What do you believe about leadership? Your answers makes a difference every day that you lead your organization. Bill Taylor asked an interesting question in Where Have All the Business Heroes Gone?  . He asked if we would know a corporate hero if we saw one. Small business owners certainly have a relationship with power. Without self-awareness, this relationship with power will kill your leadership.

Five negative beliefs of leaders:

• I’m successful so I don’t need to continue learning. It’s easy to believe that you know it all if you’ve been in business for awhile and have achieved success. After all, you are getting reinforced for your behavior by your customers and experience.

Deadliness factor: The stage is set of stagnation and complacency. When you become complacent with your performance, you don’t see how the business landscape changes and or hear feedback from your customers. Social media has increased opportunities for businesses to interact with customers. Organizations are being encouraged to be more innovative and mashup ideas from other industries or ways of thinking. Your competitors are seeking to increase their market share. When you stop learning, you reduce your company”s ability to adapt and thrive.

• You have a job, you should be happy. This belief probably worked rather well in the Industrial Age or even the Great Depression. Work was treated differently. Society had different norms. The message here is that the worker is simply part of the Machine. 

Deadliness factor: Your employees want work that has purpose and meaning. Small businesses are well-suited to share a value-based mission . My accountant’s mission is to ease the pain of math and money for small business owners.  If someone can’t buy into you organizational mission, they aren’t going to go along and help you weather storms your busines is likely to experience.

• Managers are the ONLY ones who should have information. Leaders who are the only ones with information risk isolation, inadequate data, and encouraging others to hoard information as well.

Deadliness factor: Doling out information in bits and pieces becomes political and petty. Do you want your  people clutching information to their chests as if it’s the Ring in Lord of the Rings? It does make sense to use your judgement when sharing information. However, if you’re not sure how to share important and/or very negative information, get advice from a trusted peer or mentor. If you are in the US, try SCORE. If you are outside the US, look up small business services in your country. (For example, in Ireland, you can find advice at the Dublin City Enterprise  Board)

• Systems are more important than people. Keeping things in order (paperwork, job responsibilities, and procedures) are very important for smooth operations. Policies are written out for all to know expectations and consequences for noncompliance.

Deadliness factor: Systems are designed to serve you and your people. Simply emphasizing compliance to the systems creates the impression that you are rigid and merciless. This adversely affects morale and productivity. I worked for a human service agency that had very strict policies about completing documentation and billing. If anything, no matter how minor, wasn’t filled out properly, it was returned to the clinician and he/she wouldn’t be paid for his/her work. This created feelings of resentment, hardship, helplessness and being ill-used. Keep track of when policies actually interfere and/or create a heartless, robotic environment.

• Tyrants are the best bosses. I have to admit this one gets me on my soapbox pretty quick. I worked for a tyrant early in my career and the organization was extremely dysfunctional. While I agree with some of George Cloutier’s points, there are ways to let people know that you’re in charge without being  so heavy-handed.

Deadliness factor: A tyrannical boss sets the stage for high levels of conflict and politics. Set expectations so accountability is like breathing. Make goals public with a whiteboard or an e-bulletin board. As one small business owner described to me, allow your staff to have leeway to make “below the water” decisions but leave “above the water” decisions for you. You can be decisive and still allow for recommendations and information to be shared with you. You don’t have to walk around like a general saying, “I’m in charge here.”

Your beliefs about leadership are reflected in the culture and efficacy of your business. Develop an awareness of how you view leadership to prevent negative consequences for your company. None of us start out with the intention of building a dysfunctional organization. It starts with you and it is certainly in your hands to make your business a place everyone wants to work.

What negative beliefs do you observe in leaders?

How do you catch yourself when you forget to treat your position of authority with respect?

There are just some people who seem to know everybody. Maybe they’ve been in their industry a long time. Maybe they are “collectors”. Maybe even both. What are “collectors”? They are people who have mastered the art of connecting and they meet people and add them to their network in a meaningful way. They just seem to know that this person will fit in somehow.

Inspiring connector as well as co-host and founder of the Twitter chat, #kaizenblog, Valeria Maltoni led the way with this conversation. As usual, there are a lot of great contributions from everyone in the conversation and you may want to look that the transcript here Transcript for #kaizenblog – CommunityBldgConnection There was an interesting side conversation started by Yann Ropars (@yannr) about makes a good community leader. Definitely worth checking out!

Maltoni started the conversation on her site with the post, “Why Believing is the Most Important Thing You Can Do” By using her experiences with others, she illustrated how making true connections with another person leads to expanding one’s understanding of the world and thus, leads to opportunities for each of us. These opportunities could be for personal growth, philanthropy, or even business. But…it starts with the connection with another person.

What makes connecting important to you? Responses seem to center on how connecting with another human being is central.

