Quo Vadis

I heard a story this week where a puppy was found in a rubbish bin. This was not some poor little stray that had fallen into the trash looking for food, this was a puppy whose owners had bundled it into a bag and dumped it alive into the bin so it would be taken away with the rest of their junk. Fortunately it was found before it succumbed to suffocation, starvation or any other of a myriad ways to die in a dustbin. How disgusting! Even if you cannot afford to have your dog put down properly by a vet I can think of a dozen better, more humane, ways to dispose of a puppy than by discarding in the refuse alive. That story should in some way resonate with abhorrence inside you, if not then perhaps you should check your conscience in the area of animal welfare.

We live in a nation that has become calloused in various areas of moral conduct. You just have to look at our driving to see that we no longer care about a legal framework of conduct on the roads. Given the chance most people will go through a red traffic light rather than wait for it to go green. It is a small slip compared to bigger crimes, but it says something about the way we are as humans, about the way we are carrying on as a nation.

Often we justify our actions by comparing them to the crimes of others. ‘The small slip’ mentality enables us mentally to shove off the concept that we have broken a law or code of conduct. Oscar Pistorius’ trial was popular; nearly everyone I know had an opinion on it or followed it to a degree. I would postulate that our infatuation with the trial was not because we cared about whether or not he was guilty but because watching it made us feel better about ourselves. We watched to reassure ourselves that our sick lives were not as bad as his, that our moral failings do not equate to taking a life, and that we are okay thank-you-very-much. We watch television shows like ‘Breaking Bad’ which show the degradation of the morals of the main character, Walter White, who starts making drugs to provide for his family when he is diagnosed with cancer. Part of us, deep inside, will feel better knowing that while we may skimp here and there on good behaviour we have not fallen as far from the light as Walter White. We numb ourselves to and justify behaviour and character flaws that morally fall on the side of evil.

Character will sustain you where talent may get you. It is one thing to have a revolutionary idea, or a skill that catapults you into success. It is quite another to have the character to stick it out in the long term. Flaws in your character will bring you down, open you to exploitation, and shorten a career that could bear much fruit.

You can try fake character. In the short term this can get you past the initial deal if you talk fast enough. Long term though it will crack you apart like an egg dropped on a concrete floor. The mess will be incredible and often irreparable. You cannot have one character in business and another at home or socially; that sort of acting is called hypocrisy.

Character is something that has to be worked on. Not just to improve on any flaws but to sustain the level we have attained. The human will is subject to entropy, just like anything else on the planet. It tends to degrade if no extra energy is expended to maintain the status quo. In the words of Albert Schweitzer some people “harm their souls... without being exposed to great temptations. They simply let their souls wither; not realising that thoughts which meant a great deal to them in their youth have turned into meaningless sounds."

Think of this situation, your beautiful daughter has a choice between two men. One of her suitors, Jake, has an impeccable character, he is polite, has your daughter’s best interests at heart, run’s his own business above board, makes enough to live comfortably,  but does not make quite as much money as the second choice Bill. Bill is loaded, he pays for everything, but you know that his business dealings are dodgy at best. He pays bribes to get contracts, and often boasts of getting one up on someone else in business. His life is littered with broken friendships that he has burnt through bad deals. Who would you rather your daughter marry?

Why all this talk about character today? Well, I believe that we stand at a crossroads as a people at this time. A pivotal moment where we can make a choice as individuals to choose a path that leads to either greater or less morality in our nation. Surrounded by elements of corruption, overpricing, shady business deals we have the choice to capitulate and make it a way of life or to stand up and refuse to simply ‘go with the flow’. It will take a hard look at our own lives and energy expended to fix it. It may take a standing up to those who would like to bring us down to their level, an effort to bring transparency to our business deals and way of life. There is a price to be paid to be a person of good character, in the long run, though, it will be worth it.

