Lists :: Results :: Profit

If your goal is profit...

It is important to work backwards, from profits (the goal), to the present day. In order to do that, I suggest that you pull out a piece of paper. A very large piece of paper. I like the new post-it® poster sized pads. Great for hanging on the wall after you get your bearings and destination plotted.

Everyone has at least one flaw. One of mine is that of approaching every "new thing" with a serious "doubt" complex. As in, "I doubt this will be of any value to me." You know, after all, if there were a better way, I would have already thought of it!

Wrong

Many moons ago, working as the (first) DBA for the Town of Hilton Head Island, SC, my boss had both of us attend a StephenCovey workshop on "First Things, First." Held at the Technical College of The Low Country as I recall. Maybe USC-Beaufort. But I digress...

I went in thinking "What can this teach me?" I already had my dream job at my dream location. This was before Covey bought Franklin as I recall. Or right around that time.

But learn I did

I took away the concept of placing the biggest rocks first. Common sense? Sure. It was years later that I determined that my Purple Curve Effect (based on finding and focusing on the weakest link, and only the weakest link) was based in part on Covey's "big rock" approach.

Yes, I give Eli Goldratt a lot of credit. His book, "The Goal" caused me to think things through, at least to a much larger degree than my previous efforts. And having read most of Goldratt's books, I can honestly say that it was H. William Dettmer that gave me the vantage point needed (for me) to frame all these great ideas. Ideas that were bouncing around my head in somewhat random order.

When Thayer Bennett and I put pen to paper to create the Purple Curve Effect, a number of ideas gelled into that curve of unending growth (and therefore profit). But for as many times as I talk with business owners and the executives managing various silos (departments), I am amazed at how easy it is to loose one's way.

I am guilty

I am just as guilty as the next guy: there is no post-it®
note page stuck on the wall in front of me!

How is that even possible? Have I given up? Hardly. I got lazy. Plain and simple. No long explanation necessary.

Are you lazy

Me too. Just as soon as I finish this post, I will break out three items that are instrumental to my future success. Yours too. Shame on you (and me!) if you dare complain about your lot in life, and do not have the map to your success on the wall in front of you.

1. Post-it® note pad (or other suitable poster material)
2. Copy of Purple Curve Effect —SKI's Throughput on Command (PDF or paperback)
3. Copy of Strategic Navigation by H. William Dettmer

Want help? I have a new seven step rule before I accept a new client:

1. Buy my book
2. Read it
3. Then (and only then) buy Dettmer's Strategic Navigation
4. Read it
5. Buy a jumbo notepad
6. Call me and share your passion for results
   
7. Schedule my Dynamic 4^3 Process

Of course you can do all these steps and still not save your business. Or create a new business from scratch. During the 4^3 workshop you will create a CRT (Current Reality Tree) of your existing state (or the current state of the industry for which you are launching a new business) as well as a Strategic IO Map (Intermediate Objectives Map) of where you are headed in the next 90 days. And the next 12 months. Maybe even a 36 month goal.

Together, we will map out these two critical data points. Then, take a week or two and perfect the CRT. Think through the cause and effect linkages expressed on the CRT. Hang it on your wall along with the SIO Map. Get input from those on your team. Share any revisions and/or clarifications with me. Failure to share the revisions prevent me from being of any further assistance.

Next Step

We jump back into the book Strategic Navigation to "Analyze the Mismatches".

All in the pursuit of profits.

A most excellent goal.


Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah
Throughput.us LLC
(330) 432-3533

©2008 Jeff SKI Kinsey. All rights reserved.

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cognitive dissonance

A conversation with H. William Dettmer

Recently, an email discussion between Bill and I evolved to this statement:

"Decisions, especially by the senior decision makers, are not made on a rational basis, but on an emotional one. And as they become comfortable with the emotional decision, they begin to look for (or find) logical justification to support what they're emotionally decided to do---or not do."

As Churchill observed, "Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually he just picks himself up and continues on."

Bill went on to say, "I suspect that you're experiencing one of two possible phenomena. Either":

1. What you present [in the course of my consulting at Throughput.us LLC] is at some level of "cognitive dissonance" with their decision-maker's emotional comfort, or
2. There is some more powerful, but unspoken, agenda going on behind the scenes that you have no knowledge of---which for whatever reason has more emotional appeal than your logical presentation does.

Perhaps both? Neither?

Business owners want what they want.

What do you think?


-ski