Self assessment by Paul Lemberg.
Take this test to find out if you are ready to pilot your business at the speed of change. Or faster.
Can you live with uncertainty?
Do you enjoy taking risks?
Are you self-confident?
Are you persistent?
Do you set goals and follow through to achieve them?
Can you turn on a dime?
Do you learn from your failures and mistakes?
Can you make important decisions quickly?
Can you say you were wrong and change your mind, quickly?
Do you keep your word with respect to your commitments?
Can you take charge, and take the heat?
Do you enjoy the challenge?
Can you live without security and stability?
Can you imagine that you see the future?
For each “yes”, give yourself 10 points. For each no, you had better figure out how to turn it into a yes if you want your business to be a runaway success.
When you have 120 points, go for it.
Paul Lemberg
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Runaway Success
Defining Runaway Success by Paul Lemberg.
To move faster than the speed of change requires a commitment to extraordinary things.
Most people, when asked for the particulars of runaway, blockbuster, or breakthrough success can’t say what that means to them with enough clarity to do anything about it.
Can you?
One way to increase the pace is to consider your venture from the perspective of “runaway success” and only take actions consistent with achieving just that. Before you can do that, you have to define your terms.
Take a few moments to specify , what you would consider “runaway success” in your current venture. (As always, there’s the question of scope or context. You could say – “Well, my current venture is my life.” OK – use that. If you asked me, I would suggest you narrow your scope – but it’s your choice.)
Write out your definition. You must write it out – type it – whatever. You can’t simply “think” this and expect the same result. Get it out of your head and onto the page. It must reflect back to you so you can evaluate it “in the cold light of day.”
Write it, in all its glory. Make sure this is a statement of “runaway success” not plain, old ordinary success.
Keep your definition in a notebook. Print it large and post it on your bulletin board. Tape it to the dashboard of your car.
Slip it under your desk mat. Scatter it about your environment. Put it in your wallet where you can refer to it easily.
Paul Lemberg
To move faster than the speed of change requires a commitment to extraordinary things.
Most people, when asked for the particulars of runaway, blockbuster, or breakthrough success can’t say what that means to them with enough clarity to do anything about it.
Can you?
One way to increase the pace is to consider your venture from the perspective of “runaway success” and only take actions consistent with achieving just that. Before you can do that, you have to define your terms.
Take a few moments to specify , what you would consider “runaway success” in your current venture. (As always, there’s the question of scope or context. You could say – “Well, my current venture is my life.” OK – use that. If you asked me, I would suggest you narrow your scope – but it’s your choice.)
Write out your definition. You must write it out – type it – whatever. You can’t simply “think” this and expect the same result. Get it out of your head and onto the page. It must reflect back to you so you can evaluate it “in the cold light of day.”
Write it, in all its glory. Make sure this is a statement of “runaway success” not plain, old ordinary success.
Keep your definition in a notebook. Print it large and post it on your bulletin board. Tape it to the dashboard of your car.
Slip it under your desk mat. Scatter it about your environment. Put it in your wallet where you can refer to it easily.
Paul Lemberg
Strategic Questions
Strategic Questioning by Paul Lemberg.
The route to creating strategy "strategy" is simple – asking the right questions.
What "direction" can the company take now to realize your "vision" ?
What value proposition will you offer customers?
What meaningful difference will you make in your marketplace?
What meaningful difference will you make in your world?
How do you want to affect the lives of your people, your customers, your clients? Your family?
Answer these questions and you are on road to inventing your "strategy".
Here are some questions to help you formulate "strategy" .
§ What "vision" , "purpose" and "values" are embodied in your company?
§ What would have them be realized even further?
§ What, specifically, would make your company “better” than it is now? (More profitable, greater revenues, improved product, improved service, more value for the customer, etc.)
§ If you could do absolutely anything in your industry, what would it be? Are you doing that now? If not, why not?
§ What are the most important reasons people buy your product or service?
§ Why would you like people to buy your product?
§ How do you rate on the 1-10 scale, with respect to those reasons?
§ How could you improve that rating?
§ What are three major changes shaping your industry over the next five to ten years?
§ In what ways are you positioned to participate in those changes?
§ What is the most important thing you have to offer your customers.
§ Why is that important to you?
