Ideas don't change the world!

Contrary to what we have always been told, ideas don't change the world; it is products and services that change the world.

Maybe you have even acquired the discipline of writing down your ideas in that dog eared ideas book like I have; sorry that I have to bust your bubble - What is important is not how many breakthrough ideas we get, not even how many we write down. What is important is how many of those ideas move us to positive and consistent action which create products and services.

Everyone can hit bull's eye in their minds but only the guy who shoots a gun gets the bounty. It is a pretty frustrating existence to live for just ideas. The most important index for an ideas enterprise is their conversion rate; how many ideas become products or services? without conversion, ideas are DOA - Dead on Arrival

What is your conversion rate?

Is Your Enterprise Growing Old?

Enterprises are a lot like human beings in their aging process. The longer an enterprise/organization has been around, the more likely it is to show many of the signs of aging that humans display; a bureaucracy that bogs down like rheumatic limbs, slow take up on new tools and techniques, a tendency to quickly pooh pooh every innovation as gung-ho lack of experience.

You cannot take it for granted that the ideas that you espoused when you launched your enterprise are still valid today. Old enterprises like old people insist on the good old days. Guess what! It's a brand new day. However good you might have been with a typewriter, you are no use to anyone today except perhaps in a museum.

As your enterprise grows older as it inevitably will, don't let your mind set into certain patterns. Stay open to new ideas.

Which future is your staff seeing?

Do two People walk hand in hand if they aren't going to the same place? (Amos 3:3)

Many enterprises are not seeing much movement because they are like a cab travelling at right angles to its trailer: leadership is headed one direction, staff in another. Truth is, you may be doing your best to convey the vision but many times, your staff is also doing its best to pursue theirs; real movement starts only when the the two coincide.

The dilemma very often for an enterprise developer is that his staff do not believe in the dream as much as he does: while he is trying to build a life, they are typically just trying to make a living.

Arguably, the most important job of the enterprise developer is to sell the vision to his team. If you want to unleash the potential of a bricklayer, you must help him to realize that his job is much more than laying some miserable bricks, he must believe that he is building a house that will become a home for some family.

It is unreasonable to expect your staff to have your level of passion for the enterprise's objectives if they do not see the same vision as you see.

Sell the vision.

Is your leadership Scalable?

I am convinced that everyone is a leader - unfortunately, most of us wait for the crowd to prove it.

If you woke up tomorrow and you were announced as the leader of the world's most influencial country, do you think that would be an opportunity or a disaster? To put it another way, is your leadership scalable?

The quality of a leader is not necessarily seen in the size of his following but in the values that shape his motives and actions. Jesus taught that if a man proves himself unfaithful in a small task, he declares himself unworthy of bigger ones.

Maybe you run a small enterprise, you can't even afford a cash register but if you handle your money with the correct values, you won't get into a big mess when you become as big as Cadbury.

The Biblical record of Joseph's life reads like a classic on scaling leadership: he was as fantastic a leader in Potiphar's house as he was in the prison and as Prime Minister of Egypt. More importantly, he didn't need 'time' to settle into the new position - the same principles, driven by the same values is what leadership requires at every level.

Similarly, Mordecai who transmuted from being merely someone that sat at the kings gate to the king's (for a territory that covered significant portions of present day Asia and Africa) second in command in a matter of days demonstrates his readiness to assume leadership at any level because a short while earlier, the only person he was leading was his relative - a young Jewish girl called Esther.

The size of your following is irrelevant, lead like you are leading the world. No matter the size of your enterprise, run it like you own the oxygen franchise.

Let us call a spade a brand

Brand is the new new name for spades; never mind the old maxim.

like all other fads (I know. Some will have my scalp for calling branding a fad) that dominate our enterprise lexicon for a time, Branding will someday go the way of the rest; it will no longer be a unique selling proposition, but merely a common feature of enterprises.

More effort seems to go into creating better brands these days than creating better products or services yet when Omo became the generic name for detergents, it wasn't as much about creating a brand as it was creating a product. Here is a test; if I say 'detergent', you'd probably think Omo. How about if I say 'happiness', I doubt that Coca Cola sprang into your mind just as quickly. Why then is Coca Cola branding as open happiness?

The first thing that used to come to mind when you say branding was hot iron, pungent air, mooing cattle - and a mark that distinguishes mine from yours. Branding used to be putting a mark on cattle so that we can tell which belongs to who. Now if you put your sign on a sick looking cow - all bones on wobbly legs, that wasn't going to make me buy it, just because I recognize your sign.

Much of today's branding effort is not about identifying/differentiating the product but creating an impression. It works for a while but people are not iredeemably stupid, they catch on after a while. This was what Jesus referred to as Whited Sepulchres (Manicured grave plots, grass clipped and flowers bright, but six feet down, it is all rotten bones and worm eaten flesh.)

Worse than being a fraud, it is possible to brand yourself out of existence; when your branding effort leans towards creating an image that consumers can not relate to your product easily, you are branding yourself out of reckoning. As much as you may want to believe that people are buying image, the reality is that majority of people are buying products and services. If I am thirsty, what I want is water not open happiness ( what is that by the way).

RECOVERING FROM A 'KAITASTROPHE'

Sani Kaita, a hitherto level headed utility player in one moment of unexplainable agitation stamps the studs of his boots on the thigh of another player in an off the ball situation and instantly earns a red card and at last count over a thousand death threats.

The event spurred creativity and launched a slew of new words; one in particular stands out - kaitastrophe!

What do you do when an enterprise suddenly tumbles from its respectable height to the lowest ebb; when your brand becomes a metaphor for failure overnight?

1. Tender an unreserved apology and mean it.
2. Ignore the chatter - people will criticise you even if you are doing the right thing.
3. Rest assured that human beings are fickle and that you can regain your position by consistent brilliant performance. Read a striking account of how you can instantly shore up your brand equity.
4. Work harder than ever before to surpass every positive record you have ever set.
5. Accept that some people will never forgive or forget - learn to live with such people.

Who's in? Who's out?

One of the most difficult choices an enterprise leader makes is who is in, who is out? It is always a tough decision and rightly so to determine Who is in as a partner? who is in as an employee? etc.

Jerry Porras and Jim Collins in their book 'Good to Great' talked about getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off it before even deciding where the bus is headed. While they are right about choosing the right people to travel with, it is necessary to point out that where you are headed quite often determines who the right people are.

While established corporations typically have exhaustive criteria for choosing who is allowed on the bus, new enterprises are typically not equiped enough to make this critical choice which dramatically raises the risk of their becoming a part of the 'failed startup' statistic.

Knowing that it is a lot easier to make the hire decision than it is to make the fire decision, enterprise leaders should from the initial develop detailed criteria for evaluating the suitability of prospective partners and employees.

Even Jesus wouldn't let the rich young ruler join his team without meeting His criteria.