I was having a think about things the other day regarding how people approach their businesses. This largely came about due to work we’re doing on our business in here.

The one thing that I realised is that a lot of people (yours truly included) get in to the habit of NOT doing things until it becomes either too late, ineffective or plain inexcusable.

The best way to demostrate this is by the exercise analogy. We all know that we should exercise because it is good for us and can have the result of reducing adverse health issues later in life. On a cold winter’s morning however, the attraction of exercising is diminshed because the warmth and cosiness of your bed are very appealing. The consequence is often that you will roll over, snuggle up and think how nice it is to be “in here” rather than “out there”. Now, you will get some form of comfort from doing this – rested and relaxed for the morning. BUT, each day you do this, you get less used to exercising. It gets easier to make the excuse and you will develop a habit of not doing exercise. In effect you will rationalise your exercise desire away.

There won’t be any great impact now, tomorrow or next week. There will be in many years to come. It’s an incremental thing.

Same with business. You will know things that need to be done in your business. You will appreciate that the things you need to do will more than likely give the business a “high pay-off”. You will also know that starting to do these things will be hard – it will be a process that takes you out of your established routine and may well require you to honestly and truthfully assess various aspects of your and your business’ performance. “Yep, I know I have to do it but I will put it off until tomorrow” – and so it goes.

What if you actually started doing it? What if you made (and kept) the commitment?

One of the real privileges we get in our work is to encourage and assist our customers in identifying the issues they need to address then help them through this often difficult process. The results are, by and large, astounding.

When it comes to exercise, it really is easy to roll over and snuggle in – it’s not going to have any impact until it is (possibly) too late. When it comes to business, it’s easy to rationalise things away – imagine, just imagine, that you decided that NOW is the time to start doing the things that matter?

Making a difference starts with making a change. The right time to do that would be????

We have recently had the opportunity of more fully understanding the impact of the thing called emotional intelligence.  This is a term which is bandied around quite widely and is taking up a fair bit of space in the various management books and journals out there (including Harvard Business Review).

Emotional intelligence relates to the understanding of the person you are dealing with along with the aspect of the issue that you are dealing with.  By being in tune with the person as well as the issue, you will find that you are able to achieve a far better outcome and one which your customer is more satisfied.

To use emotional inteligence, you need to appreciate that the capacity to listen and give consideration to the other person’s point of view is as critical as understanding the mattter at hand.  It comes in the form  of visual and non-visual cues and you need to be alive to not only what is being said but also how it is said.  In some forms, the delivery of a message can contradict the message being delivered!

To gain better insight in to people (including your family, colleagues, customers and suppliers) it is a very worthwhile investment to develop an understanding of emotional intelligence and the way it can positively impact on the relationships you have.

Being focussed purely on a result without taking in to account the person you are providing it to will see only half the job being done. 

And to do this sort of job just isn’t intelligent….

I was fortunate to be on the receiving end of another of Russ Wylie’s lines this morning:

Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people

Having had a think about this, it is just such a brilliant statement – taking care of your customers is important – but so is looking after your people.

When you look at your business, do you have a focus on customer satisfaction?  Do you understand what your customers are wanting and needing you to provide?  I know in our business, we focus pretty heavily on this (and sometimes we get it wrong, but we’ll work like hell to make it right!) – it comes about from having “the conversation” with them about their desires and wishes.

Similarly with your people – we need to remember that without them, we don’t really have much apart from a big job that has to be done.  By engaging and motivating your people, they will ensure that the focus and goals of your business are delivered to the people that matter – your customers!  We also need to remember that without customers we don’t have a business.  By having our people in the right mind-set and having the right levels of motivation, truly exceptional things can be achieved.

So, to take ourselves back to Russ’ quote, are you being applauded for what you’re doing, or do you need to improve your performance?

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help small men up by tearing big men down. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage-earner up by pulling the wage-payer down. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish sound social security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

Abraham Lincoln – Former President of the United States

We need to remember that it is man’s right to expand his horizons and to develop himself – in so doing, he contributes to his family, his community, his country and also to humanity.

There are a lot of vested interests in the world who probably don’t understand or want to understand the tone of Lincoln’s piece and pursue their own agendas to (often) the detriment of those they are purporting to help.  This is a sad thing but one we, as human beings, need to be aware of and take action against where we see it.

Honour and encourage greatness and assist everyone around you be the best they can be.