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? The Business Perspective

What are you going to be when you grow up?” Is a common question that gives flashbacks to time spend among the crayons and paper of grade two classrooms. My personal jury is out on whether it is a valid question to ask a six-year-old; on one hand it stimulates the forethought in a child, on the other it can lock someone early into a profession that may not be a viable option in twenty years time.
That discussion can wait for later. It is a pretty good question to ask a business though.
Think about transport for a bit. Kombis are irregular but if you wait long enough for one to arrive you will get to your destination (pending breakdowns and running out of fuel).
Long distance buses operate on a timetabled system where no matter what time the bus arrives it will only leave at the scheduled time. You can own your own vehicle which gives you the liberty to leave at any time you want with the extra pain of getting your own fuel and maintenance plan in action. Or you could just walk. What are you offering as your business?
Too many businesses try to please everyone or appeal to everyone. When that happens you normally end up pleasing no one, everyone gets confused as to what they are offering, and you have way too many options for each person who walks through the door.
Pick one thing and stick with it. Make it work for you (if it does not work out you can always pick another thing). Focus your energy and drive into it.

If you can get to the point where you can get someone else to run it successfully on your behalf then fantastic, but Zimbabwe has way to many absentee business owners attempting to run multipleoptions while their management takes them to the cleaners while offering a substandard service.Picking a reliable manger or business partner is a whole book on its own.

Some questions that may help you decide what you want to be when you grow up.
Who are you going to serve? Low income, high income, middle income?
Will you be aiming for quick turnover or large inventory? Low margins or high margins?
When do you want to expand and scale up? Consider the Eiffel Tower in Paris; they only built one. There is only one Mona Lisa. Do you want to be exclusive or general?
Are you going to run your business traditionally with a full corporate structure or with a “make it up as you go” minimalist approach?
The clearer you are about what you want to be the clearer you can be about where you are going. You can determine vision and growth pattern and communicate them clearly to your staff.
There is no real right answer about how you decide to look.
It will depend entirely on what you feel is the correct plan for you. Apart from clearly moral issues and some solid principles that will make your life really easy you can decide to be whatever you want when your business grows up (offering an assassination service may get you plenty of murderous clients but it is not recommended as a career choice).
One last question (just to throw the cat among the pigeons): Do you really ever grow up?

Time in the Sun

You are in a country with an apartheid government in the mid-seventies, you have this plan to open a hotel and a casino but the local laws are restrictive about gambling. What do you do? Well you exploit a loophole to set one up in the then independent territory of Bophuthatswana which existed within South Africa at the time but had no problems with people betting their money away. Thus Sun City was born. Being close enough to Johannesburg and Pretoria meant that it had enough clients coming through. It suffered at the hands of an international artist boycott in a stand against apartheid (the artists recorded a song against the resort). It survived and when democracy finally arrived in South Africa it expanded to include extra hotels. Today Sun City stands out as a premier resort in Africa. Enough with the history lesson and more about the business.

If you have ever stayed there you will appreciate the effort that has gone into the resort. There is a backstory that feeds into the entire theme of the resort. The décor is not just random ‘because it looks nice’ but planned to go with the entire feel. For example, there is an entire ‘rock feature’ that incorporates several animal sculptures at an immense scale. Someone planned it and planned it well. Here is lesson one for the week: Plan based on Vision! If you do not cast the vision clearly and let it provide a road map for clear planning then well you could end up anywhere (probably penniless and looking for another gig).

Second lesson: Get the right people to cover the planning. You may have final say on the output but the right people, with the correct expertise, need to be putting things in place. This sounds so simple, so logical, yet we stuff it up a lot. I was talking to the manager of a décor firm this week. They design and fit corporate and private rooms out. Need a new boardroom; speak to them. Need a new kitchen; they are your people. She was saying one of the big problems they have is getting the designers to understand the materials that they are wanting used in the products they are busy creating. A three metre square black granite table top may look stunning on a delicate aluminium framework when it is conceptualised on your computer screen, it may just not work when you dump the real, heavy, solid granite onto the fast collapsing lattice you envisioned. So get people who what they are doing or people who can figure out what they are doing without making too many expensive errors, people who can find the information.

Get the best advice and information you can afford (now the best advice may not be expensive, but it often can be). I did ballroom dancing for a bit when I was younger. I started out socially but realised pretty quickly that I would enjoy competition work. Now my social teacher was just that, fantastic at giving you steps to get you round a party floor. Come the more technical competition work he was awful. My dance partner and I won our first competition not because we were good, but because everyone else was worse. Soon we came to our senses and moved onto better teachers who made dancing seem effortless in comparison. We became better dancers. Lesson learnt.

A bit of a side track on the ‘best advice’ thing here. Remember that best advice may change over time. When Christopher Columbus was born the best sailing advice was not to go too far because you may fall off the edge of the world (no seriously, that is what people where told based on the science of the day). By the time he died people were trying to get around the globe. The ‘best advice’ had changed. Likewise, the best advice for someone else may not be the best advice for you; in which case it is not the best advice then.