• Stephen Denny (@Note_To_CMO) ” ‘Satisficing‘ -  we look for shortcuts because we’re busy. Connections are shortcuts.”
• AngelaDunn (@blogbrevity) “Q1 I find inspiration from connecting others, finding synergies between people & ideas”
• Amy Blake (@BlakeGroup) “IMO, one aspect of being human means wanting to connect , in biz + life”
• Bruno Coehlo (@bcoehlo2000) “In an Era of mass cold communication, warm human interaction has become even more important!”
• Patrick Prothe (@pprothe) “Forming meaningful, relationships/Rising above superficiality”
• Bernd Nurnberger (@CoCreatr) “learning, helping, exchange, trust, trade – make connection important to me”

Maltoni summed it up, “Shared interests, emotional investments are the fuel that makes connecting work!” Many of the comments followed this theme. It may be that we spend a lot of time in the online world but that hasn’t changed our need and desire to deepen the relationship with those we meet.

How do we help others succeed? The interesting piece is that truly connecting opens us up to want more for others. Sure, we start relationships wondering about what the person may offer us. This can be as simple as an enjoyable conversation to a benefit for our business. However, when (and hopefully not if) you move past that initial stage, you begin to want something for the other person. What do you have at your disposal that could be helpful?

• Caroline Di Diego (@CASUDI) “contributing/communicating U name it > OUTPUT = other 50%”
• Yann Ropars “Be present and create meaningful space for participants”
• Jerry Evans (@inspiredtrain) “Knowledge, sharing, empathy, sympathy, encouragement, leadership, clear strategies and policies”
• Rob Petersen (@robpetersen) “Add show willingness to help, make connection in return to your list; could be long list”
• Heidi Cohen (@heidicohen) “Consider what others need/want 1st”
• Rick Alcantara (@jerseycoach) “Q2-You help others succeed by providing them with the ideas and tools to achieve/become something greater”
• Amber Cleveland (@ambercleveland) “Connect others to success by listening to their goals and providing insight on how they can achieve them. Share yourself”

Helping others in an altruistic way seem to resonate very much with the #kaizenblog participants. There were several tweets that echoed deeply listening so you can hear what the person might need and/or want. Providing one’s insights and experience was another thing that people wanted to share to foster others’ success.

As she often does, Maltoni brought the conversation into an unexpected place with the third discusssion question. How to give power away? She clarified the question when she tweeted, “Q3 clarification = another way to let go of control.” Building community is less about the leader per se and more about how the group can gel and move as a unit. There were many ideas of how the leader could set the stage for enabling the community members to have power.

• Amy Blake “Q3 This is where mentoring kicks in…sharing away power while maintaining direction.”
• Lizzie Pauker (@lizziepauker) “Q3-power in numbers. motivation skyrockets when people feel greater purpose & satisfaction”
• Namrata Rana (@futurechat) “Community is built by enabling, enthusing and empowering. This builds trust and a self fulfilling cycle of relationships”
•  Cathy Larkin (@CathyWebSavvyPR) “Q3: Power is often tied to or tied up in Ego. Let that go. Earn trust, yes, but let ego go – & the energy & workflow grtr”
• Joe Sanchez (@sanchezjb) “Q3 Power is not “given away.” It’s authority that’s delegated & while authority can b delegated, responsibility cannot”
• Bruno Coehlo “Define clear & measurable goals. Praise good performance and redirect them when they go off track. Build leaders!”
• Torrey McGraw (@torreymcgraw) “Q3 Don’t be afraid to be wrong as “expert”. Ask, listen & throw preconceptions out the window to achieve goals”
• Lois Martin (@LoisMarketing) “Q3 Key is being open to new ideas, new voices, new perspectives”

So the conversation ended with an opportunity for everyone to turn the focus onto their own actions and how they build their own communities. What are 3 things you do regularly that help you build community? It was fascinating to see the myriad ways people engage with their communities.

• Caroline Di Diego “I mentor small biz to be sustainable =help local community”
• Diane Court (@dc2fla) “Q4 Ask questions, Listen, Recognize & appreciate contributions w/out judgement <= require my constant attention to improve”
• Rick Alcantara “Q4: Send articles about interesting topics, mentor young professionals, connect my biz contacts with one another.”
• Cathy Larkin “Q4 3 things 2 build commty: ID community needs, be the connector 2 help solve needs, be positive/upbeat”
• Joe Sanchez “Q4: Engage (two-way comms w/ feedback), assess (how r we doing towards achieving our goals), recognize (reward/incentivize).”

This week’s #kaizenblog conversation had a lot of energy! For many of our participants, asking questions is a favored strategy to discover what community members are thinking, feeling, and doing. It seems, from this conversation, that egotism is  community killer. There were many references to managing one’s ego and insecurities as being important to having effective communication as well as understanding what needs and wants are present in the community. Writing this recap is part of how I help build the #kaizenblog community and it’s a pleasure to highlight both our regulars and our newer members.

How do you rate the importance of serving others to build communities?

What could this mean for your business/work?

What 3 things do you do regularly that helps you build community?

