Over the Xmas period I’m writing an eBook considering how business is changing including the fundamental shifts we are experiencing and, also the key things we possibly need to get back to. It will cover between 50 and 100 words all supplied by my colleagues, clients, followers, connections and fans. Although, I may throw a few into the mix.

I’m hoping to provide an overview of some critical factors that will influence the future of work and business. Some of you have been kind enough already to provide some interesting topics such as; value, adaption, substance, competition, talent, time and feel.

It would be great if you could join in! I’ll reference you in the book and provide a hyperlink to your website or blog. Hopefully, I can provide some thought provoking ideas and thoughts with a bit of humility too. Can’t wait for the conversation to start once it’s published in February/March 2010.

If you want to contribute a word or two, please just make a comment on this blog, direct message me on www.twitter.com/annholman or, email me at ann@annholman.co.uk

Thanks!

If you run a business, department or division, your role is about to change, big time! Your ego better go and bury itself comfortable cos’ it’s going to be spending a long time there. As a manager you have huge responsibilities. Those self absorbed, selfish, controlling vain days are over. They may have been suitable for a functional state of management but they no longer endear you to a world that has suddenly realised that it’s about relationships. Behaviour will have to change.

Perhaps, business is moving from the ego status to the self actualisation role as in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Your new accountabilities will not be based soley on financial performance or achievements based on numbers. It will centre on:

1. Developing relationships that are mutually beneficial.

2. Developing differentiation, even if it is unfortunately based on price.

3. Creating a common purpose that is authentic, makes a difference and has meaning to people.

4. Building trust and credibility.

However, enabling people to feel valued is going to be your most significant contribution. Financial performance? That’s just the result of getting the stuff above right, we’ve just always managed it the wrong way round!

Just a quickie post today but hopefully a thought provoking one! Wouldn’t it be interesting if we looked at our business, department, division, even ourselves and asked these questions:

1. What if we encouraged our market to be driven by need rather than huge profits?

2. What if we stopped ’selling’ our products and started ’selling’ our people?

3. What if we removed all of the contradictions we have have in our business? Well some of them anyway.

4. What if our business plan was about evolving our company rather than it doing the same old, same old?

It would be intriguing content for a team meeting and brainstorm session. The answers would be even more enthralling!

When was the last time you let your people play? Not throwing a ball around the car park or the games we all get on our computers and mobiles nowadays, but serious play.

Play is the essence of innovation and idea creation. It requires freedom from constraints and freedom from conditions.. Watch the kid in the school yard with his/her tractor. Complete absorption in the activity, unadulterated imagination and clear determination is at work.

Play is critical, it’s serious stuff and it encourages us to look at things differently. With your team look at something mundane in your customer process or consider that boring waste management project. Play with it, modify it, destroy it, build it up again. Completely go wild, break it open and come up with 10 new ideas and see where that takes you!

As Joesph Chilton Pearce said “Play is the only way the highest intelligence of mankind can unfold.” Not a bad quote really.

It’s easy to get trapped into doing everything. After initial start up, you’ll get dragged into all sorts, particularly if you can’t say no! Then it gets all messy and complicated, something us humans have turned into an art form. Cut to the chase, keep focused on building value and concentrate on these five aspects:

1. A proven track record. It builds reputation

2. Develop word of mouth mechanisms that reinforce your track record. Keep marketing costs low by adopting this strategy. Creates credibility.

3. Continuously grow your skill base, knowledge and understanding. Become an influencer in your area of expertise.

4. Let your character come through, it’s the only unique thing you have.

5. Identify what you are really good at and thrust yourself into that.

Refresh it, change it, reinvent it occasionally but never stop working on them.

I presented a seminar this week in Cornwall for www.mervynsmallwood.co.uk on customer loyalty and social media. It struck me that, like yesterday’s post, some new things are going to be challenging for business but we don’t need to panic about social media. Not just yet anyway. There is time to sit down, relax and just watch/observe.

My top five tips of what you need to be doing if you are looking at your marketing strategy in the next few months. Social media will be at the forefront of that so:

1. Read this book www.ducttapemarketing.com/socialmediaforbusiness.pdf

2. Research and play with social media, it’s meant to be fun.

3. Get yourself booked onto www.alikeminds.org in February 2010.

4. Find a social media ‘guru’ and pick their brains.

5. Read this blog and others www.thebrandbuilder.blogspot.com/

Don’t panic, social media is here to stay. You don’t need to jump on the bandwagon just yet. It’s more important to make sure you know what you’re doing and want to achieve. Spend 3 months getting your head round it. Play with www.twitter.com Start to engage with people. Follow people you like, follow people you hate. Understand the language, how it’s changing the way we do business, then launch yourself into it.

