“A man who never makes a mistake never makes anything.”

- Herr Hunt, my third grade German teacher

When I was in third grade, my teacher invited a guest instructor, Herr Hunt, to come in for a few weeks and teach us a bit about Germany and the German language.  While I’ve forgotten most everything from that experience, save how to count to twenty in German, there was one comment made by our instructor which has never left me.

Whenever Herr Hunt would see that we were afraid to answer a question, he would say, “A man who never makes a mistake never makes anything.”

You mean that it’s OK to make mistakes?

Wait…Wait… You’re not just saying mistakes are OK, you’re saying they’re necessary?

The idea was a revelation, and ultimately a valuable counterbalance to my already overdeveloped perfectionist tendencies.  Yes, even at that tender age.

You don’t have to be a recovering perfectionist, like me, to have been tainted with our society’s pervasive contempt for mistakes.  How often has your significant other commended you for a mistake?  How frequently have you witnessed a grade raised or bonus increased on the grounds of a mistake?

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying that we necessarily have to reward mistakes, but in our culture we are on the other end of the spectrum.  We seem to be at war with mistakes, and in that war we are largely unaware of the collateral damage to innovation, learning, and our ability to improve.  Fear of making mistakes stifles our collective creativity, risk taking and, ultimately, our growth.

As business owners and leaders, we have a responsibility to our businesses and our stakeholders to maximize value.  Doing so means getting the most out of each relationship.  One way to quickly add value to our organizations is to normalize our perception of mistakes, by turning them into tools for learning and growth.

I suggest starting with:

• Education – Raise awareness as to the vital role mistakes play in achieving successful outcomes.  From idea generation and selection to planning and implementation we must leverage our mistakes to reach desired outcomes.
• Encouragement – Encourage communication and acceptance of mistakes.  Remove any stigma of shame associated with mistakes, get them out into the light of day and encourage everyone to learn from them.
• Integration – Integrate acceptance of mistakes into your processes.  When brainstorming, value all ideas regardless of which you pursue.  When implementing, record and discuss blind alleys and wrong turns that you’ve made, as a way to share learning.
• Commitment – Don’t stop.  Many things that are simple, are not easy.  Old habits take time and repetition to eliminate.  Stay committed.
• Tempering – While we don’t want to demonize mistakes, we’re not trying to encourage a proliferation of mistakes for their own sake, either.  Rather than a culture of “make no mistakes” or one of “make lots of mistakes”, strive for a culture of “we embrace and learn from our mistakes”.  Redirect the energy spent condemning mistakes into energy dedicated to learning from them and codifying their lessons into your collective business knowledge, processes and wisdom.

Over the years I’ve come to realize that for those who can graciously accept their charity, nothing pays more handsomely than a mistake.  May you accept and prosper from yours.

If you want to learn how coaching can help you achieve top business performance, increase your personal satisfaction and achieve your dreams, please contact me for a Free One-Hour Strategy Session.

A friend recently forwarded me a post from Bud Caddell’s What Consumes Me blog entitled how to be happy in business – venn diagram.  If you are in business and you are committed to BOTH your personal satisfaction and your business success (and why wouldn’t you be?) you owe it to yourself to take a look at this brief post.

In it Bud shares a simple, but very insightful venn diagram that shows the overlaps between your business strengths (What We Do Well), satisfaction (What We Want To Do) and ability to earn (What We Can Be Paid To Do).  From the diagram, we can infer that if you hit the trifecta (meet all three criteria) – Hooray!  You’ve found the formula for business happiness – getting paid to do what you are both passionate about and excel at.  If, instead, you are only firing on two of these cylinders, Bud provides succinct advice on how to increase your happiness.

What I really like about the diagram is the obvious importance of the What We Want To Do piece.  As a business owner or leader your satisfaction, and that of your employees, requires that you be doing what you want to do.  While doing so does not guarantee business success, failing to do so guarantees consistent dissatisfaction and likely a failure to thrive.  Life is too short to not follow your passion.  Right?  Right!

