The Batman of Business

Superman, Spiderman, Green Lantern, The Hulk; comic book superheroes that littered the landscape of my childhood like fallen leaves on an autumn morning. Comics were infrequently available growing up but when I could get my hands on them I would devour them with a speed that almost elevated me to superhero status (SuperZach: secret power-lightening speed reading, not likely to ever be a popular superpower). More recently there has been a noticeable increase in the rise of superhero movies. Old franchises have been revisited and a few more dragged off the comic book pages into three dimensional flesh and blood enactments. Not only that, they have been a staggering success. Three of the top ten, top grossing international movies last year were comic book crossovers (IronMan 3, Thor 2 and Man of Steel) and both Captain America's and The Amazing Spiderman's second offerings are well entrenched in this years top lists.

Why have they been so popular? One reason is that deep down we all want to be a hero. Superheroes resonate with the little bit of our souls that goes 'if only I could (insert appropriate superpower here)'. Many superhero back stories have a painful past; it makes us like them more and helps identify with them. Noone cares that Spiderman does not earn much, he has spidey-powers dude! We all would love that extra touch that would make the struggle for cash seem irrelevant. I watched the second Amazing Spiderman this weekend and left thinking I should order a Spiderman costume just for kicks.

There is one superhero for me that stands out among the rest though. Sure I like Spiderman, I think Captain America is a pretty solid character, but Batman just rocks it as far as masked vigilantes go. You see, the deal with Batman is this, he has no superpowers. Nothing. No extra speed, no regeneration abilities, nothing. All he has is a brain, some hard earned training, some cool toys and a desire to make the world a better place (he also has a butler called Albert which has to count for something).Likewise he had no quick fixes to get his powers like so many others. There are no radioactive spiders and no booster serums. Batman is simply put 'an ordinary human' who has to work hard to get where he needs to be. And if he can be a superhero, well so can I. I may not run around in tights and spandex beating up the bad guys but I can make a difference in the life of my clients. I can have the discipline and commitment to self improvement and training that he has. I can create tools and inventions that can radically alter the interaction of people with one another and the environment. I can be a positive force of energy to those around me. And so can you.

Here are some tips to help activate your inner superhero:-

Identify your superpowers, the strengths that you have. These are the skills you bring to the table, the abilities that when the chips are down people call of you to activate. From problem solving to fund raising, from the ability to calm a situation down to clinching a deal, there is no end to the possibilities that are out there. You have one or more.

Be diligent on honing your skills. Develop them, train them, seek mentors in them, learn from others. Read books, take classes, practice your craft. One mentor I have deliberately takes two courses a year; one to better himself (in that is included family, marriage, personal finance etc) and one to better the organisation he leads.

Think ahead. I love movies that have a surprise ending, when you think that the bad guys have won and the protagonist still has a secret card up their sleeve that they set in action well before the action started. Forethought gets you places. Develop thinking ahead. If all you can do at the moment is think ahead one day at a time it is a good place to start, then stretch it to two, a week, a month and so on.

Once in a while you are going to get beat down. You need some resilience. Some of that comes from the discipline of training, and of training out of a comfortable zone. Some of it is going to come directly from the school of hard knocks, you are going to have to get back up from a hit. If you purpose in your mind to get up before the hit even comes your are more likely to be able to recover.

Be ready to take opportunities. Being the same as everyone else is going to keep you ordinary. Seeing a gap in the market or a unique way of solving a challenge is going to elevate you beyond the normal.

Finally keep your moral compass straight. The only difference between a hero and a villain is the intent of their heart. Just like the movies, in the long run villains fall and no one mourns their demise.Oh and if you can afford it, get yourself an Albert like Batman, they help keep you sane.

Myths in Business

Jason and the Golden Fleece, Hercules, Arachnae. Myths from a bygone era, stories that entertain but probably have very little substance to them. Great to listen to, but, apart from serving as a warning not to annoy the gods, not very practical. Our world is filled with modern myths. These masquerade as truth and at first glance even seem useful but in the long term they fail you. Here are a few that you may recognise.

