Women, Work & the Art of Savoir Faire
By Mireille Guiliano. isbn: 978 1 84737 440 0
Next time someone next asks me “What is your philosophy of doing business?” I will just hand them a copy of this book. Yes, this book is a mirror image of how I believe business professionals (and not just women) should conduct themselves in business.
This book has many tips and aspiring stories to build your confidence (at any stage of your business career) and the author has also tackled some business topics that no-one wants to talk about. Perhaps you may consider some of these topics ‘light-on’ such as how to handle your emotions at work; business dress-sense; how to conduct yourself in business entertaining (whether at home or out). I believe that after reading the chapter on ‘Branding’ you will see how these fundamentals will contribute to your business signature.
The book was easy to read and had an interesting title for each chapter. Here are some of my favourite chapters and tips within:
• The principle of enlightened self-interest: Mireille acknowledges “We live in a 24/7/365 business world and the demands always to ‘be on’ are intense”. Mireille suggests the way to survive is to ‘to know thyself’ and act with enlightened self-interest. This requires you to step out of your immediate body full of instant passions, anger, love, jealousy and perhaps even hate and to make a cold analysis of your situation in its content before acting. Not always easy but Mireille gives some great tips on how to do this.
• Of velvet gloves, words, and handshakes: One of the greatest challenges we have in the business world is communication and this chapter covers some of the fundamentals that should be taught in every business course including – how to make a PowerPoint presentation; greeting business people (do you kiss them or give them a hand-shake, including how to do a handshake); giving feedback; mentoring others plus other great basics.
• Paint yourself orange: My favourite paragraph in this chapter is “What do people think of when they think of you as a brand? If you don’t stand out with a clear identity, you are lost in a sea of indistinguishable peers. If you have business ambitions, you don’t want to be a commodity, something perceived as commonly available, unspecialized and easily exchangeable with another product of the same type. … You need to be known for your unique qualities, and that means being recognized.” This chapter also covers some great tips on company branding.
• Whose success?: Mireille believes many women ‘want it all’, but she says that is not possible unless you manage your expectations and those of the people closest to you of what ‘having it all’ means. This is a great chapter for those over-achievers.
The book’s subtitle is ‘business sense and sensibility’ and I believe it lives up to this. I hope you will enjoy this book as much as I did.
Organizing from the Inside Out
Each Xmas holiday starts with this book as it is my bible for organising my office. But please be warned, if you are not prepared to commit 2-3 days in your office doing this or 1-1.5 days per room in your house, then I don’t think this book is for you!
“Organizing from the Inside Out” by Julie Morgenstern (isbn: O-7336-1350-O)
Julie’s philosophy is – organising must accommodate your personality, needs, situation and goals rather than creating systems for systems sake. Julie suggests three straightforward steps:
1. Analysing: Taking Stock
In this step, you need to ask and answer five basic needs-assessment questions:
1.1 What’s working?
Julie says “Identifying and preserving what’s working offers you many advantages. First, it saves you an enormous amount of time and energy. Second, give yourself credit where credit is due (and your self-confidence gets a big boost). Third, by studying what you like about those systems and why they’re so easy for you to maintain – you learn what appeals to you as an individual and what you will want to replicate.”
1.2 What’s not working?
By taking stock of the whole picture is to be sure you solve all the problems, not just some. That is, if only some are fixed, the areas that remain disorganised will soon begin to spill over into your newly ordered areas, causing the whole system to erode before long.
1.3 What items are most essential to you?
If you have a hard time zeroing in on what to keep, imagine that there is a fire in your office and you only have thirty minutes to save your most important items. What would they be? Your answers will tell you what really matters most to you.
1.4 Why do you want to get organised?
By taking the time to articulate what’s driving you to get organised before you start, when you’re at the peak of your motivation, you create your own coaching tool to turn to for inspiration when the going gets tough.
