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The Results-Based Culture and What It Will Do For You

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Day 12 of 21 days with Chuck’s new book, Why Employees Are ALWAYS a Bad Idea

There is a growing wave of companies rejecting the front office practices of the 21st century Industrialist. Here’s what a Participation Age company looks like. They come in in all sizes and industries, and are showing us the future of business is already here.

Our company, Crankset Group, has grown 409% in the last five years by building a company on the following business practices:

– Culture is King – Culture is the most important asset in our business. It is who we are at our very core and oozes out of our products and services into every relationship we build. As Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” Great companies do not “have” a company culture. The leadership lives out their beliefs and life principles in their business, and that IS their culture. If our culture is right, we will attract the right people who want to work in that kind of environment. Culture comes from our written beliefs and principles, on which we run our business.

– Vision and Mission – A Participation Age company has a well-defined vision and mission. Our vision: To Live Well By Doing Good. Our mission: To provide tools for business owners to make more money in less time, get off the treadmill, and get back to the passion that brought them into business in the first place.

– Everyone is a leader – Whoever is most effected by a decision should make that decision whenever possible.

– No Promotions – everyone comes in as a “Chief” – Chief Results Officer, Chief Connecting Officer, Chief Relationship Officer, etc. Promotions are time-based constructs of the Industrial Age. Instead of promotions, as people increase their influence in our business, they make more money.

– No management – None of the people at Crankset Group are stupid or lazy, so there is no need for smart and motivated managers. We’re all smart and motivated. Everyone is self-motivated and self-managed.

– Results Based model – We don’t have office hours. People are measured by results, not time spent in a chair. Get your work done and go home. Pay increases are based on the same thing.

– No Vacation Time or Sick Days – Again, get your work done, and go on vacation. We’re all adults and are all owners of our responsibilities, so we can also own our time. We expect people to get more time off than they would in a typical 21st century Industrialist company.

– No Annual Bonuses – Bonuses are “time-based” rewards for occupying a chair for another year. We do “Ad hoc” rewards to reward performance throughout the year. They add up to a lot more than an a bonus and actually mean something to those being rewarded.

– No Annual Reviews – we review each other and how things are going all the time. It makes no sense to store it up to dump it on somebody once a year. We all know how we’re doing throughout the year – no surprises.

– No Annual Raises – As people raise their level of influence and responsibility in the business (they do this, we don’t), we recognize that because raises come ad hoc throughout the years, sometimes a couple months in a row.

– No Departments – people don’t “belong” to someone or some artificial group.

– Direct Communications – without departments, people don’t have to go through gatekeepers to talk to someone. People who need to talk, do so, and stuff gets done a lot faster as a result.

– Profit-Sharing – within 20 months of joining Crankset Group, people begin to receive profit-sharing. They help make the money, they share in the profits, not just a salary (which the owners also get).

The Bottom Line
Ownership is the most powerful motivator we have in business. Stakeholders are treated like owners and expected to act that way. (Note: Because of that, profit-sharing is non-negotiable in a Participation Age company.)

This is a glimpse into our Committed Community business model. If you don’t work for a company like this, start looking for one. Companies everywhere, in every industry, are leaving the Industrial Age, entering the Participation Age, and embracing similar models. We’ll look at a few of those in the next blog post.

This is a summary of a chapter from Chuck’s new book, “Why Employees Are ALWAYS a Bad Idea (And Other Business Diseases of the Industrial Age)”. Click here to pre-order this new ground breaking book at a discount on IndieGoGo.com until July 28.

Business Buzzword Bingo

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And Why You Shouldn’t Play

Big words are a turnoff for most customers and make our offer sound like a Dilbert cartoon. So why do we use them when short words would do just fine? Who are we trying to impress?

Does monosyllabic really need five sounds? We’re in love with all things “Big”, and just assume big words make us sound more polished. But really they make us sound more like Dilbert’s boss. The worst culprits are vision statements, mission statements and “give-me-money” plans. But I see buzzwords in a lot of fancy attempts to sell things, too.

Dilbert and Woody Allen
Too much biz stuff sounds like it really was written by Scott Adams for a Dilbert cartoon. It’s meant to make us sound thoughtful, but instead it’s funny because it’s either tortured, fake, complex, a stretch, dumb, or just plain baffling. When we string one fancy word after the other, we sound more like a Woody Allen tirade than an expert in our field. It really just cheapens our image and makes us look uptight.

The Rule of Short Words
When writing a vision, mission, plan or sales copy, here’s a writing rule;

Be wary of any word with three or more sounds, chiefly those that contain any of the following letters: u, v, w, x, y, and z.