We’ve just had the privilege of doing some initial work with Jeremy Scrivens of The Emotional Economy at Work. Jeremy is currently (we believe) the only person in Australia who takes his customers through a process called Appreciative Inquiry.

Appreciative Inquiry is all about focussing not on what has gone wrong in the business or where your problems are, but more about working out what was going on when things went right. With a background in the “rational” analysis work including TQM, Six Sigma and the like, Jeremy has a deep understanding of the things that make business work really well. It’ not about process improvement and incremental cost reductions – it’s about creating an alignment of the business and your people such that goals and strengths are built on and focussed to provide exceptional results.

Jeremy has given us permission to link to his website and we encourage you to read his whitepapers which are available on that website.

From our perspective, the process of Appreciate Inquiry makes intuitive good sense.  Rather than the process being one of attrition of “bad things”, it is more about the celebration and encouragement (leadiong to systemisation) of “good things” that are done in the business.  By having the focus on when things were going at their best, people think about what was happening at that time and what made things go so well.  This then gets mapped and becomes part of the business – it’s replicated and works to give your people the environment in to which they can grow and excel.  This should be the ideal scenario for any business as it will deliver consistently superb results.

We encourage you to have a look at the website.

Tell you what, it’s simply marvellous what can happen when you have time to think and act with a plan and strategy in place.

We’ve recently been privileged to work with some customers and have developed a range of strategies and detailed plans for them which have delivered absolutely exceptional results. It all comes down to having clarity about what you’re wanting to achieve, why you’re wanting to achieve it and then developing a pathway to take from where you are now to where you want to be.

It’s been liberating for these guys in that they have seen what can happen when it “all comes together”.

One of the dangers with this is that once the goal has been reached, people can fall back in to their bad, comfortable old habits. This is why the goal setting process needs to be “over the horizon”.  By having goals that are a “stretch” and take you beyond what you believe you can achieve, you’ll actually approach things from a different viewpoint – it will also help to minimise the chances of you falling in to bad old habits when you get somewhere along the path.

For this reason, it is vital that your goals are built around a serious, long term goal that delivers for you on your values and strategy – without having these to start with, the plan will be useless.  Having clarity about your values and strategy, longer term, will enable you to devise and implement plans that move you along your desired route.

So, when you get some way along your planned route and start achieving your goals, don’t fall back in to bad habits – it’s very easy to do.  It’s very comfortable.  It’s also very dangerous.

We’re thrilled to announce that we are establishing a Queensland office of mta optima!

Initially being based in Coolum, we will be looking to take up space in offices in the Sunshine Coast region in the very near future and we’ll be able to provide excellent, personalised service to the clients in south-eastern Queensland.  We see it as a fantastic opportunity for our business.  There are some wonderful opportunities for businesses to work with us to minimise their tax, maximise their growth and plan for and implement strategies that will see them create wealth.

Our staff in Queensland are all Victorian trained and supported and we’ll regularly have people from our Victorian office up there to work with our Queensland-based staff and customers.

We look forward to a fantastic future in the Sunshine State!

When listening to music, we can often hear a small portion of a tune and immediately know the whole piece. It’s fantastic as you can revel in your knowledge and understanding of how the tune goes and where and when it ends.

If we then extend this example, just hearing one note of a tune will make it impossible to identify which tune it came from (unless you’re absolutely brilliant or lucky – or both!)

Similarly with business – if you’re given enough information, you can understand what, where and how the business is going (even get a basic idea as to how it will end up). But if you’re not given enough information (eg: one note), you will simply have no idea.

Like many advisers to business, we find that the successful operators will generally have a good grasp on their figures and “understand the tune”. Those that run in to trouble generally pay little or no attention to them and are happy listening to the one note all the time with no idea as to how it fits in with any tune.

This is where regular, meaningful, reporting and analysis comes in to it.  By keeping an eye on how your business is going (band is playing…) and understanding how it’s meant to play, you’ll be like a conductor (or band leader) – able to make changes and improvements as you go to enable the sound to be as melodic and mellifluous as possible.

From the perspective of your management and internal reporting, how often do you “listen to the music”?  How often do you sit back and try and improve the playing.  If you just listen to the one note forever, you’ll not only become bored, you’ll be come tone deaf and you’ll also lose all context.

So, if you’re wanting to run a great business, be like a great band leader or conductor – listen to all the notes your band is playing.  Rehearse and practise as this will improve your performance.  Communicate regularly to your band the tune you want them to play - let them appreciate what it is you’re wanting to sound like together.

That way, you should have a great band and a business of note!