1.5 What’s causing the problem?
Julie acknowledges it is not uncommon to have several causes of clutter but believes these causes stem from three basic points:
1. Technical errors
2. External realities, and the big one…
3. Psychological Obstacles: Hidden, internal forces that make you gravitate toward disorganisation, no matter how much you crave control. Unless you are aware of them, they can lead you to sabotage any system you set up. Through awareness, you can find a way to work around these issues and achieve organising success.
2. Strategising: Creating a Plan of Action
Working without a strategy is like trying to drive across the country with no map, no idea of what your destination looks like, and no sense of how long the trip will take! Julie has 2 secret weapons to assist with this step:
2.1 Using the Kindergarten model of organisation which involves:
a. Dividing the room into activity zones, thus it makes it easy to focus on one activity at a time
b. Sorting items to be used at their activity zone
c. Making it fun to put everything away, use brightly coloured and clearly labelled containers to store activity items in.
d. Creating a visual menu of everything that’s important. For example, if you are using categories for your (electronic or manual) filing, create an index of what goes into what category so other members of your team know where to store items.
2.2 Acknowledging the time that is required. Most people either dramatically overestimate or drastically underestimate the time required. When overestimating the job, means you are likely to procrastinate forever and never get the job started, whereas underestimating the job, means you will start see little or no results and walk away well short of the finish line grumbling “This isn’t worth it. It can’t be done.” Remember my introduction to this book review!
3 Attaching: Getting the Job Done
Even this step requires a methodical approach and Julie recommends the SPACE formula to make it easy:
• Sorting: It is critical that you handle everything. Pick it up and ask yourself: Do I use this? Does this make or cost me money? What category does this belong in? The idea here is to group similar items together
• Purging: Here is where you decide what stuff to get rid of, and how (toss it, give it away, sell it, or put it somewhere else).
• Assigning each item a home: It is important not to be vague and indecisive about where to put items. Consider accessibility, safety, and the zone and sequence it is to be used in.
• Containerise: Container make it easy to keep your categories of items grouped and separated within their assigned zones so that retrieval, cleanup and maintenance is a breeze.
• Equalise: After 2 weeks Julie recommends making an appointment with yourself to evaluate how well your system has been working. “Is everything as easy as you’d like it to be? Are you following your system?”
The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Successes
by Dr Greg Chapman
Dr Chapman’s book came to my attention when he wrote a feature article in the AICD (Australian Institute of Company Directors) magazine exploring why small businesses stay small. This particular article sparked my interest as I consider myself to be a small business by conscious choice, rather than trapped by my own deeds, or am I kidding myself? Let’s find out:
Dr Chapman research identified five keys reasons why businesses stayed small:
1. No vision for their business. Chapman writes “… Business owners without a vision find decision making difficult. They are fashion followers. They expend much time and money trying different things, and when dropping them when they don’t get immediate results…”
I can cross off this reason – I have the vision!
2. No passion or commitment. Chapman writes “… Passion comes from the right vision, and creates the commitment that drives the business to achieve its goals. Passionate business owners are prepared to make the sacrifices in time, money, and effort to succeed. Passion infects others – staff, suppliers, customers…”
Passion a trait I don’t lack, so I can cross off that reason (two out of two – tick)
3. No goals or plan. Chapman writes “Vision alone is not enough. If business owners don’t have clearly identified goals that create stepping stones from today to their future success, they will lose focus and become caught up in the day-to-day operations of their business…”
Interesting – I have the plans but secretly I lack the discipline to finish the goals by their due date as I love training and solving problems in Word and Excel. So I have to work on this one!
4. Business owners not valuing their time. Chapman writes “…They (business owners) either try to save money by doing the non-core tasks themselves or find they can’t give tasks to others as they have inadequate systems in their business … If, however, they put a dollar value on their time, based on the highest value work that they could be doing instead of non-core work, they would be prepared to pay someone to do these tasks, and pay for advice to help their business.”