Myth 1: Busy equals productive. This myth is founded in creation of daily 'to-do lists', endless meetings and majoring on the minors. I can be busy playing computer games but it is not going to create anything meaningful. Answering emails keeps me busy, it just may not help me ship a product on time.

Myth 2: Multiple qualifications make better employees. We are engaged in this paper chase with the illusion that it proves competence. It just proves knowledge. Knowledge does not translate into attitude or necessarily skill. There are many surgeons in the world I would never allow near me with a scalpel.

Myth 3: That you can continually rip people off and it never catches up with you. There are seven billion people on the planet. If you rip off one person a minute every day it would take you over 13 years to pull a fast one on every person in the world, and it takes a lot longer than a minute to pull a fast one. Strangely though this is just not practical. Sooner or later you will encounter a person you stole from, sold a dud phone to, inflated a price, demanded a bribe from. I remember the time the school bully walked into my office for a meeting. He needed something from me, I was the one in control. We were civil, polite even, inside I was seething with revenge, he got nothing.

Myth 4: That success is measured by what you have and you have to have it now! New cars, new phones, new clothes, the best housing options are a must. You spend more time trading up your assets that actually maintaining your business. You spend a fortune getting things that you do not really need. Status symbols flood your life in an attempt to show your success. Inside you are empty.

Myth 5: Success is all that matters. Think of a successful sportsman. Now ask 'Are they significant?' What do they add to the world apart from their skill and moment in the limelight? A few engage in development or programs that benefit communities or lever their success into significance. What real changes are you making in your family, your community, your country? Significance is a much bigger challenge, and outlasts you. Mother Theresa was significant, we still talk about her influence and lessons today.

Myth 6: There is a magic wand to fix your business. We all want a quick fix. This ties in with Myth 7: That Big Dreams just Happen. Nothing just happens. Throughout the world there are drawers filled with unpublished manuscripts, a repository of the great ideas that made their way onto paper. Self publishing has never been easier, but it still takes effort to make it happen, effort to market it and get it to sell. There is no effective substitute for hard work, work involving energy expenditure. There may be a smarter way of doing the work (for example using a lever rather than picking up a rock) but none the less it is still work. Most of the time we know what is required. Deep down we really know the price that needs to be paid. We just think it is too hard and medicate the pain of not doing anything with a barrage of rational excuses.

Myth 8: You can ignore the individual for the masses. The masses are made of individuals, it their person experience that turns them into fans. Real customers that last long term have an individual experience with your product that leaves a lasting impression. Focus on the individual, one person at a time and you may lift your head up one day and realise that you are leading a crowd.

Doing the Right Thing

A friend of mine had a small altercation with another vehicle this week. Fortunately it was a minor prang with noone injured and both cars still drivable. The bad news for him was that he had turned right into oncoming traffic which incurs a 'negligent driving' charge and a trip to court. A less scrupulous member of society suggested that, considering the legal fees he will incur and the time he will loose, it would be more expedient for him to offer a substantial bribe and see if the situation could be made to go away. My friend likes his lawyer and would rather pay him than incur the wrath of the authorities for attempted bribery, he will be going to court. Bribery and corruption has to stop somewhere. Here is why.

Let us take the example above and examine it hypothetically. Say my mate goes the bribe route and, heaven help us, actually managed to get it to work. He will have helped corrupt the police force. Now a corrupt police force is not interested in reducing crime. If anything they will get excited every time a crime is committed or an accident happens because it becomes an opportunity to line their pockets. They will stop doing what they are meant to do. They stop doing the right thing.

This article is about doing the right thing, not the moral right in this case, but the right thing for your business that will help catapult it up. Each of us has an idea about what we should be doing, about how we should be behaving. Every organisation, public and private, has a concept about what they do, and this concept shapes their behaviour and their measurables.

