‘Skunk works’ were originally brought to the attention of  the mainstream by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman some 30 years ago in their book ‘In Search of Excellence’ after they observed several American companies using them. The concept, a group within an organisation given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects, (Wikipedia.)

It’s design was based on providing a supportive culture for maverick thought, creativity and ridding the company of any fostering problems. Ensuring that any issues are dealt with at the root cause and helping people focus on positive activity rather than negative, protective thinking rampant in so much of business.

Later developments have seen them evolve into more sophisticated occasions. These very events were aimed at fostering trust as people could tell the truth with fear of reprisals. These were not your ordinary team meetings or the regular operational get together. These were different. Set aside, these very meetings encouraged the businesses capacity to change, innovate, solve problems, achieve goals and not to mention embed an active, honest and open culture.

The results can be staggering. They create a rapid, constant flow of information, broaden colleagues perspective, offer new ideas and embody a climate of little fear and no reprisals. It pushes companies to value input, transparency and promotes critical thinking. If you think your business could do with a dose of that, set up an event once every quarter and make sure they happen. 

A fabulous book and worth the £8.99 price tag. Charles Leadbeater offers an insight into how companies might operate in the future as a result of the switch to mass innovation from the mass production of the past. As he admits, some businesses won’t be affected as much as others, but some of the concepts are challenging, thought provoking and downright fascinating. 

It’s got me thinking particularly about seeing a small business as a community not a team of people. If he is right and a culture of sharing is just around the corner, thank goodness for that, its about bloody time!

Competitors, at some point, will eventually creatively swipe your idea, your latest product development or the way you’ve adapted delivery of your customer service recently. Especially if it’s brilliant.

However, creating a team of motivated people, who collectively share their intellect, values and motivation towards achieving a common purpose will always deliver that unsurpassed product, service and experience over the long term. And thats very hard to duplicate no matter how hard your competitors try.

As small businesses grow, there is a natural tendency for the owner manager to try and control the business. Rules and regulations are invented and implemented in a bid to put foundations in place. However, it’s very easy for these to get too complex and wrap people up in knots.

When the company becomes a growing bureaucracy, it presents huge barriers to innovative ideas, creative thinking and, often dampens the original buzz the company had. Introducing a research and development budget often won’t help either. That’s why we often see small business growth plateau after a number of growth years.

It’s at a time like this that the owner/leader of the small business needs to reinforce their commitment to innovation and exciting ideas. It’s their job to remove the barriers that are starting to creep into daily life at the office or factory. It’s the owner’s role to prioritise and give preference to the people with the ideas internally in the business, creating a sense of innovation, openness to new ideas and an environment of product/service development particularly as new ideas are often very fragile.

Great owners at this time do two things:

1.     They stay close to the people in his/her business who are the innovators that create the organic growth. Protecting them from unnecessary rules and pessimism.

2.     They are out in the market place continually looking for new ideas others have created. Bringing them back to the company to develop further.

If you can link these two together, you could experience sustained growth for years. Leaders inspire. It’s not necessarily the owner’s responsibility to come up with the new ideas anymore but it is their responsibility to create a culture that allows them to be nurtured and ultimately grow.

You own your attitude. You can get up on a morning and decide to have a crap day or a good one no matter what the weather or the expected trials of the day! There is always a choice about how you approach the days work and, as a small business owner, you always have a choice about the work itself!

Your attitude can take you to many places. Lets be frank, some days management of your attitude takes a lot more effort. Essentially at one end of the continuum it can mean darkness. Grumpy, snappy, despondence, low motivation, even mundaneness, which in turn, can lead you and your business to being just ordinary.

At the other end it can lead to high levels of motivation, drive, energy, enthusiasm, excitement, fun and, dare I say, enjoyment. Above all else it can lead to something extraordinary. The bottom line, is you do have a choice. I know which person I’m going to find more interesting, inspiring and possibly buy something from!

Spot on again Seth. Go and buy the book too, it’s worth every penny.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html

It’s about getting the basics right before you try something different. There is no point in standing out from the crowd if your customers’ basic expectations are not being met.

A hotel room needs to be spotless, have fluffy towels and a hairdryer. A restaurant has to have a great menu including several vegetarian options, fabulous food and clean toilets. A mobile phone needs to be able to make telephone calls before it can download games. A car needs an engine, steering wheel and lots more before it can have all the fancy stuff that we all desire. You get the picture.

In designing the customer experience, plot the process first. Identify all the basic needs you critically have to get right. Once thats done, embedded in you and your employees everyday life, then go and create differentiation but not before that.

The control in a small business will begin to blur. No longer will it the one man/woman show it used to be. One week it will be in one person’s hands, the next another, depending on their specialism and the project. The owner co-ordinating and facilitating this rather than directing it.

As a result we will need to consider our human resource strategies in some detail. Retention will be a fundamental issue. An interesting challenge as many of us have very itchy feet. Strategies based on mutual respect, feeling valued, recognised, rewarded and a share in the business will need to be designed in to ensure our people remain satisfied with us and not someone else.

Our relationship with these people will need to be more significant, intense and trustworthy. Employees are already seeking out companies who they feel are sincere and genuine. Trust will be at the centre of every business owner’s attention. 

If our peoples imagination and delivery of product/service is the only differentiating factor, we better get going on how we are going to keep our competitive advantage.

I’ve mentioned these before but if you are prepared to be challenged, want a different perspective or an insight into what is really happening, you can’t go amiss with these books:

The Long Tail – Chris Anderson 

Tribes – Seth Godin

Futurewise – Patrick Dixon

Beyond Branding – Edited by Nicholas Ind

Building Great Customer Experiences – Colin Shaw and John Ives

The Brand You 50 – Tom Peters

Certainly worth the time and effort!

Small businesses need smart people. It’s not longer permitable to recruit potential employees who aren’t at the top of their game, or at least will be, in the next 3 years. To compete and be world class (nothing less will do) small business owners are going to have to step back and get the best in the market. They no longer have the control, the power and all the answers. Nor are they the most intelligent or creative.

Small businesses will be required to operate more like a European football club, a baseball team and, perhaps, even an English cricket team (heres hoping!) Think about it, the technical skill is with the player’s, the innovation in delivery is on the pitch. They execute the plan. The players are paid more. They are the best in their field, they are expertly skilled in their game and they dictate a premium for it, because, they simply win or lose matches. But they are the best in the business.

Okay, a hell of lot of preparation and strategy goes behind that success, but the small business owners role will be very much be like this in the future. Recruiting the best players, attracting and keeping people at the top of their game and employing the cutting edge innovators. Whilst their role becomes less technical, their task becomes more inspirational. An amazing skill set based on leadership skills not creating the next software program, or designing a logo or cutting someone’s hair.

Being able to facilitate, motivate, corral, drive people towards a common goal and promote a culture thats truly entrepreneurial will replace the skills of control, organising, developing products and doing!