Archive for July, 2009

I see myself as an ordinary human. I have two legs, two hands, average mental faculties and a pair of eyes. I see myself as an ordinary human capable of extraordinary things. I see myself walking into a grand tower that is the seat of my empire. I see myself holding document after document, which prove my success. I use simple logic to chart my future plans. I see all of this and more. I see so much with eyes that are closed.

I open my eyes. I am an ordinary human capable of extraordinary things. I believe that I will build myself a sprawling empire. I believe that I will build a piercing tower, to be the centre of all my work. I believe that I will have everything I saw, when my eyes were closed.

I am an ordinary human who has accomplished extraordinary things. With the help of trusted colleagues, friends and simple logic, I built my empire. Today I sit in my glass tower and think of all that I have done and all that is left to be done. More than anything else, I am here because of my hard work. I am and will always be an ordinary human, living the extraordinary.

Visualization is so much more than just a motivational tool. Only when you visualize your objective, can you hope to achieve it. If you are not working towards something, any accomplishment you achieve will be an achievement that life gave to you. If you drive down a road, you will eventually reach somewhere. If you plan on going somewhere, you won’t just be driving down a road; you will take the best route. Inspire yourself to find the best route. Visualize your objective. See, Believe, Become.

Sambo was a good cook. One day there was a gathering in the neighborhood. The caterer was stuck due to bad weather. There was no food for the people. After some time, everyone started complaining. They wanted something to eat.

Sambo lived close by. He ran to his house and cooked a large pot of stew. Everyone fell in love with Sambo’s Stew. It started with the neighbors coming to Sambo’s house for a meal. When Sambo said, he had run out of supplies, the neighbors said they would be willing to pay for a bowl. Sambo started to deliver his delicious Stew. Money started to flow in.

The news of the Sambo’s Stew spread far and wide. People started coming from far away. Sambo had to set up a separate shed in his courtyard, for people to collect the Stew from. He spent days building the shed. People were complaining constantly. They wanted stew; they didn’t care about the shed.

Sometimes he would have to travel quite a distance to make a delivery. Sambo was not the greatest navigator and would often get lost. He could not leave the shed because carriages were always stopping by, to pick up his stew. He was having difficulty keeping track of the money owed to him. One day Sambo collapsed from the stress of trying to do it all.

Someone should have told Sambo to hire a waiter, a delivery boy, and an accountant. People who would be good at the jobs they were assigned. When it comes to work, Divided We Rule! Unfortunately it’s too late; no one will ever taste Sambo’s Stew. He has sworn never to make a pot again. He now does gardening. Don’t be like Sambo. Division of labor is the key to success.

Yesterday, I was thinking about ideologies and since then I haven’t been able to stop. I proposed that ‘We are what we think.’ What that means is that we make decisions based on our thoughts and opinions. Our decisions shape our lives. How we live our lives, defines who we are. Thus our thoughts and opinions eventually define our personalities.

Our thought process influences our decision making ability. Imagine you have a cat. One day on your way home from work, you find an abandoned puppy.  You believe that cats and dogs cannot live together. Even though you are capable of taking care of that puppy, even though you have the desire to take it home, you don’t. There is ample proof of the fact that felines and K9’s can co-exist; especially if they are introduced to one another at an early age. You know this. Your belief forces you to over ride common sense. This is the power of ideology.

Ideologies influence people in every part of their lives. From the decisions they make while dealing with friends, while shopping and at home. This got me thinking, how much do personal beliefs affect business decision making? More importantly, should personal beliefs influence decision making?

If you are involved in business activities, you need to have an objective mind. You need to be able to make the right decisions without hesitation. The problem is, that our ideologies are so deeply engrained that they influence us at a subconscious level. So, whenever you are making a business decision, disassociate yourself from the situation. Analyze it without any personal pre-existing inferences.  Ensure that your decision is based on the facts in front of you and not on the facts based in your thinking.

When we are born we don’t have too many thoughts. We think about things like, we’re hungry, we’re thirsty, we’re sleepy and so on. We don’t know too much about anything. We don’t have opinions about anything. As we grow up we learn things. We learn that it is good to share. It’s not good to hit people. We learn that people can be mean and that mom’s, though not always right, will always love you.