As an example let us look at a police force again. What should police do? If the answer to that is 'Catch criminals' or 'Fight crime' then that is what they will gear up to do. Programs will be devised to get criminals off the street, patrols beefed up, pressure to increase jail terms. What if the answer was 'Prevent crime' or 'Keep a neighbourhood safe'. These answers allow for a different strategies. Preventing crime is not just about keeping thieves off the street but stopping them from becoming criminals in the first place, addressing socio-economic attitudes and issues that promote a life of crime. Keeping people safe includes safely awareness talks, pressuring local authorities to deal with traffic hot-spots. One of my most memorable police interactions was a lecture on the safety reasons for wearing my seatbelt (I had not been) and that the officer concerned did not want to find my head through my windscreen (he was still going to fine me, but it was clear that my safety was his prime interest). They still catch criminals, you will still get fined for not stopping at a Stop sign, but they also have so much more they can do.

You need to ask yourself if you are doing the right thing in your business. This is not something that requires a brief moment of thought. This is soul searching stuff that includes what you really want to do for your clients, your staff, and your organisation. It may radically shift your strategy and outcomes. It also probably requires some measurables to help you plan and decide.

A medical client of mine recently moved offices. This was part of a strategy to increase client numbers by moving to closer to his market. He moved in September and the end of the year was touch and go numbers wise as people struggled to find his new location. Then January hit, it was phenomenal. He was busy; working full days, the phone kept ringing. At the surface it looked like the move had finally paid off. That was until he looked at the statistics for the last year. Well last January was pretty good as well. He needed something a little more tangible if he was to justify his decision. One thing to keep in mind when looking at statistics is to consider changes in the 'minority' groupings in response to change (how are your big spenders responding, what is your low income bracket doing, that sort of thing). For my medical friend he found a shift in the behaviour of his post-hospital clients. Before the move many of them would not come back to see him, about 50% of them would leave. After the move he had a 90% retention. Now that is something he can boast about. You have to watch what you measure and examine it carefully.

Before you go on a big metrics drive bear in mind that most small businesses cannot afford to get bogged down in statistics. Pick a few things to monitor and watch, just make sure they are the right thing. For example if a jail perceives its role as 'keeping prisoners in' they will measure 'number of escapes' and 'number of inmates'. If they look at 'Rehabilitating offenders into society' they will measure 'number of repeat offenders' as their primary metric.

Take time to examine what your focus is on. Do the right thing. Measure the right metrics. If needs be go totally radical in what you do. Door to door visits through a community to raise awareness of police presence may be a totally radical crime prevention idea. So is offering me random amounts of free airtime to spend during a twenty-four hour period as part of a promotion. So is calling up everyone who came to your restaurant last night to find out how they found the meal, or maybe you just have to call up those who spent over thirty dollars a head. Perhaps it is a completely new shop layout to aid customer flow and your 'quick pickers'. I do not know what is right for you, just work it out, do it, and measure the result.

$1000 an hour: What is it worth?

It appears that it is open season on the heads of public or semi-public firms in Zimbabwe that have been drawing large salaries, or engaging in less that transparent financial activities. The headlines the last week or so have seen a number of corporate heads coming under scrutiny for either taking salaries not commensurate with company performance or for being involved in shady deals. One gentleman had a salary and benefits that was reported to exceed the $1000 an hour mark (given a forty hour working week). Not a bad income at all even after you take taxes into consideration.

Time for Zach to put the cat among the pigeons. If the company the $1000 an hour gentleman was managing was debt free, offering an above average service to its clients that made it a market leader in the field, settling payouts quickly with no shortfalls, paying decent staff salaries to the rest of the organisation; if it was doing all these things, would anyone really care how much the Chief Executive was earning? In such a case would not his performance justify such an income?

A quick search on the internet reveals that, while not the majority, incomes in excess of a thousand dollars an hour are not uncommon. It is complicated by the fact that some professionals that charge that amount (think high-end lawyers and surgeons) have to cover their expenses through their end charges and the reported income of many CEO's has income from shares, benefits and the occasional book sale thrown in to boot.

So here is the question of the week: What would justify a salary of a thousand dollars an hour? I want your feedback. Email me your responses to this informal survey. Before you jump in and yell being President of the United States bear in mind he earns a basic salary of US$400 000 a year before adding benefits and other non-Presidential incomes from things like book sales.

Here are a few things to consider as you plan your response.

How should the income of a top executive of a company relate to the employees under him? Some countries have a very narrow salary spread between top and bottom earners. Morally should the creator of a company be able to sleep at night with an hourly income that exceeds the monthly wage of his employees who are struggling to send their children to school simply because he makes the high risk decisions.

