What It Means to Be An Entrepreneur

I read this on Seth Godin's blog about what it means to be an entrepreneur:

"Most companies are not appropriate sites for VC money. That's because they're freelance ventures, not entrepreneurial ones. A freelance venture is one where you work to get paid. An entrepreneurial one is where you can make money while you sleep. Meaning that you work really really hard and you scale and suddenly you own real estate or media properties or technology or a system or a brand that people pay for without you actually doing any incremental work yourself."

I want to be an entrepreneur. I'm not there yet.......

Awestruck

Today, I posted a new featured article on my website, about my first mentor, who I met when I was ten years old. I didn't realize the impact that Mrs. Miller had on me until I started writing the article, more than a decade after her death. I'm convinced that she can hear my words, wherever she is, and that she's chuckling to herself.

We are given gifts every day by people all around us. Take the time to think about what you have learned from others. And then thank them. My guess is that none of us really knows the full impact that we have on others. And if we could truly take it all in, we would be awestruck.

Renegades

I talked with a friend who relayed her experiences in job hunting last year. She had several unpleasant encounters before “the door was slammed in her face”—interviewers profiling her psyche and wondering if she had ADD, expecting quotes from a favorite theorist in her discipline, and commenting that she didn’t have enough experience at one of the Big Five consulting firms. Knowing this friend, my hunch is it was not about being capable of doing the work. It was about fit. As I said to my friend, “You were looking in the wrong places.”

It struck a chord with her. I added, “These places weren’t ready for you.”

It made me think of another friend—one who had applied for a faculty position at a small liberal arts college. She is a professor of computer science at another university, with a passion for changing the way technology is taught in K-12 schools. Not your typical geek. She pushes the envelope. She’s great at getting funding and doing research. And she wanted to go to a liberal arts college to cross boundaries, and work on both technology and social policy. When one of the interviewers asked her about the details of a programming class that she had taught at her current university, she knew something was wrong. They later turned her down.

It can happen a lot to renegades—doors slammed shut. It can make renegades question themselves, their abilities. Until they figure out that they are looking in the wrong places.

I remember at my last workplace, attending a leadership class. One of the exercises was about uncovering whether you were in alignment or out of alignment with your organization. I was shocked to find out how out of alignment I was. One month later, I was laid off.

For those renegades who are still smarting from a closed door (or in my case, being shown the door), here’s my advice:

Create allies by hanging out with other renegades. Finding your people, your organization, takes looking in unexpected places. In those unexpected places, you’ll find people who are ready for you, for your ideas and your spirit.

What the Company Smart Ass Knows

My friend, Kenny Moore works as "Corporate Ombudsman" and HR Director at KeySpan, an energy company based in Brooklyn. Reporting directly to the CEO, Kenny says in his bio that he is "primarily responsible for awakening joy, meaning and commitment in the workplace. " He is the co-author of The CEO and the Monk: One Company’s Journey to Profit and Purpose, rated as one of the top ten best selling business books on Amazon.com.

Besides being a terrific writer, Kenny is one of the most irreverent people I know. That's a powerful combination for truth-telling in business. Kenny is proof that every organization needs a good smart ass--someone who is willing to skewer the sacred cow and make the heart strings resonate with truth.

I had a good chuckle last week when I received his most recent article in email about the similarities between losing weight and being in business. Since Kenny has yet to start a blog or a website, here's his article in its entirety. Contact Kenny directly at kennythemonk@yahoo.com to get on his distribution list. Enjoy!


Leading A Business & Losing Some Weight: 6 Surprising Similarities
By Kenny Moore

If you can lose weight, you can lead an organization. The weight loss industry has not only given us a personal self-help model, but a business one as well. If you’re one of the millions of folks attending these programs you have readily transferable leadership skills for today’s marketplace. Just follow these six simple steps and you too can be attractive, successful and the envy of your corporate colleagues.

CAUTION: This advice is not intended to be taken seriously and may be injurious to your health, both personal and financial. Neither the Surgeon General nor Tom Peters has approved these prescriptions. Please contact a high-priced management consultant before attempting on your own. Common side effects may include nausea when reviewing the company’s Executive Compensation Plan, mild depression in implementing “Best Practice” business solutions and acute drowsiness when attending programs sponsored by the Human Resources department. A healthy disrespect for authority and the propensity to trust your innate common sense may be dangerously elevated. On rare occasion, patients have been known to cancel their subscriptions to the “Harvard Business Review.”