Most of what we learn is good, but sometimes, in the process of growing up, we pick up some ideas that are not so good. Some people are taught that they should always think of themselves first, that it’s okay to kill an animal for sport and that, boys don’t cry. We are all made up of our ideas and our beliefs. I propose that, ‘You are what you think’.

How many of us take the time to question our beliefs? You may have an opinion about something, but have you ever thought about whether or not that opinion is yours? Are you a vegetarian because you don’t believe in killing animals, or because that is how you were raised? Do you hate a particular place because you hate it, or because that’s what you heard from the people around you?

I know so many people who believe in something but have no idea why they believe in it. They don’t even know when they started believing in it. Some beliefs can be dangerous. No person is born evil. So many crimes are committed in the name of personal beliefs.

If people took the time to examine their core opinions, maybe we would live in a world without war, hate crimes or racism, a world in which boys could cry.

Business Strategy, Business Planning, Marketing Guidelines, KPI’s; the list of plans is endless. Every business and businessman spends a significant amount of time planning for the different aspects of his business. Most people fall short on the step that comes after planning i.e. implementation.

So you have your plans, how are you going to go about executing them? Ironically you need a plan, for how you are going to implement your plans. Some people would consider this to be trivial. They would be wrong. It is very important that every entrepreneur know, how he/she is going to put their carefully devised plans into action.
There is a belief that a well devised plan would implement itself. This is like saying that a well made pie would eat itself. You need to cut it into slivers, decide what china you are going to use, who will be served the first piece and when exactly it would be served.

All plans may be good, but in my opinion what makes a plan great, is if it can be successfully implemented. After all, plans will only be plans until someone uses them. One way of successfully implementing a plan is breaking it into pieces. You can implement one piece at a time until it is in place. This would put less stress on the organization and would involve a lot less hassle. Another advantage is that if any piece is underperforming, necessary changes can be made to the future pieces.

The most important thing I’d like to say is, GET STARTED. You may have the best plan or strategy in the world but it is of no use if you don’t use it. Fine tune the plan as much as you can within reason. Once that is done, execute it. To quote Rihana, “Baby you’ve got the keys. Now Shut Up and Drive.”

I’m sitting in my car sending an E-Mail to a potential client in France. Just as I press the ‘send’ button on my iphone, I see something, a big red post box. The sight makes me smile. I can’t remember the last time I used one. As I pass by it, I can’t help but wonder what it was like before, before E-Mail, Internet or modern transport.

Imagine the merchants of days gone by. The delivery of cargo, back then, was an enterprise in itself. The merchant would hire two or three caravans. One would hold the cargo, the other would be for the guards, and the third would carry the provisions required by the entire party. They would battle the elements on the way to their destination. Halfway there, they would be attacked by bandits. They would choose between fight and flight. Depending on the outcome of the skirmish, either a tired and smaller party would arrive to finish the delivery or the cargo would be lost forever.

Today all you need to do is call FedEx. Technology has come so far. There are so many wonders, science has provided. It is thanks, to this technological progress, that we live in a truly global economy. There are so many tools available to the modern business man, yet there are so many who will still insist on using papyrus rolls to send a message. Okay, so maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it is a fact that a large number of businessmen/women are still blithely unaware of the advancements in technology.

It is very important that entrepreneurs take the time to research the technologies that are relevant to their business activity. There is so much that technology can do that it is important to make sure we are putting it to the best use.

You just got promoted. It’s time for that well deserved vacation. You travel to a beautiful, exotic land. You enjoy the scenery and the quirks of a foreign urban sprawl. You sample the delicacies. You’re having a fantastic time.

You wake up a few days later with a queasy stomach. You’re feeling slightly homesick. You decide to have some regular food that day, but it’s a foreign land, you don’t know the people and you don’t understand the language. You spend a few hours wandering from eatery to eatery looking for non-exotic familiar food. Just when you’re about to give up, you look across the street and see a sign with an arrow. The sign has a picture of two golden arches forming a giant ‘M’. You follow the sign.

You go up the road, take a left and then a right. Ah, a sight for sore eyes. How you cherish the sight of McDonalds, the smell of a big Mac and fries. You don’t need to know ten different languages to spot a McDonalds in ten different countries. The golden arches are so famous that they transcend the barriers of language.

