Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Community

What is Marketing?
May 5, 2020

What is Marketing?

One benefit of this pause we’re in is more time to think about our businesses than usual.

Which makes books like the one I recommended yesterday particularly good reads, if reading is your thing.

Today’s book is “This is Marketing” by Seth Godin.   I recommend it because unlike any other marketing book I’ve come across, it makes you think hard about what marketing is really for.

We usually start our marketing thinking from the wrong side of the relationship:  How much do I need to sell?  Who can I sell it to?  How can I get to that is quickly and easily as possible?

This book challenges you to think from the other side:  Who do you want to serve?   What do they want?  What do they really want?  Can you offer that?   How can you do that best for them?  How does the word spread when you get it right?

The result is a business that may be very hard to get started, but which in the long run creates more, better, more appropriate value.

More, better, more appropriate value is just what we all need going forwards.

This is the book to help you create it.

Community (and status)
April 30, 2020

Community (and status)

Humans are tribal.  We know that.

We like to hang around with other people like us.   Who share our beliefs, values and ideally, our sense of purpose.

We can belong to many different, overlapping ‘tribes’ – when I was a student in Manchester, I could take you to more pubs than anyone else I knew, because I belonged to several separate tribes, who each had their own hangouts.

We also like to know where we fit within our tribes, our status.

Status doesn’t necesarily mean being at the top.   We might indeed be a ‘leader’, but we could equally be an ‘elder’, a ‘wise one’ or a ‘poet’.  We might be the ‘one everyone goes to for information or advice’.   We might even be ‘the weirdo’.   Status simply means knowing our position in the tribe, and knowing that everyone else knows it too.

Of course, our tribalism isn’t always a good thing.   And like our other motivations, if we don’t find it at work, we look elsewhere.

So maybe we should offer it at work?

And not just for the team, for customers, suppliers and associates too?

Agency
April 27, 2020

Agency

On Saturday, I found a really good definition of ‘Agency’:

“People are ‘conscious, reflecting initiators of acts in a structured, meaningful world.’  They are not simply programmed to follow scripts defined by roles; they instigate actions, often with considerable intelligence, creativity and improvisation.”*

We see this all the time outside work.   People restore whole canals, railways, buildings.  They run clubs for all sorts of activities.  They learn difficult skills as a hobby.  They volunteer to do boring or ridiculous, dangerous things for charities.    Even more so during a crisis, as now.

It seems that people can’t help themselves.  Given the smallest chance, they spontaneously create value, as long as they feel they have a ‘structured, meaningful world’ to do it in.

Of course a workplace can be a ‘structured, meaningful world’, in which people can behave as ‘conscious, reflecting initiators of acts’, but far too often, it isn’t.

Why is that?

 

 

*Erik Olin Wright, quoting Goran Therborn.

Connecting
April 15, 2020

Connecting

Last night I discovered Johann Hari and his work on depression, anxiety and addiction.

His findings are fascinating, and chime very much with my beliefs on what motivates people, and how you help them to be happier and more productive.

Humans have fundamental physical needs – food, clothing, shelter, sex.

We also have fundamental psychological needs – autonomy, mastery, agency, purpose and above all connection with other people.  We need to be seen and valued.

I’d be interested to know what the current situation is doing for those needs right now.   I suspect that some of the psychological needs are being better met for some people, while for others some of the physical needs are under threat.

If Covid-19 is an opportunity for a reset.   It’s going to be worth thinking about what comes back after the reset button is released again.

How can we ensure that more people have more of their fundamental needs met intentionally and consistently, without killing ourselves or the planet in the process?

It’s a big question.  But we can start small, with where we belong – with our own families, friends and businesses.

Here are the TED talks:

https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_this_could_be_why_you_re_depressed_or_anxious

 

https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong

 

Sweeping
April 7, 2020

Sweeping

Yesterday, on my early morning walk/shop I went past a local pub.  It’s an enormous 1930’s pub, surrounded by an equally enormous car park.   Empty of course.

Except for one man, sweeping.

“That is going to be the cleanest car park ever.”  I quipped.

“I’m doing it for cardio, I’m not a jogger.”

But he was also doing it like it was a Zen garden.  Systematically, methodically, calmly.  Sweeping everything into neat little piles, one in each marked parking space.

Beautiful.

And I never thought I’d say that about an empty pub car park.

Give yourself a break
March 27, 2020

Give yourself a break

After a stressful and uncertain week, with many things still to be resolved before we can all adjust to the new normal, it will do us good to take a break.

Even if all we can manage is 5 minutes.  Even if that 5 minutes is at some strange time of night.

