Walk on water

How about we use the title of this blog as the new metaphor for "thinking outside the box"? If there ever was one person who lived and thought completely outside the box, it definitely has to be Jesus the Christ. Here are a few instances;

• Headed for Gennesaret but stranded on the shore of the sea , he didn't wait for the next boat out of the harbour ... he walked on water!


• He always had unpopular opinions... he advocated following the path of greatest resistance.


• He stood logic on its head ... The first shall be the last; if you want to be great, you have to be a servant.


• Its plausible to die for a good man... he chose to die for wicked men.

The most valuable currency

The most valuable currency is vision! It is a universal currency, a legal tender anywhere in the universe. It's value is infinity - you can exchange it for as many of any other currencies as you want. With the 'V', you actually can name your own price.

Only a few people spend this currency - but all of the economies of the world depend on them to survive. On the shortlist you may find people, companies and organizations like Jesus the Christ, microsoft, merck, RCCG, wal mart, walt disney and intelpre.

3 things vision must be

So many things get passed off as vision these days that many despair as to wether they can recognize what true vision is. Here are three things to look out for;

Vision must be written (write the vision on tablets)

Now I don't strictly mean that you must put it on some fancy plaque and place it prominently in the lobby of your headquarters, I mean that in whatever form you it is written it must carry the weight of a contract; to write a vision means to put down a comittment. When Habbakuk was told to write the vision, he was told to put it on Tablets - just like the ones that the ten commandments had been written upon.

Vision must be clear (make it plain)

There is absolutely no room for ambiguity in writing a vision. In capturing our vision in words we must be extremely cautious to ensure that the words that we use clearly describe what it is. Typically, effective vision statements are not wordy, they are instead punchy and succint. Here are a few to learn from;

• John Zacharias: I am the voice of voice of one crying in the wilderness
• Jesus the Christ: I am the way, the truth and the life

Vision must be compelling (that he may run that readeth it)

If your vision is unable to compel you to move, then it is either not your vision or you have not written it yet (given it the weight of a contract/commandment). True vision has the intrinsic ability to move the bearer. Think of anyone that you consider to be a visionary leader and you will instantly recognize that there is that thing about them acting like a 'driven' person.whether they are super athletes or political leaders or business gurus or spiritual leaders, every visionary leader lives a driven life. Again another sampling of the drive of visionary leaders.

• Churchhill: Never, Never, Never give up
• Jesus the Christ: I must be about my father's business
• Paul of Tarsus: woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel
• Jesse Owens: A lifetime of training for just ten seconds

enVISION STATEMENT

Chevron

"to be the global energy company most admired for its people, partnership and performance"

AT& T

"we aspire to be the most admired and valuable company in the world.."

Most company vision statements are crafted as an aspiration to a certain position or reality in the future. This is somewhat a departure from what a vision statement should really be. To give a rather simple and literal definition of a vision statement, it should be a description of what you see yourself as sometime in the future.

For me a vision statement envisions you/your company at some point in the future; ideally, a vision statement should read as an introduction of yourself/your company at that point in time in the future. While the practice is to describe what you hope to become, I am convinced that we should rather affirm what we are (in the future).

Examples of this kind of vision statement abound in the bible, here are a sampling;

1. Let the weakling say 'I am strong'
2. Ye are the light of the world
3. Neither shall thy name anymore be called Abram; but thy name shall be Abraham, for a father of many nations have I made thee.

The weakling is not to say "I aspire to be strong", he/she is to affirm their vision of the future The concept is that you call the things that be not, as though they are.

So if I were to help Chevron and AT&T rephrase their vision statements, it will sound something like this;

Chevron

the global energy company most admired for its people, partnership and performance.

AT&T

the most admired and valuable company in the world.

These sure beat those aspirational stuff anyday. Don't just aspire, affirm!

Do you know this man?

Ever heard of Trey Hardee? Well, I thought not. Google him up and you'll find out that he is the current world decathlon champion... read world's 'greatest' athlete.

How about this other man? Yeah I figure I don't need to tell you his name.You probably consider him the world's greatest athlete.