When was the last time you stopped to ask yourself why somedays you are telling yourself stories that you’re not good enough or a geek or a thought leader?  Do you wait until it all completely hits the fan before you begin to wonder?

There isn’t really a reason to think much usually. We drive pretty much the same routes, prepare and eat the same foods, and a host of other activities throughout the day at home and at our small businesses. Even our brains are designed to favor neural pathways that already exist and have been used before.

My brain made me do it? Here’s a quick neuroscience review. Our decision-making process uses more than the front parts of our brains. It also uses our emotional center and our memories. When we’ve done something the same way many times, we’ve learned that behavior. Our brains are constantly processing an amazing amount of data so we develop habits to keep things efficient and we pay attention to what’s in front of us. For example, I have been typing up to this point without thinking about how to type since I do it so often. I’ve spent my time concentrating on figuring out the theme and message of this post. Typing is a habit.

Habits are our auto-pilots. They simplify our actions and, like I said, our brains favor neural pathways that exist. The stories we tell ourselves are habits too. For example, one common fear that people express is that they will be discovered as frauds. This story usually includes that they will be discovered as incompetent technicians and foolish business owners. If you tell yourself a story like this, you are strengthening a pathway in your brain so you can develop the habit of believing you are a fraud.

One of my clients has a recurrent story that she will lose all of her clients if she makes a mistake. This is a habitual story (not based on any facts, by the way) that runs her decision-making and actions when she feels stressed. This is a great example of what Breanne Potter wrote about in The Danger of Mental Auto-Pilot. High emotions cloud our ability to gut-check and fact-check ourselves. Since we’re prone to going with our habits, it makes sense that we activate the auto-pilot of our stories.

It isn’t always a negative. Think about something in your small business that went really well. You might have a story that you rock the world or that you are making your dreams a reality. You may feel a high emotion such as joy, elation, or pride. We can automatically motivate ourselves and follow through on tasks.

It isn’t that habits are good or bad. It’s not even about the story. The key here is to check your stories every now and then.  It’s about the habit of telling yourself the story over and over as if it is completely, 100% true all of the time. You aren’t a fraud anymore than you rock the world. It’s all hyperbole. We make up stories in which we are archetypes and these help our story telling. The truth is really more on a spectrum so give your stories a check. Write them out or tell them to a trusted person so you can hear the story with new ears. You might want to keep them or simply change parts of the story.

Here’s an example of what that process could look like-Let’s say that you have been asked to speak to a group of small business owners like yourself on your area of expertise. You tell yourself that it’s going to go badly because they will all find out you know nothing and have been faking it all along. They will stand up and point at you while yelling, “Fraud, fraud.” Now, perhaps as you write all of this out, you discover that you are really nervous about speaking in front of people and it’s not about knowing your area expertise. You can stop the auto-pilot of your story and say, “Hold on here! I’m nervous about speaking. I know my stuff.” Now you can decide how to handle your anxiety about public speaking or go with your habitual story.

When do you have the auto-pilot storyteller on?

How would your story change if you were to tell it aloud to another person?

What stories do you want to keep telling yourself?

Before reading this post, think about an action you’ve been putting off. What is so daunting about this action? What is easy about this action?

In our last Twitter chat, #kaizenblog, we discussed the “Dangers and Advantages of Taking Action”. As always, it is well worth reading the transcript Transcript for #kaizenblog – AdvantagesDangersofTakingAction

The most interesting thing about taking or not taking action is what is going on in our thinking. That’s where this chat’s conversation focused. Most of us have the tools or know where to find them (or someone who can tell us where to find them). Taking the first step really is based on our thinking.

What are the dangers and advantages of taking information? Deb Morello jumped in with her response, “Believe advantages of when to take action and when not to take action is part instinct and part “learned skill” from experiences.” Patrick Prothe (@pprothe) Some don’t take action to keep their options open. For fear of making wrong decision vs. iterating, learning from mistakes. Also avoid action until they uncover one more data point to support their cause. & then delay further b/c of new info.” Prothe’s two themes were echoed by others as potential dangers. Josip Petrusa (@josippetrusa) tweeted, “Danger: A backlash, wrong decision. Advantage: leadership, strength. The circumstances of the situation are also important.” Stephen Denny added a further follow-on with this delineation, “Taking action subsets: taking an option (low risk, uncertain confidence), all-in (high risk, high confidence). Big diff”

There was a lot of discussion about how not planning ahead and not having enough information. The catch with not having enough information can be doubled-edged. The first is that not having enough information does limit good decision-making and critical thinking about a situation. On the other hand, as Patrick Prothe pointed out, it is easy to delay when you use your perceived inadequate information as an excuse to avoid moving forward.

Underlying much of this is a lack of confidence. But as Chanelle Schneider (@WriterChanelle) pointed out two other fears that may be behind a lack of action, “…fear of backlash or lost support.” With this in the background, there were recommendations to use critical thinking and do a risk assessment. Some of this may depend on the size of your organization and the type of task you are avoiding.