Switch off from the news.   Log out of email and social media.  They aren’t helping.

Find a place to sit where you can be as near to fresh air as possible.  Even if that’s just an open window.

Sit.

Breathe.

That feeling in your stomach? The butterflies?  The anxiety?  You’ve had it before.  And you got through before.  You got the job.  You learned to drive, swim, ride a bike.  You did the parachute jump.

That feeling isn’t only fear.  It’s excitement.

Things will never be the same again.   They will be better if we dare to make them so.

Writer’s block
March 26, 2020

Writer’s block

Like many people, I guess, I’m finding it harder to write every day during this crisis.    Who wants to listen to me?  What have I got to say that is worth saying?  I’m not famous.  I’m not powerful.  I don’t feel relevant.

But.

I can read, and learn and think, and listen.  And I can pass on stuff I think will help.

So here are 3 things I learned this morning that I think are worth sharing:

  1. Out on my early morning walk, more people said ‘good morning’, ‘hello’ or ‘thank you’ than I’ve ever had before.  We said these things at least 2 metres apart, but we said them.   Keeping our physical distance has given us an excuse to really see each other.  I hope we can keep this politeness up.   It feels good.
  2. Richard Murphy shared this article today, from Tomas Pueyo on Government’s options for dealing with coronavirus.   It is well worth a read.   Science is always good.
  3. Richard Murphy also shared his own AccountingWEB article today, on looking to the future.   I’m going to quote the last 2 paragraphs here, because I think he’s right, we have to start thinking about this stuff now:

“Reaction five: Recovery

But the fifth, and crucial stage, is the one we need to already anticipate, however, overwhelmed we now feel. This will be the recovery stage, and although that might seem a long way off at present (and the wait may well seem interminable) it will happen. When it does, there will be at least as many problems as there or now, and in the immediate months to come. These need to be planned for, and good accountants will be doing that very soon.

Picking up a mothballed business and returning it to a thriving state is not easy. It demands a lot of working capital. Many businesses will have almost none. As a result, all the usual problems from overtrading will rear their ugly heads remarkably quickly when the recovery begins, and those businesses that might have made it through the immediate crisis might then discover that they cannot make it to the end of the year unless they begin to plan now.

Planning for the future

Many of us are facing enforced time at home, with too much Netflix for company. My suggestion is that anyone with responsibility for a business should use at least some of this time to think about their plans to reopening their activities when this crisis is over. 

Deciding what goods, services, outlets and staff are key to that process, and working out how to phase the returns to normal is critical to survival. In particular, new product mixes, ways of delivery, supply chains and customer interactions all need to be thought about if success is to be likely. 

This is not the time to sit and do nothing if businesses are to survive. There’s a massive amount to do. And now is the time to do it.”

So that gives me my theme for the next few weeks or months.   How to use the unsettlement of the current crisis to think differently about how we do things, and lay the foundations for a more secure, sustainable and profitable future business.

Phew!  I can feel useful again.

 

PS Seth Godin is right.   There is no such thing as writer’s block.  You just have to write.

Re-balancing
March 24, 2020

Re-balancing

In times of crisis, everything goes out of whack.   Work, home, society.

Things we thought were indispensable are jettisoned, things we thought were unthinkable become acceptable, things we believed were impossible become normal.

Some of these will be good things, others not so good, others downright bad.

The important thing will be to keep the changes we found were good after the crisis is over, and reverse those we didn’t.

Which means we need to think and talk about about them during it.

Life will never be the same again.  At least let’s change it as far as possible on purpose, in a direction that’s better for everyone.

Looking ahead
March 18, 2020

Looking ahead

The first priority in times like these is to keep afloat, and help keep others afloat as far as we can.

But there will come a time, not too far away, when what’s needed is to look ahead, and think how to build more resilience into our businesses, so that when the next shock comes, we’re more able to withstand it, or even thrive on it.

Tinkering around the edges won’t cut it.  Business recovery plans, and business continuity plans won’t be enough.

Once we’ve been forced to see what can work, we’ll choose to move to new ways of doing things, that might just be better for everyone.

Look out for the paradigm shift.

Participation
March 11, 2020

Participation

Last week I heard of some interesting research about consumers.   Which is that people don’t like to be thought of as consumers.

They want to be participants.   They don’t want to be one side of a transaction, they want to be pulled into a dance; enrolled on a journey.   They want to connect and create a bond between themselves and the people they buy from.

That’s good news for ventures like Sail Cargo Alliance, who are in the business of building communities of producers, shippers and consumers.

Even better news for accountancy firms, because that’s just the change that’s needed to build a thriving practice and a thriving community of small businesses.