During my annual break, I read Seth Godin, and he challenges his readers to define the worldviews of their clients/customers. If you know Godin you would know that a worldview can be about anything. It could be about how you view running your business. (Andre recommended changing this sentence, and I agree, to “A worldview includes everything, and also how to view running your business.”)
My clients consist mostly of owners of successful medium-sized businesses. While you all are different you do have a lot in common. In writing this post I tried to come up with a description with which any of you, my clients, could identify – although each, of course, would have your own emphasis.
Could this be you?
• I create the future of my business through hard work on a daily basis – which takes most of my time and energy. My focus is usually short-term as I do not have the time or take the time to develop long-term plans. We are simply too busy.
• I am creative in an operational, doing kind of way. My planning is mostly intuitive.
• I do realize that I should be more structured and long-term in my thinking and in my planning. Also in executing.
• I find it difficult to change my present methods of planning and especially of executing. So expect me to change as little as possible – although I will change if it is step-by-step but then provide really strong reasons.
• I do take note of developments within my industry and do this mostly by reading magazines covering companies, products and services similar to mine. While I know I should spend more time and dig deeper I do believe I have a good nose for what’s happening.
• I should attend more fairs or shows, take creative breaks from overcrowded, exhausting weeks and even go abroad. (Why not?)
• I could do with consulting inputs but then in a manner which accommodates my need for short bursts of my time and attention. Keep matter simple. Planning on paper should be brief. Don’t expect too much of me.
• Systems and processes should be simple. I would like to absorb the essentials more or less immediately – although I know that a real effort on my part is needed to get to know the basics. Do not give me too much information.
• I know I should lead by example as my staff is watching what I do and what I tend to ignore. In fact, they follow my example. Do I have to check my behaviour?
• Most of my staff members do not have my mentality and work ethic. Why not? I know I should spend more time with them. What should I do but emphasize that we all need to work harder?
• I would be pleased if my staff could show a greater understanding of the pressures which I have to deal with daily. I would welcome greater commitment to me and my business.
• I would like to run my team in a manner which is smooth and cuts out much of my daily stress. At the moment I simply do too much crisis management. Meeting our monthly overheads seems to always be a main goal. I wish I could get individual team members to take more off my shoulders by taking more all-round responsibility and not always only sticking to their narrow work fields. Why can’t they work together? Each should chip in without being asked. But how to get them to be pro-active in a considered and responsible manner?
• I really need to be less exhausted by Fridays and enjoy life more. I could do with balance between my work life and private life.
• I know 2009 is going to be a tough year. Full of opportunities but tough. Heaven help us.
How accurate is this description? I’d like to invite my clients to please let me have their comments at the bottom of this post. Use the comment box and add a comment or two. Change anything you like.
Albert
keywords: executing, human behaviour, organisation, planning, worldview
In your blog you say, “a worldview can be about anything. It could be about how you view running your business.”
* My sense of a worldview is contrary to what you say. An individual can have only one world view as a totality of one’s beliefs about reality.. A child can not have a worldview…a balanced worldview is formed over time and through direct experience of the challenges of surviving as a member of a group, family, community, country, political party, etc. Like a religious view or a health view, a business view is just one Lego building block in the structure that represents an individual’s entire position regarding the great complexity of a fully developed worldview. This means that the individual’s convictions, moral, business and other, are entirely inter-related, issuing from set values that cover and direct all of the individual’s interactions with his or her world, and on every level of existence, from parenthood through to not shop-lifting. This would mean that one develops a worldview over time and that a worldview is never fully formed, but changes and grows as the person matures through experience, culture and his or her ever-richer humanness. It MUST be so that such maturation will also reflect in the person’s business approach, how they treat their staff and their customers, the shaping of a business ethos. Therefore, it would be more acceptable for me if you changed the above sentence to read “A worldview includes everything, and also how you view running your business.”
One or two other additions are listed below: (Where I don’t insert comments, I fully agree with your statements)
• I am creative in an operational, doing kind of way. My planning is mostly intuitive.
* If you are saying that I tend to busk as I go along, yes to a degree, but not greatly so. I like to plan carefully ahead based on what I know works.
• So expect me to change as little as possible – although I will change if it is step-by-step but then provide really strong reasons.
* No. Threats and challenges cause to me change VERY quickly, and even dramatically, than when things are chugging along boringly on an even keel – when does it ever? It goes back to my statement about basing my planning and responses on “what I know works”. Such changes can be instant, and not step by step, depending on the scale of the threat to my business.