It’s not that you can’t use them, just be wary; test them and make sure you aren’t playing buzzword bingo and trying to sound smart. If there is a matching word with two or less sounds that works as well, use it.

Sound Like An Expert or Be One – You Choose
Here’s some classic terms used to play buzzword bingo, and simple words to use instead. All are three or more sounds and contain u, v, w, x, y, or z. Some of the worst are words ending in “ize”. The big words make you sound like an expert. The short ones might convince people you really are.

Actualize – Complete
Synergy – Teamwork
Synergistic – Really? Just don’t use it.
Dysfunctional – Broken
Intellectual – Smart
Operationalize – Make it work
Solutioning – Fixing
Empowering – Getting out of the way
Competency – Skill
Validate – Confirm
Conceptualize – Think, Picture, Form a Thought
Reorganization – Change
Monetize – Make money
Incentivize – Reward
Deliverable – Result
Proprietary – Mine, Ours
Recontextualize – move

Distract Them If We Can
In some cases, the buzzword is code for something else and the big word is used to distract you.

Multidisciplinary – Scattered
Adaptive – Uncertain, or confused
Synergistic – Looking for a friend
Analyze – We’re afraid to decide
Analysis – Beating a Dead Horse

By the way, except for the buzzwords themselves, this post was written using only words with two or fewer sounds. It’s not hard to keep things simple, but it’s really easy to make them complex.

Keep It Simple
Keep it simple and you’ll likely sound a lot more secure and a lot more like you know what you’re doing.

Your Mission is Not Your Vision

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Why you need both.

Vision and Mission are two very different things. And the smaller your business, the more you need them both. Those who have both and live by them always make more money.

Whether you think you do or not, we all run our businesses based on deeply held beliefs. The problem is we don’t do it consistently, but only when it’s convenient. The rest of the time we’re taking on clients, employees, vendors and partners based on the immediate benefit, without regard to whether there is a culture and values match or not. Six months or a year later we’re butting heads with the new staff, avoiding that troubling client, or looking for a new vendor.

Why? Because if you don’t have a clear vision for your own life or business, you’ll become part of someone else’s vision for theirs. Take on a a partner, employee or staff member with a strong direction, and it will overwhelm the weak hold you have on why you exist, where you are going and how you intend to get there. Meandering and random hope are not good business strategies. Get a grip on your vision and your mission, or expect to be pulled in every direction.

Vision = Values
Your Vision statement is for YOU, not for your customers. It is much bigger than your business, reflects your personal beliefs and values and is what would get you out of bed every morning no matter what business you were in. Your beliefs, values and principles don’t change based on your business. Your Vision statement should be the core driver behind who you hire, who you want as clients, and how you will relate your business to the world around you. In most cases, a Vision statement doesn’t tell anybody what you do, only what you believe and value as a business.

This should always be a values-based statement. It’s about your beliefs. Our vision statement for Crankset Group and 3to5 Club is “Live well by doing good.” We could be grocers and say the same thing, because it’s what gets us out of bed every morning. We can unpack that for you for three to four Guinnesses, as to how it impacts every aspect of our business.

Your vision is all about you, and what you believe. It drives you, your staff and all of your relationships forward. You may or may not share it publicly. It doesn’t matter – it’s not for your customer, but for you. Every decision, big and small, should be based on your Vision statement. Every one.

Mission = Marching Orders
Your Mission statement is radically different. It’s not about you in any way – leave yourself out of it. It’s all about your customer and the OUTCOME you expect to give them. Here’s a lousy Mission statement: “We will be the #1 pencil manufacturer with the best quality, highest profitability and the fastest growth.” NOBODY cares.

When people ask “What do you do?” they never mean it. They mean, “What can you do for ME?” When someone reads your Mission statement, they should know exactly what OUTCOME you are going to get them, not what you do.

Our Mission statement, “We provide tools for business owners to make more money in less time, get off the treadmill, and get back to the passion that brought them into business in the first place.” From that, you would never know that we build 3to5 Clubs around the world, have cloud apps, sell books, do workshops and keynote talks and have a sales development series called FasTrak. That’s because nobody cares what we do until they find out what we can do for them.

An OUTCOME is a RESULT expressed EMOTIONALLY. Your Mission statement should give some quick info about what industry you are in, but 95% of it should be about what you will do for me. If I like that potential result, I’ll ask you how you will do it. That’s your cue to talk about your capabilities, quality, growth, etc.