There is a device that is a ‘4D’ rollercoaster ride simulator at Sun City. It is not unique to the resort but if you ever find one take advantage of it. You get strapped into a chair suspended on hydraulics, stare at a ‘3D’ screen, and air is piped past you to simulate wind. You go on a ‘ride’ that seems as though you are hurtling at high speeds yet you never pass 0km/hr. Your mind takes the visual and sensory cues and fills in the blanks for you. Your imagination is that incredible. The founder of Sun City had a problem with starting up in what seemed like an impossible situation but found the solution. Maybe you really want that granite top on a pretty framework, there is a solution somewhere that probably involves a stronger metal than aluminium. You can’t afford the best advice, there is a way of obtaining it. It just takes a little more mental planning, thought and idea creation.

The Three Year Mark

Sirius is what I use as a humility check. It is the brightest star in our sky and is a mere 8.6 light years away. It is twice as large as the sun, which in turn is 330 000 times the size of earth. Thinking of that ratio makes you feel small; a tiny speck living on a speck of dust in the universe. That sort of perspective can dwarf you a little bit and put you slightly in awe. This week I had a Sirius moment.

You see this marks the third anniversary of this column. Time truly does fly when you are having fun. I was getting all geared up to celebrate when I read another blog. In it the author, who I highly respect, listed 30 years of business success and experience. It made three years look trivial, not quite as small as Earth to Sirius but small none the less.

Now I am still going to celebrate three years in print. I firmly believe in celebrating achievements even if they are small steps to a greater goal. The last anniversaries I have celebrated by looking at the past articles from the previous twelve months, this year I am going to do it a little different. Read on faithful follower and rejoice with me.

When starting out I wanted an attention grabbing title, something that would stand out and require a bit of thought to get your head around. It also had to encompass what the article would be about. This would serve a dual purpose of priming the reader as well as keeping me focused as I wrote (I can write about a whole bunch more stuff that has little to do with business). The purpose of the article is to challenge people to do things different from the mundane, to inject a healthy dose of fun into the workplace, and to raise the bar in terms of how things get done. The picture of ordering a double-thick, strawberry, pink milkshake at a stoical boardroom meeting sums that up. It took some kicking around to come up with the idea (original ideas fermented around a coffee theme as that is a massive passion).

Over the last three years you will have seen a number of common threads start to form in the tapestry of the column. I never sat down before the first article and decided on a list of ideas that would form primary values, rather they appeared on their own as thought processes coalesced into written words week after week.

The power of relationships probably stands out as the most prevalent thread. Life truly depends on ‘who you know’. Relationships are not developed to be exploited but rather through seeing a common goal that you can work towards. A true relationship is not a score-keeping ‘what can I get out of it’ but a genuine concern for the other person’s wellbeing and the vision you are working towards.

This brings me to the second thread. The need to genuinely care for people. This has many expressions ranging from not ripping people off to stopping to hear how a member of staff is doing and finding out the score from their kids soccer match. It is a passion for people that will see your products translating into meeting real needs in the lives of the people who buy them. The universe is getting better at spotting a phoney so be genuine.

Going above and beyond the norm and doing things excellently go hand in hand. There is an unwritten set of rules that governs the status quo in your work environment. Often these produce mediocre results and a contentment with the second best. In order to stand out there is a need to go the extra mile with creativity, with service delivery, with shipping, with just about every aspect of what you do. The economy will not stay subdued forever. If you are not looking at what you are doing right now you will be left behind later.

Finally everyone has a story. I was reminded by this at another Sirius moment this week. I attended a farewell function for Marlene Brand, a physiotherapist who is moving to Bulawayo from Harare. She has spent over fifty years in the profession and has selflessly given to the promotion of the profession in the country. Person after person stood up and gave testimony of her care, compassion, and character. Hearing the words spoken made me truly wonder what will be said of me when I reach that milestone, and reminded me how far I still have to go. At the end of it she reminded attendees that ‘everyone has a story to tell’. While she said this in the context of health care provision and the healing process it applies in all aspects of life. In business it is how well that we tell our story that determines how well we perform. Being attentive to the stories of our staff and clients will improve how we can serve them. I have spent the last three years being a storyteller. I’ve loved every minute of it and look forward to many, many more. So join me in raising a glass in celebration. And as we look once more at Sirius, the brightest star in our sky, be reminded that, despite any present hardship, the future is indeed bright.