I do have the systems, I do value my time, but what I am bad at is doing the work as I am really enjoy the business. I have to work on that!!
5. Lack of business knowledge. Chapman writes “This does not mean business owners have to be experts at everything, but understanding the fundamentals will encourage them to seek out advice and support in those areas in which they are not an expert…”
This is an interesting point, and I totally agree with it. My confusion here is, it is one of those goals on the To-Do list but the deadline keeps slipping. The goal “to set up an advisory board to challenge and keep me in line with my deadlines”. So another thing to work on!
Summary – two out of five (not so good). So it seems my status (being a “micro-stayer”) is not a conscious choice but one of trapping myself in the business because I like doing it rather than working on it! I can see what the Christmas holiday holds for me.
Go Figure – 29th Sept 2009
Michelle Hamer ‘Go Figure’ workshop is essential for small business operators. She’s savvy, and she tells it like it is. It really made me look at my business and taught me how to implement strategies for what I want to be – A big business making lots of $.
Outcomes: I’ll be able to look at our profit and loss statements, break even and understand what is really going on in our business.
Dione I
The course has been great and I have gained fantastic knowledge which will assist me in my business.
Outcomes: Becoming disciplined in setting up strategies and analyzing figures.
Gloria B
I have become more aware of my business profit and loss, exit planning, and looking at my business from above, looking in and deciding on what I am doing – more awareness. It was extremely fin and challenging. I’m so glad I came!
Outcomes: Much more awareness of my business, it was very informative
Cathy L
You can never stop learning skills to increase your business growth. “Go Figure” must keep on circulating through small business on the Sunshine Coast.
Outcomes: To analyse figures
Robbie M
It’s a lot of information to take in but its very well structured and broken up into bite-size chunks. I’m at a crucial point of developing my skills (as an artist) into an accountable business and many of these skills were absent from my skill set. While they’re still new to me, I hope I can get more support to keep learning. Thanks!
Outcomes: I know that I need (and how to do) balance sheet, profit and loss and some of the figures.
Nicole M
A far better understanding of where my business is currently and the possible avenues to utilize to improve efficiently and financial position. I was thoroughly impressed with the course and extremely glad that I attended.
Dane C
Extraordinary Circumstances – The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower
A big change in tempo from last month’s book review. This month I read “Extraordinary Circumstances – The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower” by Cynthia Cooper (isbn: 978-0-470-12429-1)
In this book Cynthia recounts her journey from her upbringing in Mississippi to being a working mother, covering topics of corporate success, the pressures of becoming a whistleblower and being named Time’s 2002 Person of the Year. The book focuses on pressures and challenges that Cynthia and her team felt as they unravelled the financial mystery behind telecom titan WorldCom and the importance of paying attention to their instincts.
The book is a strong reminder that ethical decision-making is not an easy choice, and that you must find strength and courage to defend what you believe in.
While you may find some of the financial references a little challenging, the story is a very moving encounter of the professional growth of a business woman, the passion of an owner and the rise and fall of a dynamic company. The book did leave me wondering if the right persons were charged but it definitely strengthened my passion for fighting for what I believe in.
In the Epilogue, Cynthia writes about her 10 lessons. Here is an extract of them (page 365-6):
1. Know what you believe is right and wrong. Write down the values you will live by and what you will do if your values collide. Is your moral compass pointed in the right direction? Are your priorities in the right order?
2. When making a decision, apply the Golden Rule: Treat other people the way you would want to be treated. “If you lived each day as though it were your last, what would you do differently?”
3. Guard against being lulled into thinking you’re not capable of making bad decisions. Each of us is imperfect and must protect against giving in to temptation. Keep in mind that what is legal and what is ethical are sometimes different. For example, giving the WorldCom CEO loans to cover personal debt was legal at the time, but was it the right decision?
4. Ask yourself: Would I be comfortable with my decision landing on the front page of a newspaper? Would I be okay with my parents, professors and mentors knowing about my choice? What are the potential consequences of my actions?