Do you have clients, staff or vendors you’re not happy about? Are you changing courses often? Having trouble finding that one product or service that drives your revenue and growth? It’s almost certainly because you don’t have a clear Vision or Mission statement.

Winging it has it’s consequences. Figure out what drives you (Vision) and what outcome you’re delivering (Mission) and watch your business grow.

Beliefs Matter.

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Your success depends on them.

Every one of us runs our business on our beliefs. The problem is most of us don’t write them down. We’re winging it, so that in the most critical decisions, we wander away from what we believe and decide based on the shiny object in front of us. Success requires that we stay true to what we believe – all the time. What do you believe? Write it down, and make every decision based on it. Here’s our beliefs:

Transformation
We believe in transformation, not education. We are not interested in anyone learning anything, we intend that business owners will change as a result of contact with us. As a result, we lead from our experience, not from our knowledge. Great Crankset Group Stakeholders will have lived what they are asking others to do.

Clarity
We believe in bringing Clarity, which brings Hope, which allows business owners to take measured Risks to grow. – Clarity, Hope and Risk.

Conation
We believe in Conation. Conation is the most important word we train people to use. Even though it is one of the 1,000 most obscure words in the English language, it is far and away the most important word in business. Conation – committed movement in a purposeful direction.

Prisoners
We believe in prisoners. Most business owners are hostages to their businesses for 30 years, then sell their job to someone else who will be a hostage. We intend for Business Owners to build a Mature Business in just 3to5 years, that they can enjoy for decades. They must move from hostage (no business rules) through prisoner (consistent business rules) to freedom.

No Rugged Individualists
We believe the Rugged Individualist is a bad idea. Business owners should live in Committed Community, and those that do make more money in less time and are more successful. We are recovering Rugged Individualists.

Time is the New Money
We believe Time is the New Money. Most business owners only ask their business for money, but our business should give us both Time and Money, which allows us to create Significance.

Speed of Execution
We believe in Speed of Execution. Implement now and perfect as you go. Waiting around for perfection is a bad idea.

Bad Plans
We believe in Bad Plans. “Bad Plans Carried Out Violently Many Times Yield Good Results. Do something.” It’s never how good your plan is that matters, but how committed you are to the Bad Plan you’ve got. Committed people make history. Thinkers write about them later. Stop thinking. Get moving.

Yield Per Hour
We believe in Yield Per Hour – YPH. We expect business owners to always ask two questions “How do I make MORE money in LESS time?”, and “What is the highest and best use of my time?” Make money while you’re on vacation, and do it in 3to5 years.

Trapeze Moments
We believe in Trapeze Moments. We encourage business owners to embrace trapeze moments and take the risk to grow personally and to build a business they can enjoy for decades.

Advisors
We believe in Advisors, not in experts or gurus. We don’t use the words “coach” or “consultant”. We combine them both to advise business owners, and give them the tools they need for success, so they can grow their businesses to Maturity and get to their Ideal Lifestyle.

Own Your Business, Don’t be Owned by it
We believe in Business Owners. Business owners take the risks that make them the best leaders and the best hope for a better world. Nobody pays attention to business owners with fewer than 10 employees. We do.

Employees are a Bad Idea
We don’t hire employees, which the Industrial Age turned into children. We hire Stakeholders who grow with the company, who make meaning, not just money, who share in the profits and take ownership, and who live and work like adults. We hire people who can’t wait for Monday because they are part of something that will make a difference.

Managers are a Bad Idea – Lead!
We don’t hire people to manage people. Adults manage themselves. We hire leaders who focus on being productive themselves, not on making other people productive.

Committed Community
We believe business owners are the most successful when they live in Committed Community with other business owners and have a safe place to say three magic words, “I don’t know.” Together we get there faster.

The Big Why – Doing What Matters
We believe that every decision we make should support our Big Why – we believe we will change the world, and that every business can play a part in doing so – why come to work if you can’t? Our driving force – “Why do what others can and will do, when there is so much to be done that others can’t or won’t do.”

Work and Play
We believe the Industrial Age artificially separated the two – we’re bringing them back together.

Make MeaningWe make decisions based on what we believe. What do you believe? Write it down and then use it to guide you through everything you do in business. Get a compass – a true north – and stick to it. You’ll be a lot more successful if you run your business on your beliefs, on making meaning, not just on making money.

Making money is not an empowering vision. A belief system is.

What do you believe?

Why You Don’t Want Employees

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It’s Usually Something Else.

“Employee Problems” doesn’t mean “Problem Employees”. We miss cause and effect all the time, and most employees usually aren’t at the bottom of employee problems.