Social media is not a spectator sport so be prepared for that. You are not going to lose out by waiting a few months. In fact, you are going to be in a better position to manage the process and ensure your business makes the right decisions rather than hundreds of decisions.

Lets get rid of one myth, you can’t manage people. Desks, chairs, IT systems, websites, databases yes but people, a resounding no. That’s where it’s all gone wrong. It’s why so many people in ‘jobs’ are bored and why so many people set their own businesses up.

Talented people want meaningful work first and then the monetary rewards as a result of doing something that makes a difference. If you think, or people tell you otherwise, they are so buried in conditioning that they haven’t gasped for air in years!

Just a few predictions:

1. Talented people (that’s all you can afford to recruit now) will want to express themselves, have their own voice, and not seek permission but consultation before they make a decision. They will want more responsibility, accountability and ownership of the business than ever before.

2. They will expect the work to be meaningful. They won’t give a damn you’re the boss unless you constantly demonstrate your credibility and reputation, the same way you expect them to.

3. Great people will only work for companies that are innovative, flexible, open and honest. They will expect authentic leadership and true relationships with their colleagues and customers

4. They will know what they are worth in terms of added value. They will be precise about what skills they bring to the party. They will be confident about their ability. Oh, and it won’t be BS. They will know.

5. Because they are good they will expect the relationship to be on an equal basis. You may as well throw out the hierarchy and organisational chart now. They will not want distance between you and them. If there is, they will see it as a distrust and disrespect.

6. They will deliver more than you ever imagined.

7. Finally, they won’t want you to throw your ego, position and control around but bountiful amounts of inspiration and motivation.

Some of these are no different to now, but perhaps with the war for talent, you have to create the conducive environment now in order to develop a competitive advantage for the future. People are replacing products.

No I’m not about to start a critique on the Charles Dickens novel! As entrepreneurs and people who run our own businesses, we live in a world of little expectation. At start up, we may have had great expectations but, quickly, reality kicks in via its many experiential forms and you learn not to expect too much from other people.

Whether that’s because you didn’t get paid, you have had lots of deferred/cancelled orders, or you expected more people to turn up at your event. Reality can be painful. For some this becomes a depressing place to be. We’ve all met them.

When you have little expectation, perhaps you are freer. Your world isn’t consumed by worrying whether something’s going to happen, if someone is going to let you down. It gives you space to breathe, an ability to consume more learning, adapt and absorb what’s really going on. In fact, it gives you chance to listen.

In having great expectations you then put in place controls whether physical and/or mental. These controls ensure you feel comfortable, secure and reinforce (you think) that people won’t get let down. You see it everyday both internally and externally in business.

Having little expectation of other people can ensure you have great expectations of yourself. You become independent, you control the right thing; you and not the wrong thing, other people. It diverts attention to yourself and you become more self-aware.

People with great expectations focus on other people and what they are doing and what they are not and then the awful struggle with blame enters the frame. We start blaming others for not meeting our expectations and in turn we try to control them even more.

It becomes an ever-decreasing circle, a whirlpool of trouble. Even a depressing array of emotions. Having little expectation of other people doesn’t make you pessimistic, in fact, it truly embeds optimism when you concentrate on managing the great expectations of yourself first, before you flirt with other peoples.

Small businesses once they start to grow can begin to adopt ‘corporate’ tactics. Rather like when we get older we start saying the same things our parents say!! It’s easy to fall through the trap door of building organisational structures, implementing systems and creating job descriptions in the belief it provides us with control. Actually it can do the complete opposite.

As we grow we fear making the wrong decisions, expect no mistakes from our employees and build a structure that defends us from being human and imperfect. We create defined roles and responsibilities that constrain a persons ability to be innovate and then silos emerge. Teams fragment and become protective, fearful of looking stupid and pointing out the obvious. People start saying the ‘right’ things to directors and, finally, managers start using their positional authority by trying to control the uncontrollable, people. Low and behold anyone dare to expose their fallibility.

Everyone starts feeling crushed and accept this is the ‘way things are done round here.’ It’s no wonder that after an initial spurt of growth, small businesses begin to plateau and growth slows dramatically. We just sucked the life out of our business. As owners we tend to focus on growth being measured exclusively by the figures when it’s actually about the employees growth. In the past we recognised and praised their initiative, now afraid of loosing control, we stifle it.

For once, forget job descriptions, get rid of structure, deliberately allow teams to work together on joint problems to prevent silos and ditch those job titles. It’s not about keeping control that you need to be worried about, it’s the growing inertia business expansion can bring.

The UK Government has launched a new tool to help small businesses manage their employment obligations. It’s free (Chris Anderson will be pleased) and you can download it at:

www.businesslink.gov.uk/employmentlaworganiser

Thanks to Adam Stones for informing me of the launch.