This diagram really resonates with me because I’m committed to working with my coaching client to improve not just their business performance, but also their satisfaction both professionally and personally.  If you want to learn more about how business coaching can help you reach your potential and achieve your dreams, please contact me for a Free One-Hour Strategy Session.

Finally, mad kudos to Bud Caddell for boiling down many business books worth of insight and wisdom into a single, consize visual.

In his recent article, Twitter A Dead End Investment For Small Business, Robert Bacal warns that unless you are doing it for fun, small business owners should not invest time in Twitter and expect business results.  Though I’ve only been experimenting with Twitter for business the last couple of weeks, what I have seen so far tends to support many of Mr. Bacal’s conclusions.  Having said that, I’m not convinced we should write Twitter off completely.

In his article, Mr. Bacal writes:

Here’s the bottom line for those in a hurry. Do NOT invest the time on twitter with the expectation that it will yield business results. If you want to participate because it’s fun, then do so. But don’t do it for business, because you’ll be disappointed now, and in the future.

While this is probably true for many small business owners, I tend to get nervous when I hear a blanket statement.  Without examining your particular business needs and marketing plan, I wouldn’t unilaterally cast Twitter out.

One Data Point – My Site

I’ve been experimenting with it as a means of driving traffic to my new website.  How successful has it been?

Well, so far 31% of my new website’s traffic has come from Twitter.  Having said that, the bounce rate for my Twitter traffic is 72%, while the pages per vist and average time on site stats are about half that of my direct hits and facebook referrals.  So, the Twitter traffic is coming, but they’re about half as committed as the rest of my traffic to stick around once they take a peak.

What does this mean for my Twitter experiment?  Well, for me, it means it’s not over…yet.  While my Twitter traffic is not sticky, it is still a significant portion of my overall site traffic.

Small Business Hope for Twitter?

Contrary to Mr. Bacal, I can imagine Twitter providing value for some small businesses.  For example, I know of one local business that occasionally distributes a dollar off coupon for Gelato via email;  if you mention the email, you get a break on the Gelato that week.  Is it possible that some subset of their customer base wouldn’t want to give out their email address, but would follow them  on Twitter?  How much more effort would it be for them to tweet their coupon in addition to sending it by email?  Would they get enough business to warrant the time?

In the end, I see Twitter as just another communication medium, albeit an immature one with a, currently, poor signal-to-noise ratio.  If you can find a way to get your message to the right audience via Twitter while achieving your desired ROI, by all means do so.    As is so often the case, it is ultimately about alignment.  If a technology, and what it provides, aligns with your business strategy and goals, use it.  Otherwise, concentrate your energy elsewhere.

I would be especially interested in hearing from any small business owners that are currently using Twitter as part of their business efforts.  What’s working for you?  What’s not?  I look forward to your comments.

This weekend, I was spending time with a close friend and business owner.  We were discussing her recent business challenges and opportunities and she was updating me on her application to participate in the 8(a) Business Development (BD) Program.  For those of you who are not familiar, the 8(s) BD Program is the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) program is designed to help small disadvantaged business owners compete and access the federal procurement market.  So, I thought it might help my readers to understand a little more about the opportunities presented by 8(a).

In talking to my friend, the application process can be  bit time consuming, but the rewards can be great.  From the SBA’s site, some of the benefits include:

• Participants can receive sole-source contracts, up to a ceiling of $3 million for goods and services and $5 million for manufacturing. While SBA helps 8(a) firms build their competitive and institutional know-how, the agency also encourages them to participate in competitive acquisitions.
• Recent changes permit 8(a) firms to form joint ventures and teams to bid on contracts. This enhances the ability of 8(a) firms to perform larger prime contracts and overcome the effects of contract bundling, the combining of two or more contracts together into one large contract.