Edward Deming, the father of Process Improvement, said (paraphrased) that when an employee screws up, we assume right away that we have a bad employee, when in fact there are a dozen other things we should look at before we come to that conclusion. Deming suggests the problem may be somewhere else. I couldn’t agree more.

First look at the vision for your company. Don’t know where you are going? Then your employee can’t be in trouble because they aren’t doing ANYTHING that will keep you from getting there. Deming and I would both say get your vision fixed first.

Then look at your mission – do you have a clear understanding of the results you are to produce for your clients? If not, how can your employee harm your lack of clarity? He’s doing “badly” because neither he nor you know what a good result even looks like!

If your vision and mission are clear and everyone is on board with them (including your “problem employee”), than take a look at your leadership. Are you leading the way you should? Are the other leaders in your business leading the way they should? If not, why would you expect a great follower?

Then look at your infrastructure – does your employee have the tools and environment to be successful? If so, great. But is the employee properly trained including ongoing training? If so, you can check that off.

If all the above is in place, does your employee have clear expectations for performance, and clear WRITTEN processes for getting there? If not, then you’ve got some work to do here.

And finally, if all the above is in place, you have to ask yourself, did you hire someone who doesn’t fit your culture? Did you get tempted and hire for skills even though you knew this person didn’t fit?

If all the above is checked off the list, you probably have a problem employee. But how often do we look at ourselves and our own companies before we throw stones at our people?

It’s a lot easier to see that you have a problem employee, when in fact, more often than not, you have an employee problem, or actually an EMPLOYER problem, neither of which was caused by the employee.

Do you hate the thought of ever taking on employees or managing the ones you have? Are employees convincing you by their behavior and results that employees in general are simply a bad idea?

The fact is that your view of employees is not a result of employees in general being a bad idea. It’s because you are not willing to deal with the need to address your own soup and the things above that will help you actually build a business where employees could be stakeholders who find real significance.

If you don’t like your existing employees or hate the idea of ever having any, take a look at your own issues and unwillingness to build a business. The problem is there more often than with the employee.

Don’t Be a Mosquito in a Nudist Colony

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Why Lifetime Goals are so important to what I do tomorrow, and why tomorrow is so important to my Lifetime Goals.

The mosquito in the nudist colony is thinking, “I know what to do, I just don’t know where to begin.” As business owners, we might have a similar experience, either not knowing where to begin, or not knowing what to do next to take our business to maturity. We have so little time – prioritizing what to do next is critical to our success.

How do we know what to do next? Frankly, there is no way to know unless we have the end game clearly in mind. Without it, we’re shooting a gun in the woods and calling it bear hunting. Or my favorite – “he who aims at nothing hits it every time.”

How do we understand the importance of tying each day to our future? If we focus on just today, we claim victories that are only imposters. If we focus too much on the future, we get fogged or discouraged by the lack of measurable progress today.

The key – always keep today’s action plans and our future Ideal Situation in clear view at the same time, and continuously make the connection between the two.

Here’s the progession that clearly gives us that connection:

  1. Lifetime Goals – what are the things I want to do the rest of my life that I can never check off? This is why I’m alive and why I do business. I’m using my business to get me to my lifetime goals. If I don’t know my Lifetime Goals, I’ve got no clue why I’m in business. Get clarity on your Lifetime Goals – it is foundational to understanding how today matters.
  2. Ideal Situation – FYI – Retirement is a bankrupt idea. Don’t retire, just get into an Ideal Situation for living out your Lifetime Goals – it’s a lot more fun, meaningful, and purposeful. And you don’t have to wait until your 63. You can arrive at your Ideal Situation at 40 or much earlier if you’re intentional about it.

    Critical to escaping the Mosquito/Nudist Colony problem – WHEN do I want to be at that Ideal Situation? Pick an exact date and work toward it (he who aims at nothing…)

  3. Business Maturity Date – usually the same as your Ideal Situation. Pick it – work toward it.
  4. At maturity, what revenue does my business need to generate so I can buy my Ideal Situation in which I can best live out my Lifetime Goals?
  5. How much time and money do I need in my Ideal Situation? What kind of house, car, boat, plane will I need? Do I have a non-profit or am I working in one? Is travel important? What revenue does my business need to generate over the next 5 years to get me to my Ideal Situation? Over the next 3 years? Over the next year? Knowing this is a huge step toward knowing how today fits into the rest of my life.
  6. One-Page Business Strategy – what do I need to do the next 12 months to get closer to a mature business?
    1. Vision, Mission – the big picture for why I’m in business and what my mission is as a business person.
    2. Strategies – the ways in which I make money (building websites, developing ISP software, etc.) THREE YEARS
    3. Objectives – The measurable waypoints for the next 12 months, next 3 months, next month – 12 MONTHS
    4. Action Plans – The actual actions I need to take each week/month/quarter to get to the one year waypoint, on my way to developing a mature business, that can support my Ideal Situation, so I can focus on my Lifetime Goals. It all comes together here.

