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Participation Age Practices: DEG Invites Everyone to Start Something

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Stakeholders as Entrepreneurs

Most companies are mired in the front-office business practices of the Industrial Age. But the Participation Age is a tidal wave breaking over the workplace. How are P-Age companies different? Here’s another example:

We Dig DEG
DEG in Overland Park, Kansas have developed Participation Age Stakeholders, people who can make decisions, take ownership, innovate, and are even encouraged to create entirely new products and services.

Neal Sharma, CEO of DEG, a $20 million digital marketing company with 140 Stakeholders – http://www.degdigital.com/about/, wants everyone to be creating. If you think there is a service the company should add, and they agree, you don’t just get credit for the idea, you’ll end up being the one who builds it.

Let’s Try That
Cara Olson was a Web Strategist who thought the company should expand into email marketing. Sharma told her to go for it. Cara put together a plan and found clients, and today, email marketing at DEG is a $9 million product line, almost half of the company’s revenue. Other Stakeholders followed suit, building social media, copywriting, and other revenue streams and services.

Not all of them succeed – as with any entrepreneurial initiative. But Neal Sharma and DEG understand the value of having people bring the whole, creative person to work, and the company has grown exponentially as a result.

Stakeholders Dig DEG, Too
Following are things the Stakeholders say about DEG as a result of being treated like adults who have great ideas:

– “Our voice is always heard. In our culture, the best idea wins no matter where it comes from.”

– “We have a career lattice instead of a traditional career ladder, which translates to a high degree of internal mobility for us.”

– “If there is something you’re interested in doing and you think there is a market for it, they want you to make the case and go do it. That’s pretty much the story of how we’ve grown.”

– “Everyone receives credit for their work and contributions. We don’t like to have our heroes unsung.”

– “We are given autonomy and the opportunity to make meaningful decisions that affect our business and our clients.”

– “In addition to coffee, our awesome coffeehouse has flat screen TVs, an Xbox, and a fridge full of soda, juice, and more.”

– “Beer:30. How have I not mentioned this yet?”

Participation Age Stakeholders are empowered and encouraged to create, innovate, and take charge. Most importantly, whenever possible, decisions are made by those will have to carry them out. Why would they be made at any other level? DEG gets it, and as a result, they are growing fast and creating a workplace that was voted at the top of best places to work in Kansas City.

Read 124 Reasons to work at DEG – http://bit.ly/1jTSl1t
and some other great quotes by DEG Stakeholders here – http://bit.ly/1hTwz9b*

Don’t Settle – Find One Yourself
Companies of every size, in every industry, are embracing the Participation Age to be more successful. If you are a Stakeholder and want to Make Meaning, not just money, leave your Industrial Age company and go find one (see other examples on this blog). If you want to prepare to do that, or even build one yourself, read “Why Employees Are Always a Bad Idea” – http://amzn.to/1n4l1rB

Resolve to Never Make a New Year’s Resolution

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I hereby resolve…blah…blah…blah

The best resolution you could make in January is to not make a New Year’s Resolution. They rarely work, and tying them to the New Year nearly ensures they never will.

Last year I reported that 97% of people who make New Year’s Resolutions to lose weight actually weigh more 12 months later. New Year’s Resolutions enrich companies selling diets and ab-duction machines, but they don’t effect real change.

Later, Dude…
A New Year’s Resolution is almost always focused more on celebrating the decision than on resolving to be different. There isn’t a wit of difference between Mardi Gras and New Year’s Resolutions. Both of these “decision” mechanisms are built on putting things off until a special date where you can then celebrate the decision to start losing weight, working out, spending time with family, or giving up smoking.

Until then, you can go on pigging out, being mean, ignoring family and smoking like a chimney. Now that you’ve announced you will quit on some future date, your self-destructive behavior is actually permissible to “get it out of your system”. Mardi Gras and New Years makes your actions downright celebrated – get your glutton on, because soon you’ll be in a forsaken and tortured desert of good living.