§ Why is that important to your customers?
§ In your wildest fantasies, what do you want people to be able to say about your company, or your product?
§ What is necessary for people to be able to say that?
§ What is happening in other industries that could be adapted to your business and your product offering?
§ What do you think is missing from your product offering?
§ What would make your product really amazing!!!!?
§ What are your competitors doing that “blows your mind?”
§ What are your competitors doing that “blows your customers’ minds?”
§ What should your competitors be doing that would “blow your mind?”
§ Should you be doing that?
§ What have your customers told you they just can’t get anywhere? Is that something you should offer?
§ What products are related to your current offering, that you could offer?
§ What products do other companies (non-competitors) offer, which you could offer your customers?
§ How would those products add value?
§ What actions could you take today which would double your profits in 24 months? How about in 12 months?
§ What is missing for you to take those actions?
§ What is in the way of you taking those actions?
§ What business are you really in?
§ Should you pare down to just that business?
§ Can you create additional value focused on that business only?
§ What would make your product 10% – just 10% – better than anything in your market space?
§ What are the most glaring weaknesses of your company?
§ What are you doing to redress those weaknesses?
§ What is your "vision" for the next five years?
§ Are you moving decisively towards realizing that "vision" ?
§ If not, what would move you in that "direction" ?
§ What are the key needs of the major stakeholders (owners, employees, customers, etc.)?
§ Are those needs "being" served?
§ What are three things you’d really like to do – which would make a significant difference (to your customers, or perhaps, to the world)- but have excellent reasons for not doing?
§ How valid are those excellent reasons?
§ What are the meaningful differences (The Gap) between your five- year "vision" for your company, and where you are now?
§ What can you do to close The Gap that you are not doing now?
§ If you were starting from scratch, what would you do next?
§ What is the most dramatic trend that affects your industry?
§ Are you part of that trend?
§ Should you be?
§ What would you find truly meaningful?
Paul Lemberg
The route to creating strategy "strategy" is simple – asking the right questions.
What "direction" can the company take now to realize your "vision" ?
What value proposition will you offer customers?
What meaningful difference will you make in your marketplace?
What meaningful difference will you make in your world?
How do you want to affect the lives of your people, your customers, your clients? Your family?
Answer these questions and you are on road to inventing your "strategy".
Here are some questions to help you formulate "strategy" .
§ What "vision" , "purpose" and "values" are embodied in your company?
§ What would have them be realized even further?
§ What, specifically, would make your company “better” than it is now? (More profitable, greater revenues, improved product, improved service, more value for the customer, etc.)
§ If you could do absolutely anything in your industry, what would it be? Are you doing that now? If not, why not?
§ What are the most important reasons people buy your product or service?
§ Why would you like people to buy your product?
§ How do you rate on the 1-10 scale, with respect to those reasons?
§ How could you improve that rating?
§ What are three major changes shaping your industry over the next five to ten years?
§ In what ways are you positioned to participate in those changes?
§ What is the most important thing you have to offer your customers.
§ Why is that important to you?
§ Why is that important to your customers?
§ In your wildest fantasies, what do you want people to be able to say about your company, or your product?
§ What is necessary for people to be able to say that?
§ What is happening in other industries that could be adapted to your business and your product offering?
§ What do you think is missing from your product offering?
§ What would make your product really amazing!!!!?
§ What are your competitors doing that “blows your mind?”
§ What are your competitors doing that “blows your customers’ minds?”
§ What should your competitors be doing that would “blow your mind?”
§ Should you be doing that?
§ What have your customers told you they just can’t get anywhere? Is that something you should offer?
§ What products are related to your current offering, that you could offer?
§ What products do other companies (non-competitors) offer, which you could offer your customers?
§ How would those products add value?
§ What actions could you take today which would double your profits in 24 months? How about in 12 months?
§ What is missing for you to take those actions?
§ What is in the way of you taking those actions?
§ What business are you really in?
§ Should you pare down to just that business?
§ Can you create additional value focused on that business only?
§ What would make your product 10% – just 10% – better than anything in your market space?
§ What are the most glaring weaknesses of your company?
§ What are you doing to redress those weaknesses?
§ What is your "vision" for the next five years?
