a full national flight schedule: it has the highest on-time take off and landing rate, it has the most satisfied customers and consistently high customer ratings, it has a safety record second to none, and yet it’s profitable. This is the airline that developed satellite tracking and guidance systems, the first to fully utilize this technology. Satellite guidance initially solved the airline’s home-base problem: Alaskan airports are nestled in small areas between mountains and coasts, and the winds and weather can be brutal. Flying there had been high risk yet left no room for error.

This example can teach us many things, including how to engage innovation effectively, and how to manage a complex system successfully. And profitably! And, by the way, for the common good: folks in Alaska depend on this transportation system, and the company has been committed to community and public interests.

InCommN offers CoreValue Software

We don’t always need 50,000 measures, or data points, to help us. I’m now working with, and offering as a new INCOMMN service, a measure-and-analysis system called CoreValue Software. INCOMMN is an advisor with this system, meaning that we employ it to help enterprises measure and track every key aspect of business and organizational development. The system uses 18 dimensions, or areas of measure, including internal (management, organization, accounting, leadership, and legal dimensions) and external (marketing, sales, product/service placement, pricing, brand, customer satisfaction) measures. On each measure, the business is compared to other businesses in its industry sector and also measured against its own stated goals and needs. Each measure is scored, and each results in a number of recommendations for improving that score. It’s the perfect tool for business valuation if owners are thinking of selling, and for entrepreneurs thinking of buying. And it’s equally powerful for assessing any businesses strengths and challenges, for growth planning, and for loan evaluations.

We’ll be carrying more information on our web-site about this exciting new tool. Give us a call if you want a demonstration or preview, or if you’re wanting to acquire, sell, grow or elevate any business. There are many great opportunities and rewarding birthdays for the mindful entrepreneur!

Mission Critical, Method Madness

Originators of great ideas, inventors, and founders have a long history of frustration with the implementations of their discoveries. Those who create a product or service may not be the ones who successfully organize the production and delivery; it’s one thing to invent and create and quite another to organize, manage, and lead. And once the founder or creator involves others in the project, control can quickly be lost to the group that is now charged with implementation. I wonder how many founders are saddened by what becomes of their creations as others take things in different directions?

The source of frustration and disappointment is the confusion between mission and method that can arise in the lifetime of any organized effort; from nations to small businesses to community-based not-for-profits. The founders and creators, the originators, are mission-focused and mission-driven: the initial idea or invention came about as a response to or a solution for some challenge or discovery. The founders’ greatest desire is to present their idea or invention in a way that does what it was invented and designed to do successfully. To fulfill this promise, resources and efforts are organized: a business or organization is created, a nation is founded, a religion begins. These organized efforts involve other people, and other people bring their own ideas and interpretations. Methods to implement actions that will fulfill the mission are employed, and within some period of time these methods become the drivers for continuation. Countless Board of Directors meetings at countless organizations are spent in debate over methods, with almost no regard for mission.

Methods replace the mission, just as the means replace the ends. Public policy is full of examples. Consider gun control and the debate over the Second Amendment (the Right to Bear Arms). Consider for a moment that the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution are mission statements, and the articles and amendments of the constitution are methods. Methods adapt to demands and circumstances, and if the formal process contains procedures for amendments, the originating documents can evolve to address those changes. One interpretation is that the Second Amendment was added to protect citizens from over-reaching centralized anti-democracy government. Yet Aaron Swartz, a 26 year old computer whiz who recently committed suicide while being hounded by the government and facing a 30-year prison sentence for a minor computer hacking event (he downloaded academic journal articles), would not have been saved by keeping a gun under his pillow. Today, individual citizens need the right to freely access information, as well as to be free from governments’ computer-based policing; the modern state can be far more dangerous through information control than through gun control.

The mission of the United States was to ensure justice under law, democracy, equality, individual freedoms and rights, and organized capacity to address the common good as a number one priority. The means to accomplish all this is found in the Constitution and subsequent legislation and laws. The measure of a given method is supposed to be the mission statements: if a piece of legislation or law undermines the stated purposes and missions, then the law needs to be changed, amended, or discarded. But over time we’ve come to have a higher regard for the methods, and we measure new decisions and actions against the older methods. If something new threatens to change, amend or end one of the methods, courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, squashes the new legislation —  even if it does a better job of protecting and fulfilling the mission. Protecting the rights of corporations as if they were individual citizens is a case in point; so is the undermining of election laws and election finance limits.

What Can a Mindful Founder Do?