Getting Ready to Get Ready to…
Here’s a clue – the more you need to point to January 1 as the day “I will absolutely start doing or stop doing x”, the less you probably mean it. If it’s important, change now. If you have to walk on coals or chant at your vision board to prepare for the big day, you can save yourself some self-imposed guilt and just keep going with what’s not working.

My mother passed away a few weeks ago. She used to tell me, “Chuck, there’s no such thing as excuses, there’s not even reasons, there are just priorities.” She lived that out well, making no excuses and simply doing the things she found important. She didn’t live to make decisions on special days; she just DID what she VALUED.

How to Change Something
We do what is a priority, not what we SAY is a priority. Last year I gave you three few practical suggestions on how to DO our priorities. I added a fourth this year:
1) Don’t “get motivated” Most of this walk-on-coals stuff is emotion-based and has no lasting power. You’re either committed or you aren’t. I don’t get motivated to brush my teeth. I either do it or I don’t.
2) Run toward something, not away from something. People who want to lose weight rarely lose any. “I want to stop being fat,” is running away from being fat. “I see myself living a great lifestyle,” is running toward something. Run toward a great life, not away from being fat. Read, Get a Second Planet.
3) Make decisions through a new lens. See yourself and/or your business AS IF YOU WERE ALREADY THERE. Read last years New Year’s Resolution post on how Peter Arnell went from 406 lbs to 150 lbs and stayed there. If you can’t already CLEARLY envision yourself exercising three times a week, don’t even start.
4) Diligence, not Discipline – Anybody can have the DISCIPLINE to do something for 30 days. But few people will have the DILIGENCE to continue for the rest of the year. Diligence is a drip system. Do the right thing a little bit every day – it will add up to something big down the road. Diligent rules; discipline drools.

The above four steps are all about intentionality vs. hope. Intention is the key because:

You get what you intend, not what you hope for.

New Year’s Resolutions are full of emotion-based “hope”. Real decisions are full of intention and don’t need a special day or audience to be walked out into the open.

Don’t get there. Be there.
Don’t gin up the motivation to do something on a special day. Just start living the way you know will make you more successful. Today. It’s OK to cheat on your New Year’s Resolution and start it a few days before January 1. Especially if you actually want to change.

Where do you want to be in 2013? Tell the world here, be there inside today, and then let’s go do it on the outside for the whole year. Carpe Diem – seize TODAY and enjoy doing changing something that will make your life, and maybe even your checking account, richer.

How to make more money down the road.

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Stop trying to be efficient.

Companies tied to Industrial Age mindsets are addicted to something called “efficiency”. But being efficient is a terrible principle on which to run and grow a business. Efficiency is more likely to drive you to bankruptcy than to success.

The business owner’s main game should be this:

How do I make MORE money in LESS time? If a business owner isn’t playing this game, but is playing the “I’m going to work harder” game, they aren’t acting like a business owner. “More money in less time” sounds like an efficiency game. It is not. It’s an effectiveness game.

Effficiency is about the short-term
Efficiency is focused on figuring out how to spend less time and less money doing something, which again seems like the right thing to do. But the problem is that efficiency always focuses on the present. It is about short-term decisions that save us time or money NOW.

Saving time and money now is not the way to build a business. We can almost never save our way to growing a successful business. I worked for one company in the late 90’s that was addicted to saving money, taking short cuts on everything from equipment to employee benefits. They were focused intensely on being more efficient every day, and the main game was always how do we do things in less time for less money? They went bankrupt in 2008, after years of shrinking sales and ongoing atrophy of the business model.

Effectiveness is about the long-term
A focus on effectiveness is quite different. Effectiveness is most concerned with the long-term health of the company. As a result, it makes long-term decisions that may actually cost us more time and money right now in order to make more money in less time down the road. Amazon.com went in the hole $400+ million a year for a number of years by investing time and money in building a company that could handle a very high percentage of the market.