If we know our Lifetime Goals, those goals we can never check off, and most importantly, WHEN we want to be in our Ideal Situation for living out those lifetime goals, we can then back into what we need to be doing tomorrow to get there. If you don’t know what the end game looks like, what in the world are you doing in business in the first place?

Continuously connecting your daily activity and your Lifetime Goals is the key to clarity and to knowing if each day is counting. Don’t be a mosquito in a nudist colony. Know what to do, where to begin, and what to do next. Connect your daily activity to your Lifetime Goals and watch the fireworks begin.

Don’t Be a Mosquito in a Nudist Colony

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Why Lifetime Goals are so important to what I do tomorrow, and why tomorrowis so important to my Lifetime Goals.

The mosquito in the nudist colony is thinking, “I know what to do, I just don’t know where to begin.” As business owners, we might have a similar experience, either not knowing where to begin, or not knowing what to do next to take our business to maturity. We have so little time – prioritizing what to do next is critical to our success.

How do we know what to do next? Frankly, there is no way to know unless we have the end game clearly in mind. Without it, we’re shooting a gun in the woods and calling it bear hunting. Or my favorite – “he who aims at nothing hits it every time.”

How do we understand the importance of tying each day to our future? If we focus on just today, we claim victories that are only imposters. If we focus too much on the future, we get fogged or discouraged by the lack of measurable progress today.

The key – always keep today’s action plans and our future Ideal Situation in clear view at the same time, and continuously make the connection between the two.

Here’s the progession that clearly gives us that connection:

  1. Lifetime Goals – what are the things I want to do the rest of my life that I can never check off? This is why I’m alive and why I do business. I’m using my business to get me to my lifetime goals. If I don’t know my Lifetime Goals, I’ve got no clue why I’m in business. Get clarity on your Lifetime Goals – it is foundational to understanding how today matters.
  2. Ideal Situation – FYI – Retirement is a bankrupt idea. Don’t retire, just get into an Ideal Situation for living out your Lifetime Goals – it’s a lot more fun, meaningful, and purposeful. And you don’t have to wait until your 63. You can arrive at your Ideal Situation at 40 or much earlier if you’re intentional about it.

    Critical to escaping the Mosquito/Nudist Colony problem – WHEN do I want to be at that Ideal Situation? Pick an exact date and work toward it (he who aims at nothing…)

  3. Business Maturity Date – usually the same as your Ideal Situation. Pick it – work toward it.
  4. At maturity, what revenue does my business need to generate so I can buy my Ideal Situation in which I can best live out my Lifetime Goals?
  5. How much time and money do I need in my Ideal Situation? What kind of house, car, boat, plane will I need? Do I have a non-profit or am I working in one? Is travel important? What revenue does my business need to generate over the next 5 years to get me to my Ideal Situation? Over the next 3 years? Over the next year? Knowing this is a huge step toward knowing how today fits into the rest of my life.
  6. One-Page Business Strategy – what do I need to do the next 12 months to get closer to a mature business?
    1. Vision, Mission – the big picture for why I’m in business and what my mission is as a business person.
    2. Strategies – the ways in which I make money (building websites, developingISP software, etc.) THREE YEARS
    3. Objectives – The measurable waypoints for the next 12 months, next 3 months, next month – 12 MONTHS
    4. Action Plans – The actual actions I need to take each week/month/quarter to get to the one year waypoint, on my way to developing a mature business, that can support my Ideal Situation, so I can focus on my Lifetime Goals. It all comes together here.

If we know our Lifetime Goals, those goals we can never check off, and most importantly, WHEN we want to be in our Ideal Situation for living out those lifetime goals, we can then back into what we need to be doing tomorrow to get there. If you don’t know what the end game looks like, what in the world are you doing in business in the first place?

Continuously connecting your daily activity and your Lifetime Goals is the key to clarity and to knowing if each day is counting. Don’t be a mosquito in a nudist colony. Know what to do, where to begin, and what to do next. Connect your daily activity to your Lifetime Goals and watch the fireworks begin.