Certain fields carry inherent risk and should be rewarded for such. Take a landmine clearing agent who runs the daily risk of blowing himself up, or the high crane operator that needs to not drop his cargo on the road below or the air traffic controller. You really do not want an air traffic controller being distracted by his inability to pay for his medical insurance as your plane comes in to land.

We live in a world of perceived relative values some of which are rather skewed. For example teachers, those we entrust to educate the next generation, have traditionally been paid less than their true worth. How about the surgeon who is going to take your life in his hands to take out a brain tumour.

To what extent should performance be related to remuneration? Take the surgeon example a step further, what would happen if he only got paid for a successful outcome (now I know most surgeons are not in it just for the money but the example is too good to pass up)?

Now for another perspective on the question. Personalise it. What would you need to do to be worth a thousand dollars an hour? Perhaps that is too far out for you. Many professionals in Zimbabwe work on a fee scale between $50 to $200 an hour (before expenses). So if a thousand is too far out for you to imagine ask what you would need to do to net $200 an hour. What would you need to change in yourself? Where could you see extra sources of income that tick in without you having to work on then (investments, book sales, rental income, that sort of thing)? Now this probably wont be an overnight plan mind you but it is worth a thought, especially if it is the sort of thought that catalysts you into being a better person. I look forward to reading your emails.

The Desirable Difficulty

I have a love/hate relationship with Malcolm Gladwell and I have never even met the man. For those of you not in the know, Mr Gladwell is an author and is probably one of the best around. He tends to take things you and I take for granted and completely blow them out the water.
I love his work, I love the controversy. The hate part of the relationship is that I don’t always agree with him.
Take for example his premise that it takes 10 000 hours to become an expert in a field.
I would argue that 10 000 hours is an average and that more likely some people get in 8 000 and some poor suckers are at it for an extra two years.
With his work you always have great material that you can use in debates. I bought myself a New Year’s present, his latest offering “David and Goliath” deals with the idea of the underdog.
He ploughs through examples of underdog success and failure in business and in life to hound out a few principles that work in the favour of the “less fortunate”.
One of those that resonate well is the concept of the “Desirable Difficulty”.
What if there were certain traits that the world would generally regard as undesirable that have an ultimate positive effect if worked through.
In the book, he highlights the idea of dyslexics who invent coping mechanisms that enable them to succeed as businessmen.
Richard Branson, Jetblue founder David Neeleman are a couple of names on the list of dyslexics who have made it big.
Now some would look at doing business in Zimbabwe as the biggest difficulty in the world.
We have been through hell and back economically. What if doing business was really easy here?
What if anyone could push through the bureaucracy required to start-up?
What if sourcing goods was as simple as a phone call and didn’t require dealing with crazy transport logistics, sanctions and the odd corrupt official?
What if we could obtain all we needed to run our business locally at a price cheaper than the rest of the world?
Sounds wonderful doesn’t it. I’m just not so sure that it would be.

You see the challenges we face require us to be innovative. It requires a tenacity and creativity to bootstrap a business when loans are not readily available.
It requires a certain amount of disagreement with the status quo and as George Bernard Shaw put it — a degree of unreasonableness.
He said “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
“Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Unreasonable here does not mean impolite, it just means an ability to not take no for an answer and to find a solution that works, even if that solution if out of the ordinary or breaks a few social norms along the way.
Ecocash is unreasonable for example. The norm for years has been that you go to a bank, stand in a queue to do a transaction.
Even in a world of internet banking there are still some things you need to go to the bank for.
Bank charges mean that transactions need to be meaningful to make them work. Wait, now your phone is your bank.
Transaction size is less of a limit. Of course the normal banking world is going to be upset.
A difficult world teaches us the meaning of failure. I had a friend at high school. He was an A grade student, he was beyond A grade.
He passed everything with over 90 percent. He complained if he fell out of the top five percent of the school.
Then one day he failed a test. His world ended. This was Armageddon, how would he ever recover from this.
Compare his reaction to someone who was more “average”, who failed maybe one in 10 tests.
They fail and their reaction is “oh look there is failure, yeah I met it before and I know you can recover from it so I’m going to recover.”
They move on to the next task and do better at it. Failure is never pleasant, but it is the tenacity that recovery from failure brings is what you want.
Imagine a country filled with people who have a mentality that says we recovered from the worst inflation figures in history.
We started, fought for and built businesses in the most desperate economic environment. We turned that economy around. People like that, a country like that will change the world.

