Made You Look

Endless Searches

Dan Pink has a review of The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture , by John Batelle.

He quotes Batelle, "Google is more than just another company. As far as the Internet ecosystem is concerned, Google is the weather."

That sure is a lot of influence for a company with a silly name.  I hope Google's future is more predictable than the weather.

Test What You Think You Know

The perils of assumption are evident everyday in business.

1. "I assumed you were informed about the meeting and would be there."
2. "We assumed you'd send the check."
3. "I assumed we had reached a basic agreement and had only minor details to work on."
4. "I assumed they'd say no to that counter offer."

We think we know more than we actually do.  Ask questions.  Then ask a different way later.

Test your hypothesis; surprises await for those who don't test what they think they know.

Shoveling for Profit

I do a lot of shoveling.   It’s part of the farm life.  Bulk wood shavings and sawdust from a pile into a wheelbarrow, then into a stall.  Then shovel manure and bedding out of the stall the next day into a wheelbarrow and out.  Rinse and repeat.  That’s a lot of material and a lot of weight.

Add to that shoveling: sand, soil, gravel and snow.  It helps keep my arms and shoulders strong and my back at the edge of injury.

When I watch others shovel, their shovel operator experience is obvious by their technique.  Inexperienced shovelers scoop into the pile and twist their bodies right or left as they empty the shovel into the wheelbarrow. 

Scoop and Twist.  Some kind of odd dance.  I suppose they are mimicking a tracked excavator loading a dump truck. 

Scoop and twist is inefficient and leads to early fatigue.  The proper way to shovel is to avoid twisting and scoop and shovel in the same direction.  Easier on the back and moves material faster.

In your business you will find a lot of scoop and twist going on if you lean on your shovel handle and watch the crew. 

Businesses do much of the daily routine out of habit.  Get the mail, sort the mail, make coffee, phone calls, e-mail, filing, meetings, water cooler seminar, dispatch work, review reports, stage shipments, warehouse finished products, shut down manufacturing, change jobs. 

How much scoop and twist is going on in your life?

Pull, Don't Push

Farmer Bob once told me that it's a lot easier to pull a load than it is to push it.  He made the comment as he watched me push a very heavy load on a cart.  I was grunting and loosing traction.

Bob said "humans are more efficient pulling than they are pushing." 

He was right.  Pulling is easier than pushing.

This applies to humans as we inspire them to complete tasks requiring more mental work than physical work.  It is much easier to have a system that pulls work through to complete the job rather than always trying to PUSH!

No one likes to get pushed around.

But, if you make it easier for them to do it rather than not do it, you will get results.

Make your systems pull for results.

Thoughts circling the drain

I cleaned and bedded the 7 horse stalls in the barn this morning. My wife usually does this daily ritual on weekdays, but she hasn’t been feeling well for the last couple of days and she deserved a break.

It takes about an hour to clean out the manure, bed the stalls, empty and refill the water buckets and throw every horse a flake of hay. I don’t mind the work because it’s physically therapeutic and a pleasant distraction from my normal routine.

The hour provides uninterrupted think time for me and ideas flow like rushing water in my head while I do the work. I had an index card in my shirt pocket to record the thoughts as they swirled around in my head this morning. I don’t know about you, but when I’m tapped into the creativity river, the good ideas fill my head rapidly and they are usually on a variety of subjects.

Unless I capture them on paper, they circle the drain for a few minutes and then are lost and reunited with other lost ideas in the brainstorm river of lost opportunity.

An index card and a pencil are two of the best tools I carry. My favorite pitchfork is also on the list.

Fat is Flavor

  Fast Company magazine has an article this month about the consumer demand for lean-(extra extra extra) lean pork.  We're talking absolutely no bark or tallow like the old days when lard was used for baking and frying.  Kids insulted other kids with names like "tub of lard."  But now, children have no idea what lard is.

The pork producers designed a proto type pig depicted in symbol III above.  It looks like a stretch limo.

They are responding to the demands of cholesterol conscious consumers.

Butt, a pig that lean has no taste.  It tastes like chicken and pork is supposed to taste like pork.

In response to those who like flavor (count me in), heritage bred pork sticks to more traditional breed types to produce a hog that tastes good like a cigarette a good ham should.  Some restaurants have added the heritage bred pork to their menus.

Makes good sense to me.  Hamburger less than 20 % in fat content doesn't taste right.  Steaks without good marbling just don't grill right.  Fat is flavor!

Now, where did I put that Lipitor?

What If Profit Models

Profitability is a wonderful goal for business. It's also the main goal for business.  Your lenders, vendors, employees, spouse, children and heirs are all rooting for your business to be profitable.

One of the things I work on with clients to improve profitability, is the creation of an Excel Spreadsheet for projecting business models.  I discovered a while ago that the creation of a spreadsheet from scratch is often a gigantic, mountain-like, show stopping obstacle.  It's a major P.I.A. and that's just the beginning.

To make life easy, I spent time creating some model spreadsheets for a variety of businesses.  I plug the clients numbers in from last year and we have a place to start. 

Immediately.

This gives traction to a project usually known for slipping to the bottom of the to do list.  When a client sees his business in lights on his computer screen, he has the motivation to start playing the "what if" game.  That's the first step to improving profitability.

What if you had an easy way to see your business numbers up in lights, too?  We'd have the starting point of a plan for creating the business you've always wanted, wouldn't we?

                            doug@douglasemerson.com

Things to say while talking to yourself

I've begun writing a book titled "Things To Say While Talking To Yourself". 

Chapter One: Pay No Attention to the Man (woman) Behind the Curtain.

Chapter Two: Learning to Laugh at Your Own Jokes.

Chapter Three: When the Conversation Sours, It's OK to say SHUT UP!

Anyone like to reserve a copy in advance?

Why write?

I've been doing tons of writing for the past two years:  Two weekly e newsletters and this blog.  Throw in some articles and speech outlines and the pile is quite large. 

Writing is a chore.  It becomes easier the more you do it and it  has great benefits for the writer.   Michel Neray of Essential Message, made some good points about writing in his newsletter this week.

They were:

1. Writing deepens your thinking
2. Writing broadens your thinking
3. Writing gives good feedback on the most compelling ways to get reaction from the reading audience.
4. Writing allows for "mental rehearsal" of what you will say in conversation at a later date.

No. 4 has been the greatest benefit for me.  The thought process of writing allows for boiling down of the water in my thoughts and being able to present the bullet points on the subject with rifle-like precision instead of spraying every random thought on a subject like a crazy man with a machine gun hoping to hit a target.

I'm Not Afraid !

Somehow as you were making your way into the future, you got the notion that safety, comfort and familiarity were good and that scary things were bad.

It's a flawed concept if you have a thought about making a difference.  Go do something scary today.

Tandem parachute, make a tough phone call, take a horse riding lesson, learn how to fly a plane, find a better job, delegate responsibilities, take the day off, deliver a speech, pay someone a compliment, sing a song, borrow to expand you business. Courage.