It takes more than a perfect product to make an impact.
When you buy a studio recorded CD of your favourite band, the music is tweaked and crafted and re-recorded until it’s perfect. It’s a finely polished product and we love it.
We love the live performance more. We talk about the live performance more. We pay a lot more for the live performance. The less than perfect, no do-overs live performance. It’s no where near as perfect as the studio recorded album, but we talk about it more; we remember it more fondly; we part with more cash to participate.
Forget perfectionism and aim for engagement!
“The pursuit of excellence is gratifying and healthy. The pursuit of perfection is frusterating and neurotic. It’s also a terrible waste of time” – Edwin Bliss
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favour underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
These commandments were created and copyrighted © by Dr Kent M. Keith in 1968 and updated in 2001.
If you want to achieve anything in life – for work, for yourself – anything, planning is absolutely necessary.
But your plan is more than likely rubbish!
I’m not being mean about your planning ability. Planning is good and plans are rubbish for two reasons:
So stop feeling accomplished because you have a plan and start acting on that plan (and keep on planning!)
Writing a business plan always seems like a long, arduous and mind bending process.
There are reams and reams of web pages written on the subject, along with shelves of books in old school libraries. Most of this is helpful, good and useful information. The trouble is there’s loads of it and knowing where to start can be a bit overwhelming.
It needn’t be this way! You see, writing a business plan or any strategy document for an organisation consists of the answers to four very easy questions:
1. What do we do? (Mission & Services)
2. How are we going to do it? (Strategy, Values & Finance)
3. How are we going to tell people? (Marketing & Competition)
4. Where are we heading? (Vision and Forecasting)
As the meerkat says, “Simples!”
Organisational politics is not uncommon! In fact, more than likely, we can all remember a few organisations that felt like this:
Different parts of your organisation no longer seem to be pulling in the same direction. Every one seems worn out and tired from the politics of working together. There’s no common corporate focus anymore. We have become less than the sum of parts.
Common catch phrase: “No one appreciates what we do in this department”.
The good old days were when we were at the top of our game. If only we could recapture what we had back then, when we achieved great things. The future looks a little scary and we seem to be moving backwards.
Common catch phrase: “Things were some much easier/better when so-and-so was around!”.
We have a great bunch of people. There is lots of vision and some amazing innovative ideas, but why can’t we seem to finish any projects. We never quite get where we’re trying to get. We have so much passion but seldom anything to celebrate. We have loads of exciting meetings, but where are the results to go with them?
Common catch phrase: “Let’s get together and brainstorm ideas!”
We have procedures for a reason and everyone is great at following them, but why aren’t we getting great results. No one seems to take any initiative any more. Innovation is almost none existent and creativity has dried up.
Common catch phrase: “That’s just the way we do it round here!”
We have so much to do. Everyone is totally stacked, but we never seem to get any closer to our goal. It just feels like we’re treading water. It’s like painting the forth bridge, as soon as we’ve finished last month’s work load we have start all over again.
Common catch phrase: “It’ll quieten down in few months!”