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Advice to New Entrepreneurs: Collaborate

After sharing ideas entrepreneurs should appreciate the importance collaboration to gaining momentum with their idea. Collaborating occurs internally [building the right team] and externally [building good networks] to bring the right persons to assist your idea/project positively to direct their skill or influence to get the desired results. New entrepreneurs should target situations that encourage collaboration early on through either in funding, networking or mentorship to build practices around working with others. All ideas start filled with assumptions and from a desire to get into business without knowing how. We share these ideas and desires to find common ground, feedback or even support from others. Therefore, collaborating is a valuable platform to share and interact with others to create ideas rooted in facts and not assumptions about a business endeavour.

As a student I worked with a group of talented individuals with a passion for TED Talks to curate the first TEDx, organising the event was a baptism in leadership and team dynamics. In trying to do everything myself I became miserable and my selfishness caused a growing unhappiness and uncertainty in my team. Only after one my team mates let me have it verbally about not involving others with key decisions that I realised most of my focus was being diffused on things not critical to the event. By allowing persons act in their roles the event was challenging but successful. Entrepreneurs should aim to work in teams and empower persons as needed to do what would otherwise distract from the necessary activities.

A friend doing incredible development work with Agua Campus in Gambia shared the story of Ebraima who desired to study in US but was encouraged to collaborate locally first to appreciate indigenous talent. Agua Campus facilitated his access to online educational platforms and mentorship and Ebraima worked with his colleagues to create a spinning fan to improve the conversion of different organic waste to carbon rich charcoal. Embraima collaborated externally with Agua to nurture his capabilities and internally with his friends and neighbours to gather parts from unlikely sources to build the fan which is currently being tweaked for application. In collaborating, he was able to apply and diversify his skill set to best serve a marginalised community by converting a challenge into an opportunity.

Recently film makers from at-risk communities have received massive support for their endeavours. One group, participating in a media programme, sold over $100,000.00 dollars after their photography gained the support of their community encouraging them to produce a short movie. Making money was not the original motive however the level of interest about the movie resulted in over 6,000 copies being sold. The film makers deciding to collaborate with their community and mentors from their media programme revealed their true motive to highlight challenges of the community. Additionally, they reached out to film makers from other at-risk communities to improve the quality of their sequel and assist with their projects.

In most examples of collaboration there are obvious advantages such as understanding the business landscape, broadening of available expertise and improved team capacity. These cases focus on more subtle aspects that are key for new entrepreneurs whom in sharing their ideas should know that collaboration can be (i) used as a tool to focus on necessary activities while (ii) diversifying skills and facing challenges to better serve your audience and to (iii) reveal the entrepreneur's real motive for starting the business.

Image courtersy A1 Management Group

Joshua Hamlet founded Inspire Consulting Ltd. ICL focuses on start-up education, entrepreneurship and mentorship within Trinidad and Tobago as well as the wider Caribbean. Currently Mr. Hamlet is curating his first book which emphasises the importance of collaboration for the survival and success of new businesses.

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Why Things do not work Out as they Should?

Most persons would agree that to generate value a strategy needs to be successfully implemented rather than just exist. Generally, things do not work out when a culture (society/organisation) promotes technical and cognitive skills above applicative, creating a performance gap. As a process implementation involves idea exchange, interpretation, adoption and enactment which are affected by two types of concerns; (i) those related to the process and the (ii) organisation's capabilities to execute the strategy. The first type is connected to technical and cognitive skills (role differentiation) while second type looks at the potential to "fit the pieces together". Regionally, a divergence exists between the availability of good ideas and those successfully implemented. Therefore it is my aim to highlight the main issues for persons in leadership position to consider during implementation at all levels.