§ Are you moving decisively towards realizing that "vision" ?
§ If not, what would move you in that "direction" ?
§ What are the key needs of the major stakeholders (owners, employees, customers, etc.)?
§ Are those needs "being" served?
§ What are three things you’d really like to do – which would make a significant difference (to your customers, or perhaps, to the world)- but have excellent reasons for not doing?
§ How valid are those excellent reasons?
§ What are the meaningful differences (The Gap) between your five- year "vision" for your company, and where you are now?
§ What can you do to close The Gap that you are not doing now?
§ If you were starting from scratch, what would you do next?
§ What is the most dramatic trend that affects your industry?
§ Are you part of that trend?
§ Should you be?
§ What would you find truly meaningful?
Paul Lemberg
Purpose
Purpose by Paul Lemberg.
"Reach beyond your grasp. Your goals should be grand enough to get the best of you." Teilhard de Chardin
Why?
Why are you doing what you’re doing? Why are you pursuing this venture? Why are you even reading this web page?
Why are you living your life?
The answer to these questions is your purpose. The fundamental reason for your activities.
Every truly powerful venture has a clear and motivating purpose.
Why?
Why should we care about why?
Why, indeed? A powerful purpose will keep you going on days when the weather is lousy and your children kept you up all night and the dog was barking and there’s no cream for the coffee and the car has a flat tire and your key person called in sick and your best customer just cancelled and the toilets are backed up....
A powerful purpose enables you to keep going and cause more breakthroughs. Without a powerful purpose you might as well go home and pull the covers over your head.
A powerful purpose provides the fuel to do whatever it takes – no matter what. It’s better than strong coffee for working long hours and weekends.
A powerful purpose makes it a no-brainer to make big commitments and outsized requests, to take risky actions and put yourself on the line. Plus, your associates and employees – all the other stake-holders in your venture – need your powerful purpose as well.
Your shared purpose keeps them in the game right along with you.
Purpose, along with shared vision, is the foundation of ownership – if people have a sense of purpose they will take responsibility well beyond their accountability.
How do you get a big purpose? For some people, it’s just there. Like Don Quixote, you may be on a quest. Perhaps you are born with it, or it comes to you in a dream, or while you are stuck in traffic.
Sometimes you have to work to define it.
What is your purpose?
Write down why you do what you do.
Then ask why is that important, and why do you do that. Then ask why that is important. And so on. Don’t stop with the first level of reasons. It is usually necessary to keep going for a while.
When you reach bedrock “purpose” and you resonate with it – that’s the one. Work on the words for a while until you “know” they are right.
What I do:
Why that is important :
And why that is important :
And why that is important :
And so on..........
Paul Lemberg
"Reach beyond your grasp. Your goals should be grand enough to get the best of you." Teilhard de Chardin
Why?
Why are you doing what you’re doing? Why are you pursuing this venture? Why are you even reading this web page?
Why are you living your life?
The answer to these questions is your purpose. The fundamental reason for your activities.
Every truly powerful venture has a clear and motivating purpose.
Why?
Why should we care about why?
Why, indeed? A powerful purpose will keep you going on days when the weather is lousy and your children kept you up all night and the dog was barking and there’s no cream for the coffee and the car has a flat tire and your key person called in sick and your best customer just cancelled and the toilets are backed up....
A powerful purpose enables you to keep going and cause more breakthroughs. Without a powerful purpose you might as well go home and pull the covers over your head.
A powerful purpose provides the fuel to do whatever it takes – no matter what. It’s better than strong coffee for working long hours and weekends.
A powerful purpose makes it a no-brainer to make big commitments and outsized requests, to take risky actions and put yourself on the line. Plus, your associates and employees – all the other stake-holders in your venture – need your powerful purpose as well.
Your shared purpose keeps them in the game right along with you.
Purpose, along with shared vision, is the foundation of ownership – if people have a sense of purpose they will take responsibility well beyond their accountability.
How do you get a big purpose? For some people, it’s just there. Like Don Quixote, you may be on a quest. Perhaps you are born with it, or it comes to you in a dream, or while you are stuck in traffic.
Sometimes you have to work to define it.
What is your purpose?
Write down why you do what you do.