Logos are a way for people to recognize an organization in just one look. It is important for every business to have a logo that represents what their organization stands for. This may seem trivial to small businesses, but don’t forget that all businesses start small. Who knew that a simple swoosh would become synonymous with sports gear?

Take some time to analyze exactly what your business stands for. Once you have done this, you need to try and visualize what your thoughts would look like. Think about the image that would best represent your business. What image describes your business in just one look?

We’ve all heard the story of the three little pigs. One built a house of straw, one built a house of sticks and the third built a house of bricks. There is another version of this story. In that version there is a fourth pig. That pig didn’t build a house at all. He planned where he would build his house. It would be on the bank of a stream, under the shade of tall trees. He planned what he would make the house from; sticks, stones, bricks and wood. He planned what the house would look like; French windows, a terrace, and a red tile roof. He planed how he would go about building it; he had his blue prints & his workers’ contracts. He planned and he planned and he planned some more. As he was planning, the wolf came along and ate him up. There was no huffing or puffing to blow his house down.

No one talks about this pig because his story is just too sad. There are so many people who have a similar story. They plan and they plan but they never actually do anything. Businesses often suffer the same fate.  It’s good to have a plan but don’t spend so much of your time or your resources on your plan that you don’t have any time left to actually implement it. We get lost in the numbers and specifics of things. We get so engrossed in planning for the future that we forget to look at our today. There is no point in planning ten years ahead if you aren’t doing enough to survive till the next year.

If you have a basic plan to get started don’t spend too much time trying to fine tune it. Get Started. Don’t be like the fourth little pig who never built his house.

Imagine a classroom. The teacher asks Tom a question. He says the answer is ‘A’. She turns to Bill and asks him the same question. Bill knows the answer is ‘B’ but he says ‘A’. We’ve all encountered this phenomenon. It is because of this phenomenon that we’ve given wrong answers, smoked cigarettes and during the 80’s, we even pretended that bell bottoms were cool. This phenomenon is known as ‘peer pressure.’ Studies have shown that 65% of us will give the wrong answer just because we heard someone else say it. When we hear ‘peer-pressure’, we automatically think of groups of intimidating teenagers. The reality is not always this obvious.

Peer-pressure is just an offshoot of the power of suggestion. There isn’t always an intimidating teenager involved. Women feel the need to go out and buy a new dress for a party; simply because they know, the other women in attendance will be well dressed. Men feel the need to have the corner office, with the windows, simply because all the successful guys have them.

The power of suggestion has been well documented. Those who know how to use it are some of the most successful people on the planet. To use this power you require patience, restraint and keen observation. For the most part it’s safer to stay away from this technique, at the same time, it’s important that we learn how to protect ourselves from it. The next time you find yourself taking an action, or craving an object, stop yourself and check to see if your own thoughts are guiding you. Make sure you don’t do something because you heard, someone else had done it. If you are asked, ‘What color is the night sky?’ Don’t say ‘black’, because everyone says ‘black’. Look and see. Sometimes the night is navy blue.

The Assembly of First Nations is all set to pick its new chief. First elected in 1997, popular leader, Phil Fontaine, announced in early June that he would not seek re-election. So, now it’s time for them to look for a new chief. This got me thinking of leaders. At every stage in our lives we encounter people whom we turn to for guidance, support and inspiration. There are times when we find ourselves in a position where others turn to us. So, what is it that makes a good leader?

As kids, we all played, ‘follow the leader’. At that time, it was the most innovative players, whom we all liked. The ones who would make us do something crazy and keep us on our toes. As we grow up, we expect our leaders to be understanding. We want them to be people we can trust. We want them to make the right decision, no matter the consequences. With all the pressure we put on them, I can’t help but wonder, what happens when the leader loses his way? Whom does he follow?

A leader, who doesn’t have any one to follow, is a leader who will eventually fail. Those of us who run our own businesses are leaders of our own groups. When we are faced with situations where we are unable to make a decision, it is important that we have the right people to turn to for advice. A good leader is one who can distinguish between what his followers need and what they think they need. A good leader makes the hard decisions and faces the consequences. He is insightful, innovative and fearless. What marks him as a great leader is realizing that sometimes he needs help. So, lead your followers and know when it’s time for you to ‘Follow the Leader.’