The Performance Gap: "We know but do not do"

Within the Caribbean we need to increase our understanding of how focusing on role differentiation impacts strategy implementation. Successful implementation is linked to the performance gap which is the disparity between what people know to say or do to behave successfully and what occurs in the moment. Reducing the performance gap is as much organisational feat as it is addressing the underlying mind-set and capabilities of the persons involved. As the level of difficulty increases technical and cognitive abilities become negligible and application is the determining factor of successful implementation. We should encourage a culture of applicative skills using innovation and collaborative mind-sets that guide what is actually said and done to influence others

What to focus on during implementation

The process phase prioritises managed sharing and target leadership. Managed sharing is the ability to clearly communicate strategy by socialising teams using key performance indicators (KPI's) and scorecards[corporate and personal] for monitoring purposes. Target leadership provide agreeable stretching targets guided by action plans and assessed with performance appraisal. An effective process phases requires a flexible organisational culture where targets are communicated, understood and internalised by everyone using scorecards and KPI's. Over emphasising role differentiation encourages a culture driven by disjointed performance of assigned roles which limits opportunities for collaboration.

"when work is effective, life benefits and when life is working, work benefits"

To execute strategies, leaders should be aware of organisation's culture. This refers to elements which determine "the way of doing things" and typically has three layers [Fig.1]. The inner layers are intangible influencing factors while the external layer are those observable parts that tell others about the organisation's culture. An organisation's culture should be tailored to improve its capabilities to execute strategy. These capabilities direct how variables such as finances, structure, competency and training are used during the process phase. In execution, organisations should use resources to address burn out by creating an environment that is supportive of the life and work responsibilities of its members.

What can be done?

Leaders can reduce performance gaps in their response to the complexities of implementing strategy. Successful implementation demands persons having qualities that encourage working with others and effectiveness in leading change. These applicative skills highlight awareness of one's self by concentrating on your Big Four and using emotional intelligence when working with others.

The Big Four is a profile of your inner leadership team. Persons aim for high profile awareness in order to deploy each intentionally and effectively to harness its specific strength and skills to meet a situation.

Regionally, the workplace favours the CFO and COO types which their focus on technical and cognitive skills. Our culture should shift attention to skills that promote collaboration in order to achieve goals.

Emotional intelligence enables persons to do well in the practicalities of life. It provides a pathway in dealing with the complexities of implementing strategy. For example, at high performance levels cognitive and technical become negligible and emotional intelligence is competitive edge to perform effectively. Fortunately emotional intelligence can be learned but only in an elastic culture that nurtures new ways of thinking about situations rather than rewarding repetition.

The practical questions facing leaders during implementation are:

How to place a greater importance on applicative skills than cognitive and technical?

Whether the strategy is at the level where cognitive and technical skills are negligible?

How to train leaders and executives in recognising applicative skills while using tactics to prevent burn out?

To conclude, leaders should acknowledge that the rate of successful implementation in the Caribbean is low. This is compounded by the fact that our culture does not reward the applicative skills that can reduce the performance gap and improve implementation. We need tools that recognise applicative skills and can nurture them within managers and young people. We can use the Big Four Profile for self-awareness and foster emotional intelligence in group situations. The long-term goal should be a shift from "who should do it" to a  "why working together is necessary" mindset to build a culture that improves capabilities in implementing strategy.

Erica Ariel Fox, Change leader, Change thyself

Erica Ariel Fox, Winning from Within

Daniel Goleman, What Makes a Leader

Image courtesy Jory Fisher at joryfisher.com

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Walking the talk: Doing What you said you'd Do

Psychologist Carl Jung famous statement "you are what you do, not what you say you'll do" echoes a perennial problem in today's society. Person's described self tend to be out of touch with their acted self breeding unreliability and distrust. There is a sense of betrayal when a senior colleague boasts about "best practices" or throw around the term "professionalism" while constantly falling below a standard held for others. Attached to betrayal is the reduced value of words within the workplace. In general, one should strive to act based on the expectations that our words create.