• I should attend more fairs or shows, take creative breaks from overcrowded, exhausting weeks and even go abroad. (Why not?)
* I don’t think fairs and shows can teach me much about my business… been there, got the t-shirt. I would be interested only in terms of getting updated on developing technologies as they affect my industry. The internet has over the years greatly reduced my dependence on trade shows for this kind of update, though. But when it comes to employing production techniques and creative integrity, I don’t need to be told or shown how to do what I do. I can learn much more by watching and analyzing my competitors’ behaviour.
• I know I should lead by example as my staff is watching what I do and what I tend to ignore. In fact, they follow my example. Do I have to check my behaviour?
* How one treats people has to do with the ethical and humane standards you have incorporated into your worldview. In fact, if you are not sure about your own worldview, what kind of person you are and what your values are, this is the mirror to look into – it’s a dead give-away about who and what you really are and why you are experiencing staff motivation, production, distribution and customer problems.
• Most of my staff members do not have my mentality and work ethic. Why not? I know I should spend more time with them. What should I do but emphasize that we all need to work harder?
* Anybody who thinks he is the smartest person in his business is stupid. He has never heard of the power of the “gestalt”. (I.e. the whole is greater than the sum of the parts). One must know that the emotional and material rewards of getting a team to operate maximally to its full power can be so great that it’s worth taking the time to build teams through the tools of self-respect and personal growth.
• I would be pleased if my staff could show a greater understanding of the pressures which I have to deal with daily. I would welcome greater commitment to me and my business.
* Ag shame, boetie. Feeling sorry for oneself is not part of a healthy worldview. Commitment from one’s staff to one’s business is a mirror-image of one’s commitment and loyalty to them!
• I would like to run my team in a manner which is smooth and cuts out much of my daily stress. At the moment I simply do too much crisis management. Meeting our monthly overheads seems to always be a main goal. I wish I could get individual team members to take more off my shoulders by taking more all-round responsibility and not always only sticking to their narrow work fields. Why can’t they work together? Each should chip in without being asked. But how to get them to be pro-active in a considered and responsible manner?
* My comment to the point above is valid here too.
• I know 2009 is going to be a tough year. Full of opportunities but tough. Heaven help us.
* No! It’s during the tough years that one is most stimulated to do better. That’s when the tough ones get kicked into overdrive and when they and their staff and their businesses change and adapt the most. They say… “Heaven help the challenges. We’re Ok!”
Correction: I said above “A child can not have a worldview” – Sorry, this was meant to be “A child can not have a balanced, mature worldview”
Of course, a child does have a worldview… albeit an immature one, founded perhaps only on a basic need for love and security. But as we mature, our needs also mature and hence, our worldview.
Hi Andre
You provided a very thorough and stimulating comment! I enjoyed reading it and expect that our other readers will too.
I gladly accept your definition of “worldview” although Godin used it very narrowly. Your definition, for ease of reference, reads: “A worldview includes everything, and also how you view running your business.”
Please note that not one of my clients need to be as detailed in their comments. You could focus on one or two points only, should you so wish. Please join the conversation.
Albert
I agree with Andre’s self-correction. Everyone has a world view. And many people cruise through life without ever reflecting on their behaviour nor articulating the underlying beliefs, assumptions and presuppositions that make up their world-view.
I think what you have posted is a subset of a much larger set of possible reflections and assumptions about how life works and how we best meet the challenges and opportunities presented.
I believe your post points to an exercise we should all conduct with ourselves regularly. This would go hand in hand with a review of our strengths and weaknesses. Oh yes and also with a strategy thinking process. Everyone quotes Socrates “The unreflected life is not worth living”. This is part of that. I think.
Thanks for the note – to ruk me back into thinking mode. I will reflect on this some more.
When needs drive a worldview must (move also) – there are interesting philosophical correlations between the challenges of living useful lives and the shaping of an ever-maturing worldview .
Stephen is right when he says that we need to reflect more on our strengths and weaknesses… but with the proviso that such soul-seeking reflection must be balanced with living life vigorously and making mistakes with gusto. If not, such reflections can become neurotic and counter productive – not only in one’s emotional and spiritual life, but also in how one runs a business.
Thus, Hamlet’s ‘to be or not to be’ is still the only question. ‘Right Action’ (the Buddha variety) must go hand in hand with reflection.
I agree wholeheartedly with you Andre. I have just found a lekker blog by someone who is on the same wave-length.
Perhaps you will enjoy the quote from Robert Chambers in this posting:
http://auditorylearner.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/the-primacy-of-personal-action/#comments