Then ask why is that important, and why do you do that. Then ask why that is important. And so on. Don’t stop with the first level of reasons. It is usually necessary to keep going for a while.
When you reach bedrock “purpose” and you resonate with it – that’s the one. Work on the words for a while until you “know” they are right.
What I do:
Why that is important :
And why that is important :
And why that is important :
And so on..........
Paul Lemberg
What's Possible
What's possible by Paul Lemberg.
Reach for the outer limits. Stretch.
Build your business upon your idea of what is possible, not what is likely or reasonable. Reasonable propositions produce reasonable, predictable results. They are the things you think will come to pass, that make sense according to what has been done before. They are comfortably within the bounds of what you have produced in the past.
There is nothing wrong with reasonable ideas, they just never produce extraordinary results.
So, what is possible? Anything you can think of.
In fact, a thing becomes possible simply because you can think it. By declaring something possible, it takes on an existence it didn’t have until that moment. Just because you said so, you transform the impossible into the possible.
This gives you, the entrepreneur, the captain of your own life, tremendous power.
There is no proof required for these declarations of possibility. When you declare something is possible you need not know the route to its accomplishment. Declaration of possibility is the first step. Until you call something possible, you are unable to take action on it.
Decide what you intend to accomplish – and say – “I declare such-and-such is possible.”
By recognizing possibilities, you open yourself up to seeing things you would never have seen before.
It’s a beautiful view!
Paul Lemberg
Reach for the outer limits. Stretch.
Build your business upon your idea of what is possible, not what is likely or reasonable. Reasonable propositions produce reasonable, predictable results. They are the things you think will come to pass, that make sense according to what has been done before. They are comfortably within the bounds of what you have produced in the past.
There is nothing wrong with reasonable ideas, they just never produce extraordinary results.
So, what is possible? Anything you can think of.
In fact, a thing becomes possible simply because you can think it. By declaring something possible, it takes on an existence it didn’t have until that moment. Just because you said so, you transform the impossible into the possible.
This gives you, the entrepreneur, the captain of your own life, tremendous power.
There is no proof required for these declarations of possibility. When you declare something is possible you need not know the route to its accomplishment. Declaration of possibility is the first step. Until you call something possible, you are unable to take action on it.
Decide what you intend to accomplish – and say – “I declare such-and-such is possible.”
By recognizing possibilities, you open yourself up to seeing things you would never have seen before.
It’s a beautiful view!
Paul Lemberg
Positive Intention
Positive intention by Peter Freeth
Every behaviour has a positive intention.
Positive doesn’t necessarily mean good or morally acceptable. It simply means that every behaviour is motivated by an intention to achieve something. So, in this Belief we have two meanings. Firstly, people don’t waste energy for no reason. Secondly, people take action to get things, not to lose them. When people lose things it’s a side effect – an accident. It’s not the original intention.
Sometimes, a person may alternate between different patterns of behaviour, as if one part gains control, then another, then another. This is a very useful analogy for what happens when people try and fail to give up smoking or lose weight. Smoking has advantages, otherwise the person would never have started. Therefore, if the person gives up smoking those advantages will be lost.
If the person doesn't consider this, there will be a constant battle between the parts that benefit from different aspects of smoking or not smoking. A common side effect of smoking is state control, so people smoke to calm their nerves. If this person gives up smoking, how will they control their emotional state? In a therapeutic context, this is known as secondary gain.
In an organisational context, I've heard it called all sorts of names but it really comes down to the same thing - that habits or situations that we call "bad" and want to avoid have some positive benefits too. As a species, we can easily adapt to exploit these positive benefits, making it much harder to avoid the "bad" situation.
When these parts communicate effectively with each other or with some central control part, the person will be aware of all of their conflicting needs and will manage their time and resources effectively. Good dieters can manage their meals and still allow themselves treats. Organisations that have effective internal communication tend not to have much internal conflict. When parts are not in communication with each other, problems arise because each part adopts behaviour which satisfies its own needs. Poor dieters will fast for a while then go and indulge themselves, leading to another fast. Self employed consultants describe a 'feast and famine' market situation because they do not communicate with each other about the real, ongoing state of the market.
Companies with poor internal communication generate conflicting information and appear to be badly coordinated. This is not malicious or intentional - it is simply the most reasonable way for each part to act when it has no or limited communication with other parts.