This is applies to three different levels (organisational, occupational and personal) of an entrepreneur's life:

In the workplace you are being watched one way or another to see whether you follow your words. Not being taken seriously may reflect a belief [quietly or aloud] that you are untrustworthy [actions not fitting words] which is seen in the level of responsibility entrusted on a regular basis; and

Balancing work with personal life is centred on the expectations communicated to others and the subsequent follow through. Entrepreneurs get that their time is usually dictated by the requirements of the business not by will. Often persons get the work life balance wrong and constantly adapt to fit circumstances, in making those change it is critical to set proper expectations and follow through on them.

The key is balance expectations between things said and things done. Having actions differ from communications either by inaction or over stepping boundaries are both unsatisfactory. Achieving this balance is difficult as missing expectations can occur in situations out of your control and intention.

Two pieces of advice to assist in walking the talk is;

Consistently Communicate Boundaries: It is acceptable and advised to personally define your boundaries in terms of scope of capacity and willingness to perform certain task. Set the boundaries of demands that could be made on your time to increase the level of control. Perform a task outside the boundary is an opportunity to surpass them and set expectations based on individual competency rather than comparisons.

Mentorship and Collaboration:These can be considered as a spectrum as following through on promises is an art that becomes easier with consistency. On one end, mentorship from persons with a reputation of being effective is an incredible tool to understand how to approach complex situation with limited resources and still produce a result. Every expert was an amateur and most transition due to quality mentorship at critical points of their development. On the other hand, collaboration builds on one's ability to delegate and appreciate that other people and their ideas are often better than your own. Collaboration creates a space for challenging ideas and techniques that would improve efficiency. Remember, none of us are as smart as all of us (K. Blanchard) and follow through is influenced by smart work as much as hard work.

The Caribbean workplace is filled with persons whose words do not match their actions and it should be your aim to never join that club.

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Meet or not to meet....that is the problem

There is a bar saying that a man should avoid an old car and a troublesome woman. Both frustrate from lost of time and resources, the same can be said when it comes to abusing meetings. Meetings can easily from turn an opportunity to obstacle. I typically advise new organisations to limit meetings preferring activities that involve going into the field and meeting the audience base. Author John Maxwellnotes to be effective you have to go where the people are, know what the people know and participate in what they are doing, likewise your meetings need to facilitate such.

Frequent meetings easily distract before realising that little has been accomplished as implementation lags. The concept of persons with a shared purpose gathering to sharpen ideas in a controlled space is useful but ancient in application given the changing nature of organisational structures and demands on person's time. I personally endorse a lean meeting model that gets the most out of the least amount of time.

"once we have met it is resolved,

once delegated it has occurred"

The dilemma with meetings surround balancing the influencing factors of (i)the people participating in a (ii) space of communication guided by (iii) an agenda:

Frequently persons make up space in a meeting instead of actively participating because they are amateurs at meetings. Hosting and participating in a meeting is an skill that develops over time but few accept that. The persons that do not demand meetings with no purpose, fail to understand why we meet or just do not know what the heck is going on. When you nudge that person to come off their phones or to stay awake, remember they are picking up space but may want another meeting.

Communication before, during and after meetings are vital as all meetings involve human beings that need to be connected. Many meetings are derailed due to unhealthy communication amongst parties. For instance contributions should narrowly focus on your respective scope, this may be disagreeable because you may have a great idea about another person's job or how they should do it, in reality that is rarely true as most cross contributions are either perceived wrongly or out of context [neither is healthy for a meeting]. The opportunity to communicate should be balanced with relevance as it relates to "understanding the next step". Meetings where persons do not have a connection are destined for hiccups therefore the aim is to connect on common ground to lift the organisation to the next step.

Agendas should fit the purpose and be designed lean to get the most of the minimal amount of time. Agendas are necessary to guide a meeting however troublesome when they are so rigid that it is hindering or out of touch with existing realities. Agendas should encourage lean activities [minimalist in nature and scope] to show respect for person's time in getting them back into the field. Meetings serve to understand the next step, the agenda is the plate.

Managing these influencing factors prevent action inertia where it is presumed that once we have met it is resolved or once delegated it has occurred. Action inertia absorbs resources repeatedly for the same purpose preventing the organisation from gaining the momentum needed to take the next step.