To participate in the program applicant’s must:

• be a small business,
• be unconditionally owned and controlled by one or more socially and economically disadvantaged individuals who are of good character and citizens of the United States, and
• demonstrate potential for success.

Don’t know whether you would be considered a small business by the SBA?  Don’t know whether you would be considered a disadvantaged business by the SBA?

Take a look at the 8(a) BD Program info on the SBA site and find out.  In addition to all the information on the site, you can contact an SBA representative who will answer additional questions by phone.

In a recent (Jun 19, 2009) interview with Fortune, Google CEO Eric Schmidt had this to say about coaching and everybody’s need for a coach:

Every famous athlete, every famous performer has somebody who’s a coach.  Somebody who can watch what they’re doing and say, “Is that what you really meant?  Did you really do that?”  They can give them perspective. The one thing people are never good at is seeing themselves as others see them.  A coach really, really helps.

Here, he strikes on one of the key benefits that business leaders experience from coaching – unbiased feedback.  Others include: brainstorming partner, growth, accountability, and encouragement.

It sounds like, Mr. Schmidt started working with his coach back around 2002, so if you already have a coach, it looks like you’re in good company.  Of course, I think it’s a given that business leaders need coaches, but then I’m a little biased.

I’d be interested to know what you think in the comments?

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.”

- Henry David Thoreau

After reading Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we realize that most challenges and opportunities can be viewed in terms of alignment.   So, how can we take advantage of this realization?

Well, let’s look at a handful of opportunities (business speak for challenges) frequently experienced by business leaders of small and medium sized organizations:

• Feeling drained by interactions with certain employees or clients
• Attracting your desired clients
• Experiencing high employee turnover
• Finding that you no longer see eye-to-eye with your  business partner or can’t reach closure on decisions
• Discovering that your business is no longer personally fulfilling

In most businesses, these opportunities would be perceived and addressed individually.  However, if we view these situations in the context of alignment, we begin to see their similarities and thus the opportunity to apply consistent methods across the set.  For example, in my Absolute Alignment Framework we participate in a practice called Living Authentic Values.  By Living Authentic Values we formally establish our personal and business value systems and consistently communicate them to the world, via our words and actions.   Further, they guide our behavior and become the litmus tests for everything we say or do.  Let’s see how embracing this single alignment practice can benefit us in the various situations above.

By consistently embodying our value systems we send out overt and subtle messages that clearly communicate who we are and how we operate.  This provide others with an opportunity to choose their level of engagement and alignment with us.  At first this may sound a little frightening.  What if we fail to win a prospective client?  What if we can’t keep a skilled employee?  If we recognize that healthy and prosperous relationships are those that are of mutual interest and benefit, we see that if we lose clients or employees because they don’t resonate with our value system, then the only thing we’ve truly lost is friction.  And, like mechanical friction, while the effects are not always immediately clear, it wears us down through a variety of costs and consumption of our life energies.  In fact, the sooner we realize this, the better.  All parties suffer less.

Let’s look at the situation above where there’s friction between ourselves and our business partner.  Have we effectively communicated our personal values to one another?  Did we create a set of values upon which to operate our business and are they consistent with our individual values?    Have our values and those of our partner changed over time?  Have those changes been communicated?  A misalignment of this sort may not be the only source of troubles, but it certainly could be one aspect.  By ensuring that we’re both on the same page, we maximize the chance of transforming this frictious situation into a more harmonious one.

Finally, what if our business is no longer feeding us personally?  Have we recently evaluated our values?  What about those of the business?  Are both in alignment?  Well established and internalized values, drive culture.  If our personal values are in conflict with those of our business, our personal fulfillment will suffer.  Recognizing such misalignment provides opportunities to realign, or in more extreme cases to align ourselves with a new business.

