A lot of what happens in business seems to be based on default. What do I mean by default? Well it goes like this: “I lost my job so I went into business myself”, “These clients buy my product so, this is the audience I sell towards”, “I was making all the money for the company, so I decided to go out on my own”, or “I was a really good engineer, carpenter, programmer, haircutter, etc, etc, so I decided to go into business for myself”. This is exciting, but it doesn’t create a great business until you determine its purpose for existence, beyond making a living.

If you’ve ever wondered why it is that other companies seem to be doing so well, and you are always struggling, it could be because you haven’t found or awakened to your true purpose for being in business. Making sure that purpose is always alive in your daily and weekly interactions and the culture of your business is essential to real success.

In my favorite book on leadership called Leadership Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin Sharma wrote about purpose and why it makes a difference. He used the example of how Southwest Airlines became great, not because they were charging low fares, but because they had a greater purpose of making it possible for grandparents to see their grandkids and small business to expand their markets. This awareness of a greater purpose allows people to move beyond working just for a paycheck.

Purpose was also a key aspect of Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. If they were faced with choosing between core purpose and core values for guiding and inspiring an organization, they said they would likely choose core purpose.  To them, the core purpose captures the soul of an organization and is like “a guiding star on the horizon – forever pursued, but never reached”. In other words, an organization is always stimulating change and working to move closer to that purpose, but unlike a goal, it’s never fully realized.

When a company or organization finds their higher meaning for being in existence, it will align the people and engage their hearts. With a purpose you can show your organization that their work touches people’s lives, directly or indirectly. People tend to work harder where they find fulfillment, and giving your people a purpose for what they do day to day could be just what you need to create an environment where great things are possible.

Have you discovered your core purpose for your company, or possibly for your own life? If not, you should check out this article “Building Your Company’s Vision” by Jim Collins on how to realize your core purpose.

If you’re familiar with The Hedgehog and The Fox, you know that the hedgehog revolves around one known truth, and the fox around many. The hedgehog is focused, and strategizes around that “one thing”, while the agile fox uses multiple strategies, many time uncoordinated and unrelated.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins uses this analogy to describe how some companies become great, and others never realize their goals. He says, “Those who built the good-to-great companies were, to one degree or another, hedgehogs. They used their hedgehog nature, to drive toward what we came to call, a Hedgehog Concept, for their companies. Those who led the comparison companies, tended to be foxes, never gaining the clarifying advantage, of a Hedgehog Concept, being instead, scattered, diffused, and inconsistent.”

In other words, focusing on one thing that you do best, that you are passionate about, gives you a strong competitive advantage against the fox in business. The hedgehog constantly sees victory in business over the fox because they drive their business around that focus.

Are you a hedgehog? Do you know what your focus is? Is it the right focus?

Collins asks these three questions to help you find your focus:

The idea is to find that one thing that you are good at, you are passionate about, and you can make money doing. Then define a strategy on how to do it, and follow through. Stay away from those things that you are only mediocre at, or better yet, know nothing about. There is someone else out there who knows it better, loves it more, and will be more successful at it. You have to find your own. 

Another aspect to execution is in the day to day – how to manage your time effectively and have productive days that add up to your longer term goals. We all struggle with getting tied up in so many things we must be reactive to, and not making time for those things where we must be proactive.

In Chet Holmes’ book “The Ultimate Sales Machine” he discusses time management secrets. The first chapter digs into an effective daily routine that will increase your productivity several times over. The first step is to make a list of the top 6 things you need to get done. Maybe you already make a list, I know I do, but the key here is to pull from your regular to do list and only focus on the top 6 things.

Next you take those 6 things and figure the amount of time each task will take. The total should not exceed 6.5 hours because you want to leave time for the “unscheduled stuff” – time to be reactive. The last step is to prioritize…putting the most important items at the top to be completed earlier in the day when you have the most time and energy. His process forces the majority of your day to be proactive, and less reactive, thus getting more done. I’m trying it right now and so far, so good!! How much of your day is spent being reactive, instead of proactive?

I’ve attended EO Universities for several years now, but this year was unlike any I’ve ever attended. I went for the first time to Barcelona, Spain. The theme of the University was “Design Your Life”. The idea was to focus on what you really want out of life, and what you’re doing to get there. It’s like choosing a personal BHAG – your very own Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

As entrepreneurs, we set goals all the time, but experience has taught me that we tend to view are business goals and life goals as one in the same; that by reaching our business goals we receive all we want out of life. Shouldn’t our businesses really be the means to our personal goals and the life legacies we want to create? This isn’t the case, in that, more often than not we let our businesses consume our lives and distract us from our families, spousal relationships, and our own personal paths.

While there I attended programs on knowing your limits, and designing your personnel life plan. Verne Harnish introduced the personal one page plan, or the ME page. We discussed things like, “How important is money?” and “How much is enough?” Social entrepreneurs were a common topic, as well as finding strength in all the challenges of life and business.