There were two other perspectives that were important to include with the advantages and dangers of taking action. Diane Court (dc2fla) reminded us, “It’s essential to put considered action in perspective. Most of what we can do can be adjusted (not final, not devastating)” An additional aspect to what’s behind the choice to take action or not was put forth by Tom Asacker (@tomasacker), “Lack of action reveals lack of passion and purpose.” Mr. Asacker’s point is one that is commonly overlooked. How often have you not done something simply because it didn’t light your fire? Or you went through the motions because you thought you were supposed to?

The first part of the chat seemed to skew to the negative. Why do you avoid making decisions? Lizzie Pauker (@lizziepauker) answered, “So many responses go back to our emotions. Decision making sometimes  requires making check of emotions & be objective.” Josip Petrusa added partly serious, partly humorous response, “because it is easier to avoid them than deal with them, ha”  Ah, true! On the same vein, Alfonso Guerra (@huperniketes) stated, “Fear of success is powerful: people afraid of seeing what they’re more than they ever imagined.”

But what if our environment discourages taking action. There are many big corporations (and small businesses) who put bureaucracy ahead of anything else. This can be very daunting as Stephen Denny remarked, “Often in corporate situations, fear of approval/process/accountability/mgmt, etc” Makes you wonder how much is lost every day.

As I pointed out in my framing post, choice overload can act as a paralyzer. Sometimes it can feel as if all choices are the right ones. You want to do right. As Diane Court explained, “Choice overload…isn’t so much fear of action, as wanting to the “right” or “best” action 1st time out.” Deb Morello reminded us, “In the end u r true to yourself, yes, in whatever context – 4get about choice overload, what was your first instinct?” Is it that simple? Are we overthinking our choices of actions?

However, if we’re trying to act “correctly” due to passion, purpose, or some psychological issue, emotions are going to get caught up in the process. Stephen Denny tweeted, “Often huge diff betw dreams + execution. Preconceptions of outcomes/difficulty turn out differently.” Laura Crum (@LauraLCrum) pointed out, “Advantages [of taking action] are worth the effort but not until we can overcome our emotions.” Josip Petrusa added, “What’s interesting is right/wrong changes in every situation. Our ability to read situation first will decide our outcome.” So getting past all of this may lead to what we’re willing to tolerate. Some of the #kaizenblog participants stated they were willing to tolerate uncertainty, sleeplessness, and hard work. Perhaps if you aren’t willing to tolerate some or all of these discomforts, you aren’t ready to take action? As Caroline Di Diego  (@CASUDI) pointed out, sometimes we put of action because we’re not ready to handle the consequences of our choices.

 Alfonso Guerra’s earlier point about fear of success and the focus on the negatives of taking actions led to the third question of the conversation. What does success REALLY mean to you?

I5Design (@I5Design) responded, “The difference between leading and managing. Letting people succeed and fail (controlled failure) and guiding them to growth.” Other responses included feeling pride in one’s accomplishment, financial wins, feeling valued by organization, and making positive contributions to someone else. Bringing a holistic viewpoint (after all, we’re not always working), Tom Asacker contributed, “Success=love, pray, eat. In that order”

Given that we were talking about taking action, I offered the #kaizenblog participants (and the quieter members a well, aka lurkers) a challenge: State one action you will take this week that you’re putting off

• Chanelle Schneider: Pitiching ideas to “some major news outlets”
• Deb Morello : Taxes
• Patrick Prothe: Connecting with one person outside of regular network “F2F” and write more consistently
• Laura Crum: Work on my life/work/play balance
• M Zayfert (@mzayfert): Connect with those who I met during network mixers and conferences

For those that didn’t publicly accept the challenge but are doing it anyway, feel free to tweet or send a direct message about your progress. For those who publicly stated their challenges, I’ll check in with you later this week.

For additional tips on how to take that first step:

• Patrick Prothe: “To help with taking action, perhaps check out Action Method”  http://www.actionmethod.com/ 
• Alfonso Guerra recommended the Pomodoro Technique http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/
• I added, set a timer for 20 minutes so you can focus on your task. When the timer beeps, you can stop working or set the timer for another 20 minutes.

What do you believe are the advantages/dangers of taking action?

What does success really mean to you?

I invite you to take the challenge: Stated one action you can take this week that you’ve been putting off.

Taking action seems to intimidate a lot of people in business. Sure, we all know someone who seems to never procrastinate or doubt a decision. But for the rest of us…

There are loads of reasons why we avoid making  choices. In some cases, it is simply the phenomenon known as “choice overload.” Research is pointing to people faced with many choices and becoming unable to make a decision. Remind you of the menu at The Cheesecake Factory? If you haven’t been to that particular restaurant, they have a book for a menu.  A book?!

However, this could be very bad for your small business.It’s hard to take action when you have so much information to process but taking action is really about productivity. We tend to think productivity is great. We can enhance it with efficiency. We can measure it. And yet, if you change the word from productivity to action, some of us do the deer-in-the-headlights freeze.

