Sep 04 2007
You Should Not Believe a Single Word I Say…
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I begin every public speaking engagement with the warning: “Please don’t believe a single word I say”,
Yes, I say it to be a little provocative and grab some initial audience attention, however, and far more importantly, I want my business owner audience, to begin to view their role as owners from a whole new perspective.
Because, most business owners allow their perception of their “BOSS” role to stifle one of the most vital aspects of business, constant INOVATION.
If you have read Michael Gerber’s E-Myth series, you will already know that most business owners are not entrepreneurs, they are instead, ex staff who got sick of working for idiots and finished up working for an even greater one, themselves. They mistakenly thought that because they were good at doing the working stuff of the business they would be even better at running one.
(if you have not read Gerber’s E’Myth series, stop everything you are doing right now and get a copy Nobody should be allowed to take on the responsibility of running any business, until they have read and UNDERSTOOD it.)
Now, in charge of all the real decision making stuff of their own business they make their decisions based on their very limited experience. This gets “really ugly” when their reasons begin to get questioned by partners, staff, friends, customers and bank managers. They force themselves into defensive positions, and it’s not real easy to run a business from a defensive position.
Then they are forced into make the next fatal mistake, they seek out the “EXPERTS” Those “chosen ones” that have all the answers. They start reading the “HOW TO MAKE MILLIONS without even having to get out of bed” stuff.
THE SOLUTION
Your prime job as BOSS is to run a learning machine, Stop being a know all, become a student of process. Don’t try to come up with instant right answers. Instead, think of yourself as the head researcher, your job is to constantly test assumptions not make them.
How do you achieve this…
Start with the most important things you want to fix or improve in your business and simply ask (NOT ANSWER)
HOW COULD WE DO THAT?… then shut up and listen…
Ask your team, ask your partners, ask anyone you respect… then test the best ideas, keep the ones that work and interrogate the ones that didn’t for why not. A word of clarification here… I am not saying change every thing overnight, I’m saying simply test a new idea in a limited manner, it’s a test not blanket change of your entire existing process.
The real power of testing is…
You don’t have to be right, you won’t be embarrassed and disillusioned if it doesn’t work. You were merely testing it. However, you WILL BE RESPECTED for your willingness to test, listen and learn.
So, the next time you read about the latest money making fad like, the Million Dollar Home Page, or One Red Paper Clip. Don’t waste your time dreaming about how you can copy it, instead, ask yourself, what it was that made their concept work for them. How did their idea get the publicity that drove it global, How will you TEST that type of approach in your business?
But, please, please DON’T BELIEVE WHAT I SAY… test it for yourself.