1 - Eat small but frequent meals.

Overeating is a long-standing problem for the weight conscious. So is the insidious danger of eating alone. Food consequently becomes a personal temptation rather than a communal event. This solipsistic tendency has also leached its way into our business life. In our attempts to compete in the global economy, it seems we’ve arrived at a place where lunch is consumed at our desks, and often by ourselves. Occasionally, abandoned altogether. We no longer have time to fraternize with coworkers, and have quarantined ourselves to the confines of our offices and cubicles. Coming from a place of isolation, we’re surprised when fellow workers don’t return calls, reply with curt e-mails or become disinclined to help us navigate the bureaucratic maze of business life.

This is to be expected when coworkers don’t know us, haven’t spent time with us and have never been invited to join us for a meal. As every newly minted MBA graduate knows: business is all about relationships. If I don’t know you, don’t like you or have no personal contact with you - I’ve no incentive to go out of my way to try and help. By not sharing meals with colleagues we have fostered a type of corporate anorexia. We’re starving ourselves to death for want of social contact.

The business suffers. Productivity plummets. Our career languishes. And, not surprisingly, we’re no longer fun to work with.

Things would improve if we regularly resisted the temptation to eat alone and joined coworkers for lunch. Fast food restaurants should be shunned. Salads (with low-fat dressing on the side) are encouraged. Whining about senior management is injurious to your heart and to be avoided. A conversation focused on people’s talents increases circulation and reduces harmful saturated fats within the organization.

2 – Drink plenty of fluids.

Research indicates that most of us are walking around the workplace severely dehydrated, so we need to bulk up on our fluid intake. Water is the preferred drink - since coffee, tea and soda further deplete one’s hydration. It’s also a lot cheaper, provided you get it from the tap and not the vending machine. Imbibing vast quantities of water also has the unintended benefit of strategically positioning you before two epicenters of employee engagement: the bathroom and the water cooler. Both locations seem to be the last vestiges where workers feel free to talk openly and engage in the ancient rite of truth-telling. Frequenting both places provides productive opportunities to stay connected to the rumor mill and ascertain how employees are really feeling.

These activities also have a cost-cutting benefit. You’ll no longer need to conduct another Employee Survey or host further Focus Groups to find out the concerns of workers: a savings of both time and money. Merely show up and shut up. Listening to coworkers’ gripes gives you valuable information for taking corrective action and remedying misunderstandings. It also offers a jumpstart for offsetting corporate misinformation and destructive rumor mongering.

3 – Engage in regular physical activity.

Buy a pedometer, clip it on your waist and begin walking around the workplace. As you increase your mileage, your soft body will be better toned and your business mind will be better informed.

Pay close attention to what’s working well throughout the organization and compliment people on their good efforts. Make special attempts to visit with staff who consistently perform excellent work but get little recognition. Extend your heartfelt thanks and remind them that their contributions don’t go unnoticed. Bring along a box of low-fat cookies to wantonly distribute.

Consider making more extended journeys to off-site locations and even dropping in on some key customers, internal and external. Ask them if they’re pleased with your services and elicit advice for improving customer satisfaction.

If you notice someone who’s recently lost weight and looks better than you, temper your personal jealousy and extend a kindly word of congratulations. At all cost, resist the temptation to once again beat yourself up for being lazy, undisciplined or neglectful of your diet. In emergency situations, repeat the mantra: “Oprah would never condone self-flagellation.”

4 – Avoid the near occasions of Sin.

The Spanish have a saying: habits are first cobwebs, then cables. So monitor closely what you do, where you go and with whom you get involved. Temptations abound in both the fights to trim the waistline and lead the organization.

Personal danger spots to be avoided include anything that’s sweet (products or people), gourmet meals, and everything dipped in chocolate (products or people). While they appear momentarily pleasing, lurking just below the surface is subtle peril.

Corporate danger spots include the executive floor, company cafeterias and any business initiative preceded by the words “cutting edge.”