Are there dangers in taking action? Of course there are! You could end up changing the world as you know it. It doesn’t even have to be on the end-world-hunger scale. Our individual worlds have value as well. There are people in our lives who depend on us. We may be in an enviromnent where rocking the boat is strongly discouraged.

It works something like this. You start off with a predictable circle of comfort. No risk. Vanilla.  And then, you come across a very good reason to expand this circle of comfort. Its not nice and tidy. Change can be awkward and uncertain. Do you want to to rethink who you are and what you can do? This is dangerous!

Then again, maybe there are very distinct advantages to taking action. Your small busines grows into what you meant it to be. You discover you are powerful and talented. People acclaim your actions. Your ability to cope with change is strengthened. The possibilities are endless since our actions bear all kinds of fruit. Our perception that something would be too painful to manage turns out to be a complete nonevent.

This is where you sing the chorus to REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”

                                                                    “It’s the end of the world as we know it

                                                                     And I feel fine.”

The thing with taking action is it triggers our fears, our hopes, and our beliefs about our efficacy and our self-worth. There may be inertia because we’ve tolerated some kind of discomfort for a long time. There may be very good reasons to choose inaction. If you avoid decisions, do you avoid life as proposed by Jeff Stibel?

In this week’s #kaizenblog chat, we’ll be exploring “The Dangers and Advantages of Taking Action” so join us on Friday, August 20, 2010 at 12 pm ET/9am PT/5pm BST. Come join in on this conversation!

What does taking action mean to you?

What dangers or advantage do you see in taking action?

What keeps you from acting on what you desire most?

 iStockphoto BookMama

We tell ourselves all kinds of stories. The story of where you’ve been, where you’re going, who is going with you. Think of the cave drawings, the fairy tales, and the tales we embed in our daily conversations. So it’s not a huge stretch that we create stories about our businesses.

Some of our stories are fantasies-working with the uber-ideal client or having people get so excited about our ideas that they take on a life of their own.

Some of our stories are myths. Not that they are blatantly untrue but more like Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth where we try to get our heads around something profound and mysterious. Myths contain archetypes which are symbols of  or examples of types . We need the archetypes to make sense of our lives. Archetypes like villains, beasts, and heroes capture truth and illuminate how we can understand ourselves on a deeper level.

When it comes to running a small business, there is no shortage of archetypes. Here are a few:

• The ”I’m busy” small business owner This archetype is the one where the business owner works mega-hours and is busy all the time doing stuff. Some of the stuff makes money, some of it doesn’t. All of it is stressful and out of focus
• The Henny Penny small business owner You know this person. He or she can sound very much like the children’s story in which an acorn falls on the chicken’s head and she is sure the sky is falling. Without much thought or planning, this small business owner is running around in a panic. Everything is a drama and all of it a crisis.
• The Nerd Technically proficient, even awe-inspiring about how much he or she knows about his or her product, services, and the intricacies of the technology. However, this small business owner can struggle with the business side with the administrative, financial, and personnel tasks.
• The Entrepreneur Creative, larger than life and exotic with all of their ideas and high energy. This archetype is a mixed bag though. On one hand, the passion and creativity are essential to keep one’s business fresh, interesting, and responsive to the market. On the other hand, this person can become too enamored with continuously developing new ideas and lead the company in too many directions at once.
• The Wise Elder This can have less to do with age. It’s more about experience. This business owner makes  it look smooth and sophisticated. They can be generous with mentoring newer business owners. They develop new initiatives with their business while also maintaining a stable foundation for their business. They may also qualify as a Guru and be sought after by trade organizations or media to speak about their expertise.

Most of us have taken on any of the archetypes at one time or another. They are simply part of the experience of being a business owner and they help us understand our story. Leading a business is an expression of ourselves. The ways we interact with others, our philosophy of life, and how we use self-awareness are incorporated into our story. With such big themes, it makes sense for us to inhabit an archetype.

What archetype are you inhabiting right now?

Which one would you add to the list and why?

Did you know there is an economic recovery happening all over the world? It’s hard to tell some days. As I wrote in Who Are You Supposed to Believe? perception is created by biases in our thinking. This is not a matter of being right or wrong. It really is a matter of managing how you make decisions and act on your perceptions.

We act on our beliefs all the time. We have certain lenses with which we see the world. With all of the stories about the national and global economies, it seemed natural (my perception, of course) to take the topic to the #kaizenblog folks. You can read the transcript Transcript for #kaizenblog – PerceptionKeepingYouFromEconRecovery

With Henry Ford lurking in the back of our minds (thanks to my friend, John), Valeria Maltoni(founder and co-host of the Twitter chat #kaizenblog) and I opened the conversation with the first question, Do you look at the economic indicators? There were mixed answers to this question with a “yes but” kind of reaction. It seems that most people look at the economic indicators but there were references to how there has been so much contradicting reports and analyses as well as they don’t fit the size of the business or they were just too crazy-making. Stephen Denny (@Note_To_CMO) added a dose of humour to this when he tweeted, “No. Like talking to my mother, looking at econ indicators is only something you do once in a while for sanity’s sake.” Meg Fowler (@megfowler) added this bit of wisdom ( which sounds really good advice for those who have to keep track of the economic indicators as part of their work), “You can be AWARE of something without being controlled by it. Knowledge is power.”