The Kitchen Effect

My mother was a progressive woman. Early on she realised that one day I would leave home, saving her a fortune in grocery bills, but that if, when that day finally rolled around, all I knew was how to boil water I would probably starve to death. In an effort to save me from a decade of meals involving cereal and milk she taught me how to cook. Back then there were no dedicated food channels, Gordon Ramsey was not a household name, and my only sources of culinary guidance were a few cookbooks and my mother's ineffable knack for creating mouthwatering masterpieces out of almost nothing. I learnt fancy terms like 'julienne' and 'rotisserie' although the testosterone in me still prefers to say 'cut' and 'oven'. I learnt to appreciate flavour and texture, that sometimes knowing when a dish felt right was more important than following the exact instructions. Above all though I learnt the first baby steps of managing a business. Anyone who does not see a kitchen as a business model has never truly appreciated the stock control that goes into managing a pantry, the pressure to deliver goods on time to the most difficult of clients (that would most likely be you and your family), the quality control required to hit the mark every time, and the mental process and mapping that goes into managing five different processes on the go at once to get them plated all at the same time. Stick your head into the kitchen next time your spouse is in full culinary flight and be amazed at what goes on.

This last week I though it would be a fitting tribute to share with you some of the basics in business that, without realising, that my mother showed me.

Quality Matters. If you want to appreciate the difference between butter and margarine then eat shortbread (for the non-cooks in the readership the primary ingredient that determines flavour in shortbread is the butter/margarine). The difference in texture and taste will astound you. Where ever possible use the best possible options you can afford; be it the raw materials you use, the people you work with, the equipment you use. The quality of what you put in determines what you get out.

Be content with a bit of mess and foul tasting flavours. The kitchen is a messy place; flour flies everywhere, fluids spill, pots sometimes boil over. The ingredients on their own often taste disgusting; egg white, vinegar, vanilla essence are horrible on the tongue. People are messy. Being creative is messy. In business tempers will get frayed, people will drop the ball, system changes can be chaotic. Persevere through the heat and the result will be spectacular (too much heat and you will get burnt so moderate the intensity and duration).

Know your market. My mother knew the list of foods never to serve me. The big question in a kitchen is not 'Does it work?' or 'Is it cost effective?' it is 'Will they eat it?'. The clients matter. In this case a spouse that could learn a few more compliments and a bunch of screaming ungrateful whelps kicking each other under the table. The focus is on what the client will do with your product, not if it will make you money or not.

Have them coming back for more. Some people will eat almost anything put in front of them, especially if they are hungry. Take the average Zimbabwean who accepts substandard goods at an inflated price because there is nothing else on the proverbial table. The real acid test for the chef is whether or not people will come back for more. It is the 'second-helping effect' that you are looking for here. I browse a lot of websites as I trawl for information and ideas, there are very few that I subscribe to. Subscribers are the people who keep coming back, who make purchases, who tell others about your product. I have lost count of the number of times I have quoted Seth Godin in various media; I have read hundred of books over the years, but I cannot wait till he has a new one. For him I am a subscriber.

Passion produces results. Stop trying to motivate people. If people need some external force to kickstart them into performance then ditch them quick. True motivation has to be internal and it shows in the product. I have met people who loathe cooking, I have been in kitchens where the designated cook sees it as a chore and nothing more. These are people who produce mediocre meals and should hire someone else to do the work. I don't believe that everyone should have a passion for cooking, and probably the best thing such people do is acknowledge that they don't and pass the responsibility onto someone who does. I love watching celebrity chefs. It is not the dishes they produce that keeps people watching their shows (after all you cannot taste the food) but the passion they bring, their personality and love for what they do. Nigella, Gordon Ramsey, Jamie Oliver all passionate people. Passionate cooks explore new meals, fuse flavours creatively into new concoctions, work out how to do it better.

The final lesson my mother taught me from the kitchen was to build people. For us the meal was family time, no distractions from the television, from books, or from phones. It was face time, where over good food we would interact and grow. Were we perfect; by no means, but those moments together moulded our family unlike any other activity. The effort of cooking was not about creating food, it was about the family time at the table. It was about creating a story in our lives that we could not obtain any other way. What story are you creating for your clients?

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.