While Living Authentic Values is just one alignment practice, it demonstrates how a single element of the alignment framework can have far reaching impacts on our businesses and our lives.  If you want to learn more about Absoolute Alignment Coaching, I hope you’ll contact me with any questions.  Meanwhile, I’d love to hear all your thoughts on alignment, via the comments.

“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.”

- Jack Kinder

In Part 1 of this series, we started to explore the idea that many of our challenges and opportunities could be viewed in terms of alignment, or a lack thereof.  In this article, we’ll delve in a little more and introduce the concept of an alignment framework.

By stepping back from the details of our day-to-day lives we’re able to see across a multitude of situations and begin to realize the pervasive impacts of misalignment.  Imagine zooming back far enough from the scene of a skirmish to bring the entire battle and all its troop movements into view.  From the bird’s eye view of a general, we can readily see the importance and far reaching impacts of alignment.

As business leaders and owners, we are the generals of our respective businesses.  When we pull back from the details of some dissatisfied client, a few frustrated employees or our new marketing campaign, we are afforded the opportunity to see their interconnectedness.  From this new vantage point we may recognize that our previous marketing campaign set unrealistic expectations with certain prospects, whose expectations were unmet as they became clients, triggering frustration from the employees working to reconcile the new clients’ expectations with what we could realistically deliver.

As we focus on alignment it compels us to think more strategically and establish structure, nomenclature, strategies and tools to support us.  These are the elements of an alignment framework.  As we learn and internalize these elements, we begin to see applications everywhere.  For example, once we realize our value system is a key driver within our alignment framework we begin to see its impacts across all areas of our lives.

Of course, the standard no silver bullet caveat applies.  There are plenty of times when the situations we face require specific and tailored responses or action plans.  Focusing first on alignment does not necessarily alleviate all effort from a given situation, but it does increase the likelihood that such effort is correctly and judiciously applied.  If our new marketing campaign sends the right message regarding our capabilities, meeting and exceeding our clients expectations becomes easier and lest costly.

In Part 3 of this series, we’ll look at the impact of a single practice from our alignment framework on a set of apparently diverse business situations.

“It can be really offputting when you lose your way somehow.”

- Winnie the Pooh

Not to get too philosophical but most of our difficulties, in businesses and, more broadly, in life are firmly rooted in one thing — misalignment.  This is not a new idea.  In fact, many philosophies and belief systems explore this concept under one guise or another.  You may have encountered phrases like true seeing, being awake and, even, in the zone.  Ultimately, these revolve around aligning ourselves with the realities of our environment.  When we do, we are not guaranteed success but we can increase our effectiveness and, maybe more importantly, our peace of mind.

While this is a simple thesis it may not be readily obvious.  To get a better sense of it, let’s do a brief mental exercise.  Think for a moment about the most significant business challenge you’re currently facing.  Really take a moment before continuing and get it firmly fixed in your mind.

Now take a mental step back from the challenge your envisioning and imagine how it might be caused by a misalignment.  For instance, maybe you’re having difficulties with a particular employee’s work or attitude.  Could there be a lack of alignment between her capabilities and the job responsibilities of her role?  Or, perhaps, a fundamental disconnect between her personal value system and that of your business culture or those of her coworkers?  Similarly, you might be having trouble connecting with your customers.  Is your marketing message aligned with their needs?  Are your services provided in a way that meet their expectations? Do they sense that your communications align with the values you purport?

Try the same exercise again with another challenge in your life, either business or personal.  As before, fix it in your mind and then identify a potential source of misalignment.  Now, take the exercise a bit further and imagine one or two.  Notice that we can generally identify one or more misalignment(s) as the potential culprit(s).  At this point, the goal is not to definitively determine the cause, but to begin to see how we can reframe in terms of alignment.  Of course, the same need for alignment applies equally to our opportunities, which are just our challenges seen in another light.

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll delve more deeply into the power of this relatively simple concept and examine how recasting our challenges into an alignment framework can provide the platform to maximize our business and personal potential.