A part that is unaware of its relationship to other parts can only act in its own self interest.
Peter Freeth on Revelation
Every behaviour has a positive intention.
Positive doesn’t necessarily mean good or morally acceptable. It simply means that every behaviour is motivated by an intention to achieve something. So, in this Belief we have two meanings. Firstly, people don’t waste energy for no reason. Secondly, people take action to get things, not to lose them. When people lose things it’s a side effect – an accident. It’s not the original intention.
Sometimes, a person may alternate between different patterns of behaviour, as if one part gains control, then another, then another. This is a very useful analogy for what happens when people try and fail to give up smoking or lose weight. Smoking has advantages, otherwise the person would never have started. Therefore, if the person gives up smoking those advantages will be lost.
If the person doesn't consider this, there will be a constant battle between the parts that benefit from different aspects of smoking or not smoking. A common side effect of smoking is state control, so people smoke to calm their nerves. If this person gives up smoking, how will they control their emotional state? In a therapeutic context, this is known as secondary gain.
In an organisational context, I've heard it called all sorts of names but it really comes down to the same thing - that habits or situations that we call "bad" and want to avoid have some positive benefits too. As a species, we can easily adapt to exploit these positive benefits, making it much harder to avoid the "bad" situation.
When these parts communicate effectively with each other or with some central control part, the person will be aware of all of their conflicting needs and will manage their time and resources effectively. Good dieters can manage their meals and still allow themselves treats. Organisations that have effective internal communication tend not to have much internal conflict. When parts are not in communication with each other, problems arise because each part adopts behaviour which satisfies its own needs. Poor dieters will fast for a while then go and indulge themselves, leading to another fast. Self employed consultants describe a 'feast and famine' market situation because they do not communicate with each other about the real, ongoing state of the market.
Companies with poor internal communication generate conflicting information and appear to be badly coordinated. This is not malicious or intentional - it is simply the most reasonable way for each part to act when it has no or limited communication with other parts.
A part that is unaware of its relationship to other parts can only act in its own self interest.
Peter Freeth on Revelation
Non-Linear
Going non-linear by Paul Lemberg.
Runaway success requires that you break out of the ordinary.
Everything – and I mean everything – you are currently being and doing, the sum of all your attitudes and actions, however vigorously you pursue them, is producing results. These results follow the “normal course of events.”
(Research by The Conference Board suggests that for most businesses, this “normal course of events” reflects annual growth in the neighborhood of 5-10%. A straight line up and to the right, year in, year out.)
On the other hand, breakthrough results are not predictable based on the way things are going. They do not occur as a matter of course. There is no logical progression from “normal” to “breakthrough.”
A breakthrough occurs when, all of a sudden, your trajectory shifts dramatically. When the line of your growth is out of sync with all previous results. To create a high-speed venture, one which is growing faster than the market, changing faster than change, you must be “extra-ordinary”.
By definition,
You must do something you’ve never done before.
Apply that picture of a breakthrough to your business.
What would be on your curve for a “breakaway trajectory?”
What kind of action and results would place you there?
What is so different, so extraordinary, that it could propel you ahead faster than change?
Paul Lemberg
Runaway success requires that you break out of the ordinary.
Everything – and I mean everything – you are currently being and doing, the sum of all your attitudes and actions, however vigorously you pursue them, is producing results. These results follow the “normal course of events.”
(Research by The Conference Board suggests that for most businesses, this “normal course of events” reflects annual growth in the neighborhood of 5-10%. A straight line up and to the right, year in, year out.)
On the other hand, breakthrough results are not predictable based on the way things are going. They do not occur as a matter of course. There is no logical progression from “normal” to “breakthrough.”
A breakthrough occurs when, all of a sudden, your trajectory shifts dramatically. When the line of your growth is out of sync with all previous results. To create a high-speed venture, one which is growing faster than the market, changing faster than change, you must be “extra-ordinary”.
By definition,
You must do something you’ve never done before.
Apply that picture of a breakthrough to your business.
What would be on your curve for a “breakaway trajectory?”
What kind of action and results would place you there?
What is so different, so extraordinary, that it could propel you ahead faster than change?
Paul Lemberg
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