2014 The Start

In case you overslept on December 31st and missed the whole affair, it it now 2014 (cue drumroll as last year leaves graciously stage right).
More time is spent looking back at the past and predicting the future in this season that any other couple of week period. The web is full of bumph and blurb...some of it is actually really good.
Check out BBC Magazine's list of 20 words to remove from the English language for overuse.
Sadly many of them have crept into my own writing over the last year or so, time to cut them out for a bit.

Stuck for something to do while waiting for the holidays to end? Go buy some trendy, slick blank cards and write thank-you notes to the people that have impacted you the most this last year, add a bit at the end about the positives you expect this coming year.
Have fun with it, it is only the start!

Global Entrepreneurship Week in Harare.

Regular readers of this column will know a few things about me by now. Firstly entrepreneurship is like life blood to me, secondly, I am a firm believer in the power of relationships. This week is Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) which hits both those chords strong and hard. GEW is the world’s largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch startups that bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and expand human welfare. During one week each November, GEW inspires people everywhere through local, national and global activities designed to help them take the next step in their entrepreneurial journey. These activities, from large-scale competitions and events to intimate networking gatherings, connect participants to potential collaborators, mentors and even investors—introducing them to new possibilities and exciting opportunities.

 

Like most—if not all—new ventures, Global Entrepreneurship Week started with an idea. What if there was a global movement to inspire people everywhere to unleash their ideas and take the next step in their entrepreneurial journey? The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation launched GEW in to connect aspiring entrepreneurs and others who can help them take the next step in their entrepreneurial journey.

 

More than 130 countries now celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week each November from Guyana to Zimbabwe. Global Entrepreneurship Week is not one single event--it is tens of thousands of events, activities and competitions happening around the world.

 

"Countries around the world are embracing their entrepreneurs as significant drivers of economic activity and growth," said Jonathan Ortmans, president of Global Entrepreneurship Week and a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation. "Through GEW, we are instilling an entrepreneurial mindset in millions and helping them unleash their ideas."

 

Hundreds, if not thousands, of new startups will square off in competitions that offer prizes of startup capital, support and services to help them grow to scale. Policymakers and researchers in dozens of countries will examine best practices in accelerating efforts to support high-growth entrepreneurship. And millions of aspiring entrepreneurs will make connections with potential collaborators and mentors through a wide range of events and activities that provide inspiration as well as practical support.

 

A recent study by the Kauffman Foundation, "Getting the Bug: Is (Growth) Entrepreneurship Contagious," suggests that there is a significant link between knowing an entrepreneur and becoming one. Global Entrepreneurship Week exposes individuals to entrepreneurs and others in the startup ecosystem—encouraging them to start their own ventures, spurring increased economic activity and growth. Relationships matter.

 

In Harare there is the Global Entrepreneurship Meet-Up on Friday 22nd of November (that’s tomorrow) at the well-known Celebration Centre. Free coffee, trendy start up pitches that you didn't even know existed in the city, and high level connecting over a genuine interest in building the creative ideas of entrepreneurs. There'll be 3 riveting start-ups that talk for 4 minutes. From a tech company that's facing Apple and Samsung Head-on to a brick and mortar guru who has the first batch of funding on building a new city. Lots of questions and answers, and lots of coffee. Starting at 630pm you can learn more at http://zw.unleashingideas.org . You can also join in online and discuss Zimbabwe’s Entrepreneurial Landscape by using the hashtag #GEWZim on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

 

As most businesses are thinking of winding down for the year or preparing for the Christmas rush, this week represents a chance to rekindle the fire of entrepreneurship within, to network with like minded people, and take a step in the direction of skyrocketing Zimbabwe’s economy once more.