5. Practice ethical decision making every day. “Good and evil both increase at compound interest,” wrote C.S. Lewis. “That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.” Ask yourself, did the decisions I made today coincide with my values?
6. Discuss tough ethical dilemmas with others you respect.
7. Find your courage. Most people want to be part of a team. But groupthink can be dangerous, and the team can be like a herd of bison that follow one after another over the cliff’s edge. Courage is acting in the face of fear. If we practice finding our courage in smaller matters each day, we’ll stand a better chance of keeping the courage of our convictions when we come to the crossroads of more critical decisions.
8. Apply the same code of ethics whether at home, work, school, or a house of worship. Compartmentalising can result in acting different ways in different environments instead of being one unified self.
9. Pay attention to your instincts. If something doesn’t feel right, it may not be. Stop, step back, and re-evaluate the situation.
10. Above being loyal to your superiors, be loyal to your principles. Don’t assume that what superiors are telling you is right just because they are in positions of authority.
I strongly encourage you to read this book. In Cynthia’s closing paragraph she writes “in the end, life is about choices. Our challenge is to choose well.”
Go Figure – 23rd July, 2009
WOW! I almost didn’t sign up for this workshop. But this has turned out to be the best investment of my time in many years. I’m signing up for all the others. The special guest appearance of Ken Waddington (lawyer) alone was worth the price of admission. No small business owner can afford to miss this workshop.
Outcomes: Learn ways to benchmark my business performance; find out ‘how we’re doing’
Randy L
Great course; Outcomes: taken a fundamental look at how to analyse financial statements.
Evan R.
The e-policy handbook
by Nancy Flynn (isbn: 978-0-8144-1065-3)\
You may consider this book review a bit boring but let me assure you if you have an online presence you need this book.
Each year possibly millions of emails travel through your business network (and not all of them work-related). Your company (and you) can be left wide open to liability risks, security breaches, and productivity nosedives if you do not have a comprehensive e-policy program that combines written electronic rules with formal employee training supported by policy-based monitoring, management, and achieve tools.
Sounds all too hard? In 2006, it was reported that 24% of organisations had employee email subpoenaed, compared to just 9% in 2001. Sure this is an American statistic but we are in a global society. What this book emphasises is that no employer is immune from electronic risk, for example:
- If a former employee subpoenas company email in the course of a hostile work environment lawsuit, your business could face a lengthy and expensive search for messages, attachments, and other electronically stored information.
- If an employee uses Facebook, YouTube, or another social networking or video site to post racist or discriminatory content, your organisation could face negative publicity, a public backlash, or worse.
- If a distracted driver, engaged in a business-related cell phone conversation, crashes and kills someone, your business may be liable.
So what can you do? Take the initiative and buy this book. It will assist you in developing an e-policy that focuses on content and not so much on the technology tools. As e-policy rule #2 suggest: You cannot afford to ignore new and emerging technology. If you fail to provide the hot, must-have technologies of the day, chances are your tech-savvy employees will bring them in through the back door. Left undetected and unmanaged, that’s a recipe for disaster!
A whack on the side of the head – unlock your mind with lateral thinking’
by Roger Von Oech (isbn: 207 14914 3)
Roger opens the book with a question “When did you last come up with a creative idea?” Good question, but why is it important! Roger reasons that creative thinking has 2 purposes.
The first is change. With change being a constant in all of our lives, when new information comes to your attention and circumstances change, it is no longer possible to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions (and you wondered why things were not getting easier).
The second is it is a lot of fun. Roger likens creative thinking as “s.. of our mental lives”. Now I will let you decide what the s word is (and yes it has 3 letters) as if I use the word you may not receive this newsletter as it may be considered spam mail. Roger writes “Ideas, like organisms have a life cycle. They are born, they are developed, they reach maturity and they die. So it is imperative that we need a way to generate new ideas”.