Here are two tips to manage these aspects and improve on your meeting skills;

Escape the brick and mortar to embrace new ideas: Technology removes the need for physical presence and intuition suggests that a more welcoming environment can lead to different results. Use tools such as meetings.io, google hangout, skype [facilitate schedules and location] and google moderator, freedcamp and Gantt Charts [manage activities and lines of discussion]. Likewise apps should as Any Do, WorkFlowy, Evernote and Wunderlist works magic in sharing information with groups while keeping on top of on-going activities.

Meetings are to end: Having unnecessarily long meetings or "after-meetings" where decisions are changed are not healthy. Respect the space of a meeting by treating each contribution and decision equally. After meetings are the best way to erode team confidence and trust.

In conclusion, do not fall trap to Lemming Logic when it comes to using meetings as tool to understand the next step or be afraid to change how things are done to get a different result. Feel free to share what you use to keep meetings on track and suggest tools that can help new organisations interact with ideas better.

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What are you willing to suck at?

In time most persons come to the conclusion that it is impossible to do everything on your agenda at 100%. We have limited resources [physical or emotional] consistently used, whether actively managed or not. The goal is to figure out where your strengths need to be at different stages in the journey. This could be either liberating or crippling as that moment of clarity allows you to see what you are best at and need to focus on....... the choice is to either make that moment about other people or yourself. Making about yourself means making healthy comparisons finding out what works for you and tweaking as circumstances require. This is no simple task requiring much trial and error however most successful persons would claim that sensitivity to their circumstance and style was instrumental towards gaining that next level.

Typically, the success is viewed without acknowledging the differences in process towards achieving the desired goal.In business the selective allocation of resources to various attributes in their industry guide their competitive advantage and similarly with individuals. The necessary elements to be successful are general but the right mix is the difference between results and disappointment. The mix required to be an athlete differs from a student, leader from a manager and entrepreneur to lawyer. Lately, this idea of the correct mix of traits based on the individual and circumstance has peaked my interest to develop a performance archetype.

The concept behind the archetype is to understand your rating of these attributes which are essential for result based performances. Simply;

Time Management: the ability to allocate and follow the necessary time resources given to task

Level of Focus: the ability to spend most to all attentional resources on a particular objective.

Talent: the level of natural acumen in regards to the the particular field

Skill Diversity: the amount and fluidity in which one can switch between various skill sets.

Teamwork: the ability to work in a collaborative manner

My passion is entrepreneurship therefore the general industry attributes are selected using Howard Stevenson definition "entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled. The objective is to figure how not to mimic the general ratings but rather where I can improve myself to compete actively as an entrepreneur.

The obvious conclusion is that my archetype rarely reflect those of the general idea of entrepreneurs. Most likely it would be difficult to improve all five traits and it would logic for me to acknowledge the weakness in skill diversity as well as teamwork. I am willing to 'suck' at skill diversity since improving teamwork means creating partnerships with persons with a wider skill set and fluidity building my networks. It means dealing with less to do more in order to balance out time management and creating value out of talent to give my company a competitive edge.

It is necessary to be liberated by the abilities that you lack while actively using that fact to become more competitive. Remember, no one can do everything, trying to makes no one successful........but your name is not "no one".

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Size Matters and How you use it............

Interestingly Einstein defined ego as 1/knowledge where more knowledge equals less ego and lesser the knowledge more the ego. The ego interacts with the outside world balancing perception and reality so that persons distinguish themselves from others. This balancing act is key to growth as we are rarely aligned with reality  but either moving closer or further from the best representation of ourselves daily. With that in mind, let me highlight the danger of passive empowerment which is "growth/development resulting from minimal effort "

Passive empowerment is detrimental because the longer endured the more difficult to change already formed ideas about one's self. It is terrifying to know that most persons  take their greatness, ideas die and ambitions to the grave without the world experiencing its benefit. Passive empowerment relies on satisfaction with minimal effort reducing one's potential and ability to make the most of certain opportunities.

