Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’

Two thumbtacks and a piece of string are all you need to do basic planning.

On a regular basis, I have the opportunity to speak with new entrepreneurs thinking of starting their own businesses.  One of my key topics is how to successfully evolve an ‘idea’ into an actual deliverable, regardless of whether it is a tangible product or a service.

A basic product plan needs to clearly define your offering:

• What must it do?
• How must it do it?
• Where is it done?
• When is it done?
• Why?

Just as important, arguably more so, is what it is not:

• What must it not do (if only for now)?
• How should it not be done?
• Why not?

How you will get there:

• What resources are needed?
• How long will it take?

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Here in the U.S. we’re a competitive, creative people.  Not claiming that we have the corner on the market, but it is core to who we are.  Unfortunately that also comes across as arrogance (ask folks internationally).  Generally, being competitive is a good thing.  In some regards though, how we compete needs to change ASAP.

For a very long time, here in the U.S., we spent a lot of time competing amongst ourselves.  There is the State level:

And then, within a State, we have counties.

And, if that weren’t enough, we can add on a stack of other, lesser, but no-less-self-important municipalities at the City, Town, Township, Village, or other levels.

Before you know it, you have hundreds, thousands, of individual governmental and societal entities that feel it is in their best interest to compete directly with their adjacent neighbor(s) on everything from who has the best high school football team, to economic concerns.

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This is the final piece of a four-part series asking, “Do you have it in you, to be an Entrepreneur?”  There are four key strengths that are must haves for an entrepreneur to be successful.  Previously, I discussed the Passion, Guts, and Team.  Here, we’ll discuss Cash Flow.

What is cash flow?  Wikipedia’s definition is fairly straight-forward: “Cash flow refers to the movement of cash into or out of a business, a project, or a financial product. It is usually measured during a specified, finite period of time.”

There are entire courses available on studying cash flow delving into whatever depth of detail you desire.  As an entrepreneur it is really simple.

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This is the third in a four-part series asking, “Do you have it in you, to be an entrepreneur?” There are four key strengths that are must haves for an entrepreneur to be successful.  Previously, I discussed the Passion and Guts.  Here, we’ll discuss team.

I suspect, when most people think of an ‘entrepreneur’ they’re thinking of a single person, moving mountains on their own, going it alone.  Later, they marvel at how the one individual became an ‘internet millionaire’ or now owns a 1,000 person company or some such.

The reality is so very far from that truth.  No matter who the successful entrepreneur is, they are always surrounded by their team. Look at the names you know, like Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki. Robert tells stories in his books about the importance of building a team.  Donald, especially in the acclaimed Apprentice series, made the value of team very visible by including them on his own television show.

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Ann Arbor SPARK hosts a monthly series, Starting Your Own New Business. The day-long seminar includes presenters on finance, accounting, marketing, product development, and other topics related to launching one’s own business. Below, is the high-level presentation for Friday, March 19, 2010.

This high-level presentation discusses:

• Do you have what it takes…to be an entrepreneur
• Key topics important for successfully moving the Idea for a product, through development, and ensuring it survives to reach fruition.

For some time now, we have been hearing about a looming labor shortage in ‘10-15 years.’  That forecast has been out there quite a while now.  It seems odd that, even as we’re suffering higher unemployment than we are accustomed to, that this remains an almost certainty.

Why is that?  If you’ve not monitored labor trends, there are at least two key drivers.  One, is that the following generations (X-, Y-, …) are smaller than the baby boomer generation.  As the boomers begin retiring, there are fewer to replace them.  At the same time, other major parts of the world, such as India, China, and Brazil, are rapidly developing and more effectively competing for those same people we’d normally bring to the U.S.  Now, they’re returning or simply not coming to our shores to begin with.

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This week I participated in a discussion on what you need to do to strategically position yourself for moving into executive management.  There was a lot of input as you might expect, given the topic.

Distilling the comments, it came down to demonstrating:

• Acceptance of Increased Responsibility
• Courageousness – Make the hard decisions
• Vision and Leadership
• Ability to Influence colleagues at all levels
• Willingness to Move (to another company)

In my own experience the last two factors rise above the rest.

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I’ve been interviewing business leaders in preparation for my presentation at next month’s It’s a Duesy II Manufacturing Revival.  I won’t give away too much before the March 17th event, but there are a few common topics that have come up.

One topic, Flexibility, was mentioned, unsolicited, in each interview. Their respective domains included Manufacturing, Finance, and Human Resources.  As you may expect each brought the topic up in a different context.

From a manufacturing perspective, there is a need to be flexible in how companies are organized.  Many manufacturing concerns use organizational models first developed in the post-World War II era.  Companies like IBM, United Technology, Ford, GM, and the like, developed rigid, deep, hierarchical organizations.  As a result, their ability to change to meet current needs was all-but beyond their grasp.  Not until experiencing near-death experiences, such as with the Domestic 3, were they finally desperate enough to change.

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Leadership opportunities can be found in all kinds of places. Sometimes they pop up in the most unusual of circumstances and you adopt the role without even thinking about it.

Not too long ago, I led a group of motorcyclists on a ride. We started out in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Traffic was heavy enough that even with GPS, safely and correctly leading the group through the lump of spaghetti masquerading as a series of closely clustered interchanges proved challenging.

15 minutes, and I’ve already had to make a half-dozen impromptu leadership decisions—each one with 5 friends mentally critiquing my every move.

So about 10am in the morning, we’re somewhere north of Asheville, as our small group begins to work its way westward. We’ve left the big city rush well behind us, we’ve unwound ourselves, and eventually roll into a small town that the crush of time seems to have left alone. It’s the sort of town where everything’s almost sleepy, peaceful, with that small town ‘clean’ about it.

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[Hey! They made me:)] I’m rather tickled actually.  This week I received word that Alltop has added this blog (www.jtpedersen.net) to their Leadership section.

This is something of a big deal for me, personally.  It shows you’re not alone in feeling there’s content here worth reading…adding value.

So, here’s my thanks to Alltop, to Guy Kawasaki & Team, for including www.jtpedersen.net in an increasingly important site.

Cheers!