The same conflict —  the confusion of mission and method —  emerges in all organizations regardless of size and intention. As the organized effort moves away from and past the founder, the focus turns from mission control to method control. One approach is for the founder to invite others to participate and get involved, but exert complete executive control. The Dictator-Founder seeks to ensure commitment to mission by directing every decision and action. The wiser approach is the Founder-Leader: he or she recognizes the need to involve and engage others, and knows full well that those others may alter the initial idea or invention. But rather than attempting absolute control, the Founder-Leader provides inspiration, encouragement, and organizes environments that allow the optimal expression of his or her ideas and programs. And the mission statement is at the core of this type of organization. Having a clear mission statement from the beginning is essential. A very broad and vague mission statement can allow almost any method; an overly detailed and strict mission statement can stifle innovation and critical response to change. The mission statement is the critical foundation block and on-going tool for implementation, and for organizational viability. Founders may find greater comfort in sharing their visions and ideas through Board participation rather than through executive control. If the method requires smart, competent leadership and management, and these are not the strengths of the founder or inventor, then recruiting the right talent and stepping aside will be in the best interests of the founder, the organization, and the initial idea.

INCOMMN started its Mindful Entrepreneur series of workshops and discussions with our Northampton 21st Century Business Round Table of January 22, 2013. We’ll kick new series off in Greenfield, Easthampton, and Springfield in the next few weeks…. check dates, times, and locations in the weekly InCommN newsletter In Northampton, we considered how different entrepreneurs review their recent past business activities — what measures do we each like to use? which measures really help us understand our businesses or organizations? and which do we want to use going forward? All this is in the context of understanding two aspects: planning and preparing. They’re related, but they’re not the same thing. Both address how we need to and want to use the four essentials every venture requires: human resources (talent, skill, knowledge, behavioral patterns…), time, money, and information. When we’re short on one, we tend to overuse the others. But if we’re inventive in how we work with others — collaborate, cooperate, partner, contract, hire —- we can actually expand resources for maximum mutual benefit. The issue of collaboration raises some very interesting challenges. What arrangements work best to foster creativity, critical thinking, and good leadership? The answer tends to be active, participatory collaborations. Picture open-area shared office space: there are lots of interactions, constant engagement, continual conversation. As an introvert, too much of this can be counterproductive for me. I now find support in the work of Susan Cain, reported on the TED website:

“At TED2012, Susan Cain asked us to stop the madness. That is: the group work madness. At offices and schools around the globe, the desire for collaboration has led to an onslaught of open floor plans and group projects where individuals aren’t given much space to think on their own. And this is a big problem, Cain explained, because a third to half of people in the world are introverts. They thrive on their own and feel at their best in quiet moments, without over-stimulation. While our culture tends to laud extroverts—people who are outgoing, social and high on charisma—Cain stood up for the introverts of the world in her talk. “Our most important institutions, our schools and our workplaces, they are designed mostly for extroverts and for extroverts’ need for lots of stimulation,” says Cain. “This is our loss for sure, but it is also our colleagues’ loss and our communities’ loss. And at the risk of sounding grandiose, it is the world’s loss. Because when it comes to creativity and to leadership, we need introverts doing what they do best. In the past year, Cain’s talk has been viewed nearly 4 million times. Meanwhile, her book, “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking,” became a New York Times bestseller. With the paperback of the book now on bookstore shelves, the TED Blog spoke ‘softly’ to Cain about the experience of the past year.”

Go to the TED site to read more about this, and watch Susan Cain’s wonderful, illuminating and – yes, mindful – presentation.

In one of my business practices, the founder/owner and I engage in review, evaluation, planning and preparation every year starting just after Thanksgiving break. We spend a month at this; we purposefully set aside time to talk with our colleagues, each other, others in the field, and our staff associates to fully appreciate what we’ve experienced and what we might want to happen next. We’re almost brutally honest, and also completely open to ideas, opinions, and information. In some years, we’ve turned the business inside out and upside down to explore and try something new, and then at the end of that year concluded that we made mistakes and want to try something else entirely. It certainly presents challenges, and one has be somewhat fearless to go through this: you don’t know, and you don’t even try to predict, what you might learn and discover in the process. But we can’t argue with the the results: raving clients, happy and productive and enthused staff, increased profitability, and a fine workplace.

During this process, we’ve often turned to various measures: numbers of calls, numbers of prospects, percentage of prospects who become clients, types and behaviors and expectations of clients, and at least several others. And we’ve learned: selling is dead.

Our best years have been when we’ve focused on elevating our relationship building by delivering what the client wants and needs, and by approaching each prospect as a present and self-aware person who has clear ideas about his or her world. That is, we approach everyone with complete respect and appreciation, and we approach thoughtfully, caringly, and deliberately. Relationships are created and built. And through these relationships, business is completed.

Over time, and this measure varies since each relationship blossoms differently, “sales” are made. More accurately, actions are taken that satisfy each client’s interests to the extent that our busines earns money for what we’ve provided (thoughtfullness, care, purposefull discussion, quality information, solutions to challenges).

We don’t sell anything; we offer relationships that address needs and interests of clients.

Business, particularly service business, is not about selling; it’s about building signficant and lasting relationships. And it’s done through networking, collaborating, partnering, one-to-one conversation. It necessarily requires empathy, self-awareness, and respect. “Being there” when it counts is replacing the sale.