Knowledge, Roger proposes, is the stuff from which new ideas come. While knowledge doesn’t alone make a person creative, it is the connections you make of your knowledge that is the real key. For example, Nolan Bushnell in 1971 looked at his TV set and thought, “I’m not satisfied with just watching TV”. I want to play with it and have it respond to me.” Soon after, he created “Pong,” which launched the craze for home video games (http://inventors.about.com/). Creative thinking requires an attitude which allows you to search for ideas and manipulate your knowledge and experience, or as the Nobel prize winning physician Albert Szent-Gyorgyi put it “Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different”.
Thus, if you’d like to be more creative, just look at same thing as everyone else does and think of something different – not that easy! Well this could be because you have some mental locks and this is the real heart of Roger’s book – unlocking your mental blocks.
Roger summarises these as:
1. We are taught to search for the “right answer”
2. Things must be logical.
3. We must follow the rules!
4. We must “be practical”.
5. Avoid ambiguity at all costs
6. To err is wrong!
7. Play is frivolous
8. (This is a favourite in business) That’s not my area!
9. Are you afraid to hear “Don’t be foolish”
10. And do you feel because of all of the above – “I’m not creative”.
Roger has some great exercises to unlock these mental locks so track down this book and try some of them. A favourite of mine is, when driving behind a car and you see items on their roof racks – make up a story.
How to be a Big Fish
by Paul Watkins (isbn: 9 780473 141394)
On The book opens with a quote by Seth Godin …
“The mass market is dying. There is no longer one best song or one best kind of coffee. Now there are a million micro markets, but each micro market still has a BEST. If your micro market is ‘organic markets in Tulsa’, then that’s your world. And being the best in THAT world is the place to be.” (www.sethgodin.com)
So what does this mean? Instead of being all things to all people define your market and become the best and the biggest in that market space. Or as Paul writes “If you want to be a big fish in your pond – rather than making yourself bigger, reduce the size of the pond.”
This book gives lots of anecdotes on why being specialised is more desirable and profitable than trying to be all things to all people. For example, consider the simple question “who makes more, a GP or a Specialist?”
Another story to ponder is the jam experiment. In this story Iyengar and Lepper conducted an experiment to examine whether the number of options on offer affected consumer’s subsequent purchasing behaviour. In some shopping centres shoppers were offered a limited (6 items) tasting and in other centres, shoppers were offered an extensive (24 items) tasting of different jam flavours. The result: Nearly 30% of consumers in the limited choice test subsequently purchased a jar of jam. By contrast, only 3% of the consumers in the extensive-choice test purchased a jar of jam.
Paul is also bold in proposing that there are 2 questions you should ask prospective clients:
• Can you afford me?
• Do I like you?
The book is a great read. Some of the ideas I am sure you will go ‘ah ah’ to, and some of the ideas you will throw away.
When you have finished reading the book, re-visit your business goals to see if you can zero in on becoming a Big Fish in Small Pond.
The 4-Hour Work Week
By Timothy Ferriss (isbn: 978-0-09-192353-2)
On my initial read of this book I thought that Timothy was selling virtual secretarial services in India (not a bad idea for sole operator that is, having a virtual secretary to support you in your business and personal life). Then I thought the book was about selling products on the Internet (another great idea which I am working on) but no, the book is about YOU. That is, “How you can find the time for you now and not when you retire”.
The book contains heaps of great quotes, questions and tips (I have nearly coloured in every page). So I would encourage you to get hold of this book from the library and check it out (I bet you will buy it).
An example of each:
- Do you own thinking independently. Be a chess player, not a chess piece. (Ralph Charell)
- The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals”? but “What would excite me?”
- Limit access to your time, force people to define their requests before spending time with them, and batch routine menial tasks to prevent postponement of more important projects.
PS – Check out Timothy’s comments on setting goals in Chapter 4 – System Reset