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Hard Work is the Easy Way

Small differences separate good from great and understanding this principle is one of them. These differences are learnt, meaning you are either gaining or ignoring them in your daily activities. Ironically few persons obtain success as the journey leaves many at the wayside in despair. There are persons constantly busy achieving little becoming frustrated from frequent distraction from their goals. Therefore, working hard is reflected in achieving the relevant task towards a specific goal within the desired time to build momentum.

Making critical distinctions: Persons that work hard grasp effectively key distinctions in their career and time management. First, being productive is completely different from being busy. Being busy reflects doing many things most of which are irrelevant but productivity address tasks at their respective times. Second, having a full plate is different from a balance meal (literal and metaphorical). In your diet or life activities, having a lot differs from the having the right things. Good people tend to be busy always with a full plate and likely on the brink of frustration. Greatness makes you do the key things in a balance way to achieve your goals along the journey.

Habits make up Life: Everything you do stems from a habit, without a doubt working hard is a habit. Understand, a seed never brings forth a seed therefore habits whether good or bad blossom and stem into other associated behaviours. Laziness is the result of habitually "not engaging in hard work" and the list can continue. Likewise contrastingly,  working hard brings habits and behaviour that lead to success. Persons that work hard understand maintaining the right momentum and fluidity in life helps composure in facing challenges along the journey.

Getting the bigger Picture:The average movie takes 15 months of production while the usual trailer is below 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Looking at it another way, to produce a movie is about 648,000 minutes however we decide whether or not watch it in 0.0004 % of that time. This holds true for observing the success of others, most of times we see their trailer rather than the long production time. Working hard brings the bigger picture into focus grasping the necessary skills and mindset required for the journey.

Working hard is the easy way because it helps to quickly understand what is necessary for your journey to success. 

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Of Straws and Camel's Backs

How many failures make a success?

Many videos, blogs and articles about the 'need to fail' and its connection to success. One question that plagues the mind is how many more failures till that point of success. Rarely do persons actively seek out to experience failure with its accompanying doubt, depression and negative emotions. The passive participation in failure brings more negative results. Therefore, failure is more about reaching the next level of growth than not achieving the desired result. 

Most failure feel like a straw breaking a camel's back or the point of no return. Being discouraged is a reality and an experience that no one escapes on the journey to success.Therefore, a need exists to lean into failure actively i.e. to take the necessaries out of undesired events towards new ventures. The desired goal is usually an active success however active failure is better than passive success. Overall, the experience matrix is designed to guide persons to become more active in all aspects and events in their lives. Being active in failure cannot be neglected if we are to reach beyond our limits.

Here are some of the insights from active failure;

People fail differently

This very obvious observation escapes us, during failure we neglect that others are falling short, the question is whether or not it is seen. Failing passively means allowing your failure to overshadow the events of others in your life. Some persons fail in public while others in private, actively failing puts this into a productive light.

Finding your niche

Every opportunity that you can do is not what you should do. To passively fail means looking for other opportunities as a rebound to keep score in life. Going from opportunity to opportunity tends to become unhealthy as one over emphasizes general traits (personality traits, past experiences, redundancy) while under-developing specialised traits (expertise, innovation, new experiences). It is easier to have focused greatness than a great dispersed focus. Actively failing puts focus on the necessary opportunities for your journey and how to engage them.

Power of routines and self enrichment

Simply, failing actively gives an appreciation for the necessity of order and positive routines in one's life. These routines differ but should include rest, positive company, exercise, healthy diet and empowering your interest. The reason being is that a healthier you can make more of success than a frustrated and stressed out version.

How the journey looks : "what got you here won't get you there"

Failing actively helps to eliminate thoughts of deservedness. To be blunt, your dreams are earned not deserve. We tend to think that just because it is positive, innovative and desirable that it should occur with minimal work. That is a fallacy and a temptation of passive failing which makes us chip away at the dream until "we get what we deserve". Failing actively involves the simple changes that make the difference.

In the end, how many failures make a success........the amount that we actively participate in.