It seemed to make sense to go a little further with this question as our participants are all over the business spectrum from small businesses all the way up to major corporations. Are big companies more susceptible to economic shifts vs small business? Does it affect you? It seemed likely that our perceptions could be more influenced by our environment.

• John Reddish (@GetResults) “Broad indicators are not always applicable to sm biz – niches, locales, often perform differently”
• Stephen Denny “Yes, big co’s (by virtue of big-ness) feel macro trends broadly. Small co’s affected by local/niche”
• Media Collective (@MediaCollective) “Typically sm businesses are more nimble and can adjust more quickly to market”

It certainly seemed logical that variables such as niches, locales, and size matter in how our businesses are affected by the economy as a whole. Tom Asacker (@tomasacker) brought in the importance of the taking a holistic perspective when he tweeted, “Macroeconomic trends important as they relate to cultural trends and subsequent market decision-making.” However, it was interesting to see how #kaizenblog participants returned to the theme of how perceptions affect performance.

• Frederique Murphy (@IrishSmiley) “whether big or small, we control our own actions and results, so it really does affect us all in some way”
• Cathy Larkin PR (@CathyWebSavvyPR) “For solopreneurs – econ indicators are too Macro.They seem true when biz pickup/slows down”
• Meg Fowler “If you regularly use the economy as an excuse, you’re looking for limits more than opportunities.”

With perception, performance, and the acknowledgement that different businesses are responding to the economic recovery in a number of ways, it was time to parse apart how corporations versus small businesses are focusing their attention. Some say focus on your business versus the national financial news. Wise or unwise?

• Mary Ann Halford (@MaryAnnHalford) “Focus must always be on your business – Nat’l economy is just a factor to respond to – not react to”
• ‘Bahadur’ Sridhar (@AntarYaami) “Wise would be to keep the focus on the biz but keep spare eye on nat’l financial info too.”
• Thomas Kuplic (@tbkuplic) “Sadly many hunker down and try to weather it. Hard to lean into wind in tough times.”
• Amber Cleveland (@ambercleveland) “Always focus on your assets/your biz source positively for them…”
• EJ Ellis (@EJEllisTweets) “Focus on your biz, but keep track of nat’l news. Can’t discount influence of econ news on others.”

A constant theme throughout the conversation was the idea of positive thinking. To bring it into the conversation more consciously, we asked, Do you find a positive outlook creates more opportunity? As Amy Blake (@BlakeGroup) pointed out with her example, bad economic times can come at any point. She explained, “1 of my worst days was when biggest client announced merger. Saw it in paper -no advanced info. Started looking for more clients!”

• Mary Ann Halford “A3 positive attitude always makes a difference – it’s not what happens to you but how you respond to it.”
• Stephen Denny “Pragmatic outlook improves opportunity. Always being open to alliances/opp’s/different structures helps”
• Lois Martin “A3 Positive attitude definitely helps you spot new opportunities, see things in perspective. You do not react, you RESPOND.”
• Tom Asacker “Positive outlook is fine, but need to experience pain WITH customers. Anger with status quo drives change/innovation.”
• John Sternal (@SternalPR) “A3 Also helps to surround yourself with positive ppl, which can open up critical opps.”
• John Reddish “Positive doesn’t mean Pollyanna!”

Frederique Murphy probably summed it up best, “Being positive/negative does not mean we don’t get negative things happening, but  it does mean we are taking charge.”

For our last question, we decided to find out what plans the #kaizenblog folks had. How are you planning the next 12 months? We got a variety of answers that included hiring or using coaches, accountability partners, diversification, focusing on customer experience, referrals, looking for what others may miss, networking, and staying flexible. As often happens in these conversations, there is so much good information and wisdom embedded in the chat that I can’t fit it all in the recap. There was a wonderful conversation about how sailing is a great metaphor for handling adversity as well as how managing your emotions is a valuable business tool.

Valeria Maltoni issued an interesting challenge towards the end of the conversation when she suggested we share examples of expansive thinking. What are your examples?

What are you planning for the next 12 months?

How can the #kaizenblog community help you?

The economic bad news seems to be piling on lately. Ben Bernanke says we have a long way to go and there is still anecdotal evidence that people are losing jobs. And yet…there is growth and the US economy is not in recession.

But it doesn’t feel that way as Dawn Rivers Baker explained in her analysis in Small Biz Trends. If you’re the owner of a small business who is looking for financing and can’t get it, your perception is that things are very hard indeed. If you are a business owner who had one big client who has either cut back or ceased to do business with you, your perception is that people are slow to spend their money. If you are in an industry less affected by the economic turmoil, your perception of the current business climate will be on the other end of the spectrum.