Recent data suggests that outsourcing excess body weight is more enjoyable than doing it to your company’s Call Center. Sadly, there still remains no practical business process in place that allows you to consume a whole lemon meringue pie at your desk but have the calories offshored to some hungry, low-paid professional in India.

I understand that Tom Friedman’s next book, The World is Flat … but my Belly Isn’t, will address this predicament.

5 - Shun negative people.

While these folks have a necessary place in the world, that place should not be anywhere within a 10-mile radius of you. Cynics, naysayers and Devil’s advocates have something valuable to offer, just let them momentarily offer it to someone else. When trying to make improvements to your own health or the company’s, the task at hand is challenging enough without the voices of doom and gloom constantly echoing in your ear. The “truth” these refreshing souls have to contribute is best kept for another day.

Instead, create a support group of like-minded people who understand what you’re trying to do and are willing to offer their passion and advice for a successful outcome. Positive energy is an essential part of any change program, physical or fiscal. Spouses and trusted colleagues can be of tremendous value in this regard. Those going through divorce or recently passed-over for promotion, less so. Steer clear of “High Potential” employees or extremely thin people.

6 – Carefully monitor your intake.

We are what we eat. But what’s also become clear is that we believe what we read. So stop looking through Cosmopolitan, GQ and all those other glamour magazines. They profile unnatural bodies and unrealistic lifestyles. The adolescent diets they purport are unworkable, overly simplistic and contain more celebrity fluff than substance.

This likewise holds true for the many business journals that are out there flaunting business “Best Practices.” This fawning deference to what other companies have already done has become the adolescent bane of corporate life. When we were teenagers, we showed our uniqueness by behaving exactly like all our peers. Best Practices is a throwback to this pubescent model: “You too can be world class by mindlessly mimicking IBM.”

What works for General Electric is most likely not going to work for your company. If it were truly that simple, you would have only needed to purchase Jack Welch’s first book. But he’s already out there selling his second, which contains “new and improved” insights for transforming your business. Rumor has it that he’s close to cutting a deal on his third. Even Stephen Covey didn’t stop with his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He’s now touting the 8th one.

Notice a trend here?

One last thing.

If you’re looking for a quick answer on how to lose weight or successfully compete in today’s marketplace, Gertrude Stein offers some sobering advice: “There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. There’s the answer!”

As life would have it, we’re all required to work with what he have, play the cards we’ve been dealt and implement change with the flawed humans inhabiting our workplace. Stop looking for answers in the eyes of someone else. Wisdom resides within. We’re better off implementing a mediocre business process that’s embraced by our employees than a Best Practice one sold to us by some outside business guru.

We’re likewise well served befriending the less-than-perfect bodies that the Divine has bestowed on us rather than pining after the ones profiled on late night Infomercials. Besides, if you were truly that firm, tight, and chiseled – people might be drawn to you based on looks alone.

Fortunately, this is something most of us need not worry about.

P.S. If you’re thinking about writing me, give in to the temptation. I love getting mail ... and being influenced by what you have to say. Please e-mail me at kennythemonk@yahoo.com.

Hockey Mom

I have a friend who has given a whole new meaning to Hockey Mom. Instead of just watching her son play hockey, she’s started playing herself. At forty years old. With other moms once a week. And she’s having the time of her life. Here’s what she’s reporting:

“I can go really fast and not get hurt.” This is the alter ego to the mid-life crisis, when the graying executive buys a Corvette and drives like a teenager full of hormones. My friend tells me that all the padding makes her invincible once a week.

“I get a great workout and it’s fun!” Emphasis on the fun part. She doesn’t think about how much longer she has to be on the ice. She’s discovered that play can be part of exercise.

“We try out the same stuff the kids do, like Superman dives followed by rolling around on the ice.” Picture that in your mind—a group of forty-something women, diving at each other and laying on the ice, just for the fun of it. These Hockey Moms have discovered the joy of kid-like silliness.

“If I can learn to play hockey at 40, I can do anything.” It’s no small feat to put on skates, grab a stick and move a middle-age body like it was 14. What we think is “not me” is just a challenge to ourselves to become more than the image that makes us comfortable.

What’s your version of Hockey Mom that is ready to emerge? Holy cow, I may try that mogul run next weekend…..