This should be the mindset of even the smallest plumbing shop or realtor – being willing to invest MORE time and money now to get a bigger return in both time and money later. When I talk with small business owners and especially those with no or just one part-time employee, one of the most debilitating mindsets I run across is short-term decision-making, and it’s almost always explained away by “I’m being efficient.” The conversation goes like this:

Me: “Is there a better way to do stapling than for you to do it?”
Owner: “No. It costs $18 an hour to hire someone to do it, and I am saving $18 an hour doing it myself.”

or this conversation:

Me: “Should your sales person invest more time in building relationship with potential bigger clients?”
Owner: “No, we need money now and their time is better used closing smaller, easier accounts until we get enough revenue to go after the bigger ones.”

These are “efficiency” mindsets – making short-term decisions without proper regard for the long-term impact. They will more likely drive you out of business.

Here’s how the conversations should go:

Me: “Is there a better way to do stapling than for you to do it?”
Owner: “Yes, I’m hiring a virtual admin tomorrow because my time is more effectively used building relationships with key clients (or potential clients).”

and

Me: “Should your sales person invest more time in building relationship with potential bigger clients?”
Owner” “Yes, we’re carving out a part of their schedule to invest in these relationships because a few bigger clients down the road will solve all the revenue issues we’re facing right now.”

The Efficiency vs. Effectiveness Mindset
The Efficiency Mindset makes decisions based on where they are right now, “We have x amount of money and x amount of time right now, so we can only do x right now.

The Effectiveness Mindset makes decisions an entirely different way, “Even though we only have x amount of time and money right now, we are going to forego some revenue or production time right now in order to invest in things that have the potential of making us more money in less time down the road.”

To decide whether you are being efficient or effective, the key question to ask yourself is this:

Are you making decisions based on where you are, or where you want to be?

Business owners who make decisions based on where they are, can be very efficient, but will always remain where they are. Business owners who make decisions on where they want to be are willing to invest time and money in the future, even sacrificing some present efficiency to do so.

Are you stuck on the treadmill doing the same things you did last year and making the same revenue? A likely big factor is that you are making decisions based on where you are, which will keep you where you are as long as you run your business on that “efficiency” mindset.

Be effective, not efficient – Make decisions based on where you want to be, not on where you are. If you do, you might lose some short-term opportunities or have to work a little longer each day right now, but next year your business will have moved in the direction of where you want to be.

Make more money in less time down the road, by investing more money and more time right now. That’s being effective, not efficient.

 

Seven Decision-Making Principles Leading us to Profitability

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Guiding Principles of a business are necessary (honesty, integrity, customer service, etc.), but there is another set of principles that help the Business Owner in particular: decision-making principles.

How we make decisions effects everything we do. Problem – we make decisions subjectively, even when we think we’re being objective. All the research shows this – even at the major company level – we even buy subjectively.

As a result, we react badly to shiny objects, short-term victories and defeats, and strategic planning. So the question becomes, do you guide your biz or does it rule you? Who’s really in charge?

Want to make more money and stop recovering from bad decisions? Get some simple decision-making principles on which you run your business.

Like rails that guide a train, your decision-making principles are a core strategy to having a business that knows where it is going and how it is going to get there.

Here’s my seven decision-making principles. What are yours?

The 7 Decision-Making Principles of TeamNimbusWest Crankset Group:

  1. Business Maturity Date – Know Where I’m going & when I want to be there. (Seriously, you plan your vacation destination and time to be there, why in the world don’t you plan the destination and time to be there for your business. Which one is more important? Duh…)
  2. Make more money in less time. – Why do what others can and will do, when there’s so much to be done that others can’t or won’t do? Yield Per Hour. Distributive Management. Your NOT saving money by doing things below your pay grade. If you want to make $200 per hour, every time you do a $20 per hour job, you just lost $180.
  3. Focus on my lifetime goals, not just on growing my business – A BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal) will keep us going, but “grow the business” is a lifeless idea. So is retirement. Get a reason to have a business, then watch how much more money you make, and in less time.
  4. Get off the treadmill, own the business instead of the business owning me. – The purpose of our business is to create a lifestyle for ourselves and our family. Stop making money, stop making a living, and start building a business that makes money while you’re on vacation.
  5. Work ON my business, not just IN it. Highest and best use of my time. – The key to growth – perfecting as we go by strategic planning, not just production. Know where you’re going, and regularly adjust. I revisit my Strategic Plan every Monday. Keep steering all the time.
  6. Make decisions on where I want to be, not where I am. – Clarity of Purpose leads to Hope which leads to Risk. Know where you’re going (clarity), which will give you something to believe in (Hope), which will allow you to risk moving forward. Take good risks to grow.
  7. Bad plans carried out violently many times yield good results. Do something. Stop planning. Implement now and perfect as you go. Speed of Execution rules. It’s a both/and thing. Move NOW (stop thinking), then as soon as you start moving, start perfecting. If you just move, you’re going to get clobbered. If you just perfect, you’ll never start moving. Implement now, perfect as you go.

What are the decision-making principles of your business?

You’ve got decision-making principles that are running the show. You might as well write them down and see if you agree with who/what is actually in charge. If not, change them and take control of your business future.

Learn objectivity in decision-making processes. Know where you’re going, delegate, make decisions based on your strategic plan, and not based on where you are right now. And stop thinking about it so long. It’s not how good the plan is, but how committed you are to the bad (incomplete) plan you have. And how good you make decisions as you go.

The 2nd Most Important Question in Business

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When?

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” Mark Twain

Jeanne, a friend of mine who owns a corporate training company told me how she got started. Or actually didn’t.

She had all the plans, the syllabus, the locations. She was building a network, too, but couldn’t figure out how to actually get business. Then she went to a conference for HR professionals (her target market) – about 100 people showed up.

The moderator started the day by asking if anyone had any workshops, seminars, or events to announce, and if so, would they like to pass around a sign-up sheet. Jeanne didn’t have anything planned at the time, but realizing this was her best shot to reach 100 people in her target market, she took a yellow pad, made up an event title, put a date on it, and passed it around.

One guy signed up. Jeanne was disappointed in three ways: 1) One guy signed up, and 2) now she was committed to an event that she hadn’t planned and wasn’t ready to execute, and 3) she would likely lose money on the event.

Even though the event was only four weeks out, she ended up getting 18 HR pros to come and it was a big success. After a few months of going nowhere in her business, she had made a big splash and was on her way. Why?

Because she decided to do something, and more importantly, she put a date on it.

And she couldn’t weasel out of the date because others knew about it and were depending on her to follow through.

It is amazing what happens to us when a) we decide to do something, b) we put a date on it, and c) we go public with the date.

Know anyone who has been engaged for years? That’s because they decided to get engaged, not get married. When they actually decide to get married, they’ll put a date on it, and both of them will be changed forever.

Planning an event or setting a Waypoint in our business won’t change us like setting a date to get married, but you get the point. It will change you. Try it.

Get started. Create a Waypoint for increased sales, for firing your job and going out on your own, or replacing an employee, or an event for potential clients. Then put a date on it. Then make sure enough people know about it that you can’t weasel out. It will create a sense of urgency that will change the way you do business.

And check your “goals” and next years “business plan” for dates. “1st Quarter” is not a date. “2009” is not a date. Put specific dates on every action you plan to take, and watch what happens. For some it’s even a good idea to put a time of day on it. Even if the day/time is months away, you will see the clock ticking in your head when you do this.

“When” shouldn’t be such an unusual question in business, but there’s no secret as to why we avoid it. It actually makes us change, and we don’t like change, even when we’ll make more money in less time by changing. So we “make decisions” that aren’t decisions to avoid actually succeeding.

A decision is not a decision until we put a date on it. Until then, we’re just playing office.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” Mark Twain What are you stuck on? Put a date on it. Let other people know. It will change you and you will make more money in less time.

Next week we’ll hit the most important question in business.