I asked on LinkedIn,

Would you describe the current small business climate as sluggish but positive, chaotic, or anxious?

There seem to be contradictory news reports, indicators, and advice as to how to lead and manage your small business through the recovery. How does this affect the business vision and how you plan to go forth in the last quarters of the year? Have you changed any goals? And…how do you maintain your morale so you don’t burn out?

 The answers were positive in nature, even enthusiastic. Ed Moloney responded:

To me it is simple. If the small business owner is looking at his or her business often from the outside in and asking for others to give their opinions to the best way to change things then I think the climate is good and opportunities are endless. I think people get caught up in the media or the negative of the government or the economy. They also focus to much on getting the work done and not enough on working on the buisness. The fact is most business owners are great at what they do IE accounting, car cleaning, cooking etc but may not be great business people. Fact is most business owners spend way way to little time prospecting for new business

Both Mike Welch and Gwen McCauley echoed the theme that small businesss owners have to work on their businesses. I’ve written about this in the past in many posts. Without taking time to keep track of the big picture of your business, how do see opportunities or keep your strategic plan fresh and timely?

 That’s what’s interesting about perception. Perception is created by our biases in our thinking. Our culture, gender, experience, and temperament contribute to how we see the world. Our perceptions feed our perspectives so we start seeing nuances in just how full or empty the proverbial glass is.

And these nuances in our perception are what makes it possible to weather bad and good times. Basically, we tell ourselves stories about our experiences. For example, if you perceive that your prospects are too reluctant to buy from you, you will change your behavior towards them. Maybe you’ll keep approaching them until you  become a spammer. Maybe you go through the motions but stop listening for when the person is leaning towards your product or service. Maybe you don’t even follow up with your prospects. The opposite perception could be that there are customers everywhere and they want to work with you. Your behavior will correspond to that perspective. When I asked a similar question on Facebook, Deb Carducci and Kate Hannisian both answered that they look at their customers to get information that will inform their perceptions.

Who should you believe? Your perceptions are important. It seems if you add an open attitude to gain additional information such as analyzing your action plan to see what can be improved or connecting with successful business owners, you are more likely to perceive what is possible.

How do you perceive the current small business climate?

Does keeping track of the big picture of your business keep you focused on how to maintain and/grow your business?

What strategies do you use to keep a positive perspective when facing adversity?

Join us for the Twitter chat #kaizenblog too discuss “Could Your Perception Keep You From Economic Recovery?” on Friday, August 6, 2010 at 12pm ET/5pm BST/9am PT

Do you ever feel this way? You know what you ought to be doing but you just don’t want to. It’s pretty commonplace and a prime trigger for procrastination. Psychologists call it “task aversion.” Basically we take a task like reminding a customer that the latest invoice hasn’t been paid or completing an administrative task and we just avoid doing it. If we stopped to look at it rationally, we’d know that we’re acting  like a pouting child. But…we don’t look at it rationally. We perceive that it will be just too painful to deal with.

Perception is an amazing thing! Sometimes it is spot on and we get a good read on the dynamics of a situation. However, other times, it just messes with our heads.

It’s about perceived pain. It doesn’t matter if you are a new small business owner or a well-established one, there’s something you’re avoiding. The actual task is probably unpleasant in some way. It could have some sort of conflict like speaking to the customer who hasn’t paid. Maybe it’s just boring such as filing. Or you feel inadequate in your copywriting skills so you put off updating your website. There are things in our small businesses that aren’t pleasant and we do have to do them.

Do you take the bull by the horns and just do the task you’re avoiding? Self discipline is a necessity for the successful small business owner. It would be nice to just say to yourself, “All right, enough dilly dallying, get to work!” and be done with the task. Many of my clients have noted that whatever they had been putting off turned out to be no big deal (I’m guilty of this too.) But what if you just can’t muster up the gumption to do the strategic planning or the bill paying or whatever it is that is so “horrible”?

Here are five ideas:

• Set a date and time to work on the task. Put it in your calendar and treat it like you would any other appointment. Maybe you’ll drag yourself kicking and screaming to the task but now you’re committed to action.
• Use an alarm. It’s easier to accomplish something if you reduce it to stages. Set 20-30 minutes to work on the task. When the alarm goes off, your time is up and you are free to go do something more pleasant.
• Write down why this task is so terrible and painful. Understanding what you’re thinking and feeling is remarkable. Maybe the task reminds you of something negative from your childhood or another personal relationship. Maybe you’re overcommitted and this task is the proverbial straw that will break the camel’s back. Maybe it’s just some kind of story that you’ve made up about how you’re completely inadequate and will surely fail. The important piece here is to get the story so you know why you’re avoiding the task.
• Get an accountability partner. Find someone who is willing to check in with you to see if you completed the task. This person can be a colleague, mentor, or a coach. You can even do this with a mastermind group. Sometimes you have to arrange an external reason to complete a task. Generally people don’t want to lose face with anyone they respect. Use this to your advantage.
• Choose to not do the task. Seriously! This may seem counterintuitive in some way. Stop nagging yourself (it’s not working anyway) and let go of the pressure. If you can live with the consequences, then consciously choose to let the task go undone.

