Small Business Revitalization Blog

Like many perfectionists, for many years I chased the ever elusive ‘fix your weaknesses’ story, always putting myself in places where I could work on my weaknesses. Sadly this strategy did not bring me or my employers a whole lot of joy and I eventually got smart enough to avoid choosing the jobs that were too focused in those areas of weakness.

At one point I graduated to telling my employer why it would not be a good idea to give me certain tasks… I explained these tasks were not a natural talent and ability for me and they would be wasting their and my time given my capacities in other areas!  Of course, most people ignored this, preferring to squash the square peg into the round hole until they created a big mushy mess of misery for them and me.  Imagine if Frank Gehry had become a bricklayer instead of the magnificent architect he is?  The world would be much the poorer and he would be finding a whole lot less joy in his work!

I see this often with business owners – instead of allowing our team to shine in ways that are natural to them, we create a set of expectations and conditions that create the exact opposite.  And then we wonder why the business is not performing!!  As a business coach, it’s my job to sometimes deliver a little tough love to either the employee who is not loving their work or the business owner who is not creating the possibility for that in the workplace.  

Performance issues are almost always a result of the manager and the employee not being present with the strengths of the person who is not performing.  When we are truly present with our own strengths, talents and capacities it allows us to choose or create a role that is perfect for us (rather than twist, bend and mutilate ourselves to become perfect for the role!!)  

When we are present to our capacities, we work with ease and can easily outcreate and outdeliver almost anyone else… When you have a whole company full of people being present with their capacities and those people are in the roles best suited to their strengths, competition becomes irrelevant because you have a massive peak performance advantage!

Having this presence embodies a confidence, a connection with self and the willingness to be a contribution far beyond what most people see as possible.  Owning this inner presence individually and as a business builds in a set of distinctively different competencies that are incredibly difficult to copy well.  If you desire to build a sustainable, peak performing business, this is a great place to start! 

At the next New Energies of Business events we are bringing you two amazing speakers who live this strategy in their workplaces and beyond… what if we could have peak performance as the norm, instead of wading through the challenges of performance management way too often?  Would that make your business more blissful??  

If you’d like to know more, join us for an adventurous day of uncommon insights into what’s working right now!!  Bookings and more info at www.NewEnergiesOfBusiness.com  (Upcoming dates:  November 2011 in Brisbane and February 2012 on the Sunshine Coast)

(Guggenheim Bilbao image via Pinterest)

"no matter what the cost to our people..." is the bit that most organisations conveniently forget to add!!


Recently I had a fit of curiosity and asked my LinkedIn connections for ideas on how they would reinvent business.  I had a heap of thought-provoking responses, including the fellow  who wrote back and pretty much said it’s been a fabulous system for the past few hundred years and there’s no reason to change a thing! 

After I got over wondering where he keeps his blinkers while he sleeps, I started thinking about what an interesting response it was – I’ve been searching for years, how could I possibly have missed the Centre of Utopian Business?  Does it exist or is it yet to be created?

Here’s the top 5 things I’ve seen since I’ve been in the workforce that really don’t work…  (hmmm the word ‘workforce’ does not exactly exude joy does it? Could we call our people ‘peopleflow’ or ‘playflow’ instead??)

1.   Since the industrial revolution business has put profits well in front of people, leading to record-breaking levels of bullying, stress, depression, death, slave labour, environmental destruction and many other non-joyful outcomes, all for the benefit of the few at the top.

2.   The business world has a really severe case of ‘meeting-itis’ – apparently no drugs have been found to cure it yet and the virus is confusing people into believing they are leading rich, rewarding, purposeful lives.

3.   The insanely competitive race for profits, efficiency and productivity has seen the death of honesty, integrity and authenticity at pretty much all levels of many organizations, leading to a talent exodus from big business.  The structures that have sustained us for hundreds of years are disintegrating quickly!

4.   There is a lack of innovation and creativity in most businesses – real differentiation is rare except in the new-fangled creative accounting departments which sadly surprise us with their financial ingenuity far too often!

5.   There is little sense of true connection or community, even though bank advertising would have you believe it’s all about the love they have for us (LOL!).  There is mostly surface level connection between shareholders, senior managers, staff and customers – instead it is all about secrets, sabotage and scarcity.  What if there could be true non-competitive collaboration instead?

What would it take to reinvent business in ways that allow new and more blissful business choices?  The good news is, some of the real leaders in business (and generally that’s NOT the CEO’s of big business!) have already started paving the way…  times like these create massive possibilities for those willing to be different!!

Some businesses are choosing to make their workplace an engaging and enticing place to spend 8 hours a day rather than worrying about every last cent – think Google, Red Balloon Days and Carmen’s Fine Foods - (funnily enough they are all growing businesses.)

Some leaders are smart enough to know that ‘meeting-it is’ can be cured using holistic approaches – apparently simply holding a stand-up meeting will bring massive relief to sufferers!

Smart, intuitive, creative people are leaving big corporations to start their own businesses in droves because there is no bliss, love or joy to be found in traditional business and spending 8 – 12 hours a day doing something you hate just doesn’t cut it anymore.  Many are now building their own authentic, collaborative, inspirational communities so that business can be reinvented to sustain purpose, people and profits!  

I predict that over time these new leaders will be teaching the old leaders how it’s done…  Every day I connect with courageous, interesting, creative business owners and employees looking for ways to reinvent business that are ethical, blissful and sustainable… what would it take to be the change you want to see in the world?  (Or you could keep on with groundhog day… how’s it working for you??)

Want to join a conversation of real leaders?  Here’s a couple of choices for you:

Connect with people who are ‘different like you’ for two blissful days of Unconference presentations and conversations at The Bliss Connection in beautiful Maleny (Qld, Australia) on 30/31 October 2010…

or connect with BlissTribe on Facebook!