Unconscious Competence

I was recently asked by an alumni director at a major university for an article about networking. She wanted a Networking 101 for new grads. In her words, “We’re talking basics—like what do you say when you get someone on the phone.” Oh, my. I don't even think about what to say. It just comes out. She also relayed to me a comment from a new grad, asking whether she should “concentrate on work ethic or focus on networking.” Huh? Clearly there’s a misperception of what networking is, that it could be a replacement for a strong work ethic.

My mind could go in many directions from this place. But it landed on something I was noticing with my husband. This is his first year as a high school baseball coach. After playing baseball for nearly 30 years in adult leagues, he knows a lot about the sport—what an ideal left fielder looks like, how to match a slow infield with the players you have, what you should look for in catcher’s gear. He had forgotten how much he knows about baseball until he started teaching some of the less experienced players the basics—how to bunt, the importance of wearing a “cup”, and where to position yourself as a catcher so you don’t get whacked in the head.

What’s my point? It’s easy to forget what we know. We have become “unconsciously competent,” not realizing that what we take for granted and don’t even think about, others are struggling to learn. According to one model, there are four stages of learning:

1. Unconscious incompetence. We don’t know what we don’t know. Sort of like ignorance is bliss.
2. Conscious incompetence. We know what we don’t know and it’s painful. My son was like this when he took his first (and so far only) snowboarding lesson. Falling down all day is no fun.
3. Conscious competence. We know what we know. My son is consciously competent at skiing. He can go down the green runs and has to concentrate to get down the blue runs.
4. Unconscious competence. We have forgotten what we know. We execute without thinking. This is the kid who has been riding a bike for years and the toddler who can walk. Often, this is when we are “in the flow.” It’s me when I’m having a great coaching day.
   

Here’s the point I really want to make. I’m willing to bet that all adults are unconsciously competent at something and that something is valuable to someone else—like what you know about being in the business world or playing a sport that you’ve participated in all your life. Share your knowledge—the stuff you forgot you knew. It’s fun, it’s easy, and it will make you feel good.

Re-Tracing My Steps

Tonight, I went on an unexpected car ride. I was retrieving my wallet from a restaurant I had been to less than an hour earlier. It was a 15 minute drive. As I re-traced my steps, I began to think about how many other times I had taken this road. It was the same way I had driven to my last workplace, Avaya.

For over six years, I took this same route. On the highway briefly, just enough to get some speed and forget where I was for a few minutes, then off at the Broomfield ramp. The exit ramp is steep and makes me feel like I’ve climbed a sand dune to reach the top. I turn left over the highway, on a road that makes no bones that it is meant to get traffic back and forth across the overpass. It is engineered to make cars feel like they are traversing a giant erector set. It is an ugly road, with little decency or civility.

Then left again, onto an entrance ramp that loops around and begins a road that is too narrow and crowded with small businesses for the speed of the cars traveling it. It reminds me of a road in New Jersey, where I lived nearly 20 years ago, Route 22. I’m sure you’ve seen these roads, where businesses have cropped up and inserted themselves with no consideration of what it looks or feels like to the travelers.

Even in the drudgery of driving such a road this evening, I waxed nostalgic. I sometimes think that I have taken an extended hiatus from the rest of my career as a loyal employee and corporate citizen. Then I remember who I am now. It has been a testament to having faith in myself that I am still in business, after three years. Now my challenge is to have faith in life and God. I don’t know where I’m headed or how much time I have left to do the work that I’m meant to do. I only know that I can get discouraged at how hard it is to shape my own path. In the struggle, I am fully alive. When I was an employee, I struggled as well. But it was an illusion that it brought me alive. It only brought me more tension, more numbness to life around me. There was a completion at the end of the day that felt empty—only to be filled with more problems the next day. As an engineer, I reveled in problem-solving. Only it was solution without creativity. It was resolution without playfulness. It was brute force instead of ease.

Like Route 22 in New Jersey, I was traveling a road that lacked beauty or grace. Much of my previous life as an employee was a road full of empty distractions and cars going too fast to enjoy the ride. I was only concerned about getting to the destination. Period.

Now, I want to read the road signs and imagine that I will stop at one of these small businesses to see if anyone is really inside, waiting for a customer to walk in. I want to find the freshness in what looks tired day after day. I want to walk this road instead of drive it.