Procrastination makes us feel negatively about ourselves. Trying to make yourself do something you don’t wanna do is a no win situation. There’s not much point in acting like a child having a big sulk. We’ve got enough responsibilities as we run our small businesses.

Try a different way.

What task are you avoiding?

What is your perception about this task?

How do you get yourself into action when you’d rather do anything else?

Failure is such a loaded experience and usually very negative.  However, we all make mistakes and they have varying repercussions on our businesses. But could you ignore failure?

We had the pleasure of welcoming our guest host, Taylor Davidson (@tdavidson) to this week’s #kaizenblog Twitter chat,  “Ignore Failure At Your Own Peril”. My co-host, Valeria Maltoni (@ConversationAge) and I got curious about some of Taylor’s ideas about failure and how to learn from it. Taylor set the stage for this conversation with his framing post, “Ignore Failure At Your Own Peril” with the premise that the “seeds of success” lie in the experience of failure.

(Here is the Transcript for #kaizenblog – Failure)

So, we started in with the first question, What are the temptations of ignoring failure?

• Stephen Denny (@Note_To_CMO) answered, “Invidious comparison. Ego. We want to win, be perceived as winners by others.”
• Caroline Di Diego (@CASUDI) was succinct, “~FEAR OF PAIN”
• Jeff Gibbard )@jgibbard) observed, “I think we are conditioned to fear failure vs embrace it.”
• Meg Fowler (@megfowler) added, “If you ignore failure, you rob yourself of the refinement process essential to success.”

Following these answers about the temptations, everyone started to describe what accompanies failure in business. Laura Crum (@LauraLCrum) observed that, in business, failure is often not really examined due to a “competitive market and a less than nurturing environment.” On the other hand, Stephen Denny reminded us that “learning from failure requires detachment – separate failure from ego/person. Other inputs helpful, too.” This theme was picked up by others and yet, Marc Meyer (@Marc_Meyer) seemed to add a cautionary tone that “there is ‘failure’ and then there is ‘failure’ -To me, 2 entirely different things. But both should be motivators.” Could there be distinctions between one failure and another?

It is hard to shake off failure. And culture can play a part in this as well. A more interesting question was whether or not  to even use the word, failure. Some tweets suggesting finding other words with less intense nuances to describe failure. Taylor shared a link with us, “The Failure of Failure” Different types of failure seemed to bring different levels of avoidance. How did this experience get verboten in business (at least in the U.S.)? Inventors fail constantly. Scientists experience it on a regular basis when their researdch yields any result other than the one desired.  Maybe Eric Fulwiler (@EFulwiler) has something when he commented, “[e]xcept failure denotes a loss of some kind. You can mitigate losses and take away positives, but still loss…” Are we training ourselves to avoid feeling loss?

But whether we feel loss or fear of how others may view us, there are times when things just go badly. How do you know when a project is going bad and  is unsalvageable? While Stephen Denny reminded us that we use our judgement based on data to end a bad project, Sian Phillips (@whatswhat_sian) considered, “I don’t think that it can be universally answerable. Each project/job is different. But you should know when it is going bad.” Meg Fowler added, “A2: there are different failure metrics for different actions/projects –no one way to know when things have gone awry.” Eric Tsai (@designdamage) boiled it down to “when all indicators pointing to a lack of motivation/ROI, dots not connecting, people stop caring.”

Towards the end, a theme emerged about listening to your gut. Could this be an opening for self-doubt, as Taylor observed? While this is possible, we’ve talked about doubt being useful on #kaizenblog. It was fascinating that there wasn’t any specific consensus about how much gut or even if using your gut was a good practice.

• Laura Crum “I think gut is probably built from observations we lack the vocabulary to define.”
• Joe Crockett (@JoeCrockett) “You can’t just rely on your gut. Relying on your gut says that you’ve abdicated URself from objective data and reasoning.”
• Alfonso Guerra @Huperniketes) ” ‘Gut’ is the internalization of both metrics and the indicators of our environment.”

So maybe our gut reactions and instincts could be  biases in our thinking or acts of arrogance but they do also provide us with a consciousness that something is present. In failure, it could be an inkling of a solution or it could the beginnings of how understand not to repeat bad decisions.

Overall, it seemed that ignoring failure is perilous for businesses but that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen anyway. The experience of failure challenges us to examine our organizational and personal systems which could reveal us in a negative light. If we are surrounded by messages that failure is not allowed, we are likely to repeat previous misjudgements and mistakes. Is the cost worth it? Would acknowledging failure and keeping the review process focused on the actions rather than the character of the person make a difference? This chat seemed to leave us with more questions than answers so please add your comments.

 How dangerous is it to ignore failure?

 Is failure just too loaded for businesses to use it productively?