A fellow entrepreneur, Nando Parrado, gave a testimonial on the Miracle in the Andes, his story of surviving 72 days when they knew no one was coming. Nando and one of his Rugby mates inspired us with strength and courage with their fight against the cold and mountains. They hiked over 40 miles of nasty terrain to find help and see the team they left behind get rescued. On a scale of 1 to 10, this story was a 15…and is to be continued in a later blog.

I began working on my own BHAG on this trip, and I made a commitment to create 3 very deep relationships that will help me grown and be a strong resource for me in good and bad times. Keith Farrazzi talks about this in his new book, who’s got your back. Working on personal goals has been eye opening for me and has allowed me to combine my thoughts about my life with the success of my business in a way that brings more meaning and satisfaction to all that I do!

Whether you are just starting out, or you’ve already achieved success in your business, have you thought about the major accomplishments you want above all else in your life? Look at it like this: If you were a big ship leaving behind a wake that rippled through all those you pass by, one day when you looked back at that wake, how do you want to have affected those you’ve passed? How do you want them to remember that wake?

The people (it is always mostly about the people) and the speakers in this beautiful city of Barcelona, caused me to stop and have some serious contemplation about my future.

If you asked me the business authors out there who I think provide the most value, I would have to say Jim Collins and Peter Drucker. Both of these guys have provided huge insight to the business community on how to run a successful company. Like most businesses, we at Efficience are starting the year formulating strategies and goals to make forward progress toward our destination, and reading Collins’ and Drucker’s material has always been good preparation.

Peter Drucker is legendary and has since passed on. I credit him for giving me the insight in the early ‘90s to see how the information revolution would provide the future with value and to develop a mutual fund called IPS Millennium Fund in ‘95 to participate in this information revolution.

Jim Collins opened my mind to creating a company that had a big vision with a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), a heart with a core purpose, and personality with core values. So, when Collins came out with his new book, I was anxious to see the new awareness that would come from his decade long research.

In Great by Choice, Collins and Hansen set up an awareness of how three key areas acted as the common themes in the companies that have dealt with uncertainty, chaos, and luck as well as why some companies thrive despite all this. What they found was very interesting and contradicts common thinking about great companies. They discovered what they call 10Xers (companies that have been beating the marketing and comparison firms by at least 10 times in stock market performance) were not more visionary, more bold, more risk taking, more innovative, or more creative than the comparison companies.

They were more of 3 things:

1) More Disciplined

2) More Empirical

3) More Paranoid

This book is very eye opening! When we think of a company that has had great success, we usually assume it has done so with a new break through idea, a new patent, or by taking a big risk that is paying off. However, this was not the case. Of course, to a point, these companies were innovative and creative, but they became really great by finding what works through empirical evidence, testing that out, and then being super disciplined to get it done. They also worried excessively about what was out there that could change the game for them.

I will discuss each in more detail in next week’s blog. Happy New Year, and I wish you much success this year being worried about what is coming, gathering evidence that your ideas work, and implementing them with vigorous discipline.

Dewitt Jones tells an exceptional story. He does it with a passion and purpose that he has put into his life as a National Geographic photographer. The title of his talk, Extraordinary Vision, was truly extraordinary. He shares the stories behind these fantastic photographs that make them real and meaningful in a way that sticks with you. I was fortunate enough to see him at both the EO Arizona University and the EO Canada Regional, and was captivated both times. Many people said they felt teary eyed listening to his presentation.

What really got to me, and he does get to you, is how he approaches moments with the possibility of what could be. He goes by a personal mantra, “There is more than one right answer!” No matter how great the photo, he is always open to the possibility that there is a better one. He would capture a moment in time that may have been just what he was looking for, but if he’d stopped there, he wouldn’t have seen the better one that came just moments later.

He spoke about a time where he’d gone to a dandelion field to take some photos, only to find that the dandelions had dried up and all that was left was a field of white puff balls waiting to fly away in the wind. Instead of walking away, he thought that maybe things didn’t end there, that dandelions didn’t make the only “right” photo. Take a look. Who would have thought a picture of a dried up dandelion in the sun could be so beautiful and serene? It wasn’t what he’d sought out, but his open mind and creativity offered something more, and something inspirational.

For me this begged the question, what am I not staying open to? What is the next right answer? Are you dealing with white puff balls instead of pretty, yellow dandelions in this economy? Are you open to the idea that there is another right answer?

Dewitt talked about having Vision, Passion, Purpose and Creativity in the way you approach where you are going. Honestly, it sounded more like something from a Jim Collins book like Good to Great than it did a photographer. He would say “When we breathe in, we take it all in, and when we breathe out, we give it all back!” He calls it the One Breath Meditation…what a good analogy for life.

He believes that when your vision is clear, it’s there, and it will show up. When you continue to believe in the next right answer, you find yourself traveling down the accelerating possibilities curve. He has a vision of beauty and special moments in all of life, and he has captured them over and over again to be witness in National Geographic for over 20 years.