Ironically, the guy in the blue shirt accomplished a lot more than the guy in the yellow shirt but somehow the entire world thinks more of the guy in the yellow shirt. This is so because the guy in the yellow shirt is focused on the significant stuff.

What's critical is not our ability but the course that we pursue with our ability. Having worked in several project development companies, one factor that I have identified as a major contributor to ineffectiveness, low profitability is the inability to identify and focus resources on a few viable options. The dissipation of resources on several projects at once highly increases the chances of failing.

Although Trey Hardee can hardly be described as a failure however uncharitable you may want to be, he yet pales into insignificance when viewed beside the guy yellow (I bet you know his name).

Don't just succeed, succeed in the significant!

Saving for the sunny day

Conventional wisdom is to save for the rainy day but conventional wisdom is usually way off the mark. If we are to believe the validity of the theory of self fulfilling prophecies (pymaglion effect) then saving for the rainy day is a very poor strategy for managing your personal or business financial assets as you are invariably asking for a downpour.

Think of saving for the sunny day instead; saving up so that you have the financial muscle to take on projects and acquisitions when the sun of opportunity shines on you. There is perhaps nothing more frustrating than watching opportunity degenerate (its half life is really short) while you wring your hands wishing you just had some money to invest.

Queer thing is, the rainy day for most people is also the sunny day for the discerning. Throughout history, times of unprecedented economic crisis have also been times of unprecedented opportunity to acquire the most value for the least amount of money. However, the market is open exclusively only to those who have saved for the sunny day.

The 'Dawn'fall of a man...

I saw this popular adage scratched on the wall of a hut in a village in the suburb of Abuja last week. I guess it was the spelling error that first made the quote remarkable but on closer examination, I thought, ''hey! this is right in its own right''.

We are often inundated with statistics about how most business start ups fail in the first year of operation but not many of those statisticians bother to follow up on the entrepreneur who failed at their first business to find out what else they went on to make a fantastic success of.

As I wrote in ''1/6 is a good score'' (you can request a free e-copy by the way) ''greatness is not measured merely by where we are, it is measured more by how far we have come, not by what we have but by what we have given up, not by the exploits of our strengths but by the victories over our handicaps''.

If you haven't learnt anything from watching movies, you must have atleast learnt that however much they may suffer, the good guys always win at last - you are the good guy.

The Two Economic Mindsets

There are essentially two kinds of players in every economy. They are typically represented by the two ends of the economic see-saw; demand and supply.

Generally, human beings can be categorized into either of these groups based on their economic mindset; there are producers and consumers. In many respects these two economic mindsets also align closely with Seth Godins' Hunters and Farmers just as well as they do with Mensah Otabil's Jacob and Esau in his book "Buy the Future''.

We clearly must have players on the two ends of the see-saw to have any economies at all. Imagine that everyone was a producer or alternatively a consumer; that is clearly not sustainable given the level of sophistication of our living systems. Perhaps in the primitive world, everyone could have survived by producing what they needed and consuming it.

In our world it is not tenable to simply say be a producer or consumer, you must be both. What's critical to your survival and building wealth is to ensure that you produce what people want and you consume what you need.

Drink Responsibly!

I was talking with a friend who works with an international consultancy firm yesterday and she went on about how it is getting tougher for the firm because of the melt down on one hand and the corruption in the public sector which is the only sector where consultants can still earn a decent living on the other.

Corruption is everywhere, it is just more in-your-face when you engage with the public sector. Another friend of mine who works with a quasi-government agency tells of how rather than give brown envelopes to media men as the general odious practice is, they engage some 'media consultant' who takes care of such shoddy business from his fees (which has of course factored in such payments).

No doubt ethics can be a really grey issue for most people and organizations; it can indeed be challenging to determine where to draw the line - to give or not to give. Here's the rule that I try to live by and which I highly recommend. If it looks and smells like dog rap - what's your business tasting it to confirm?

Trying to find a way to rebrand a bribe is as contradictory as the title of this blog. There's just no way to drink responsibly - it's irresponsible to drink.