E-M8 Entrepreneurial Management for Eternal Mission

This week I will be traveling through Kiev, Ukraine and back to US of A. The hopes and expectations are many, since I have learned a lot and have had a lot of time to structure business models. In next few months, I look forward to polishing these concepts in a workshop setting, in individual trainings and in working with the clients of Bucket Brigade.

Yesterday we ran in to one of our acquaintances at the store the other day. He is a fellow in his sixties who did not even know how to turn on a computer a couple years ago.  Yet, when we asked him what he was buying, he said, “I would not buy anything here. I can order anything online for a fraction of the price.” When we tried to tell him how Albina’s parents were doing, he replied: “Oh yeah, I video-conferenced with them on Skype yesterday.” And here is the amazing part, he is not an exception. There are visitors from rural Russia and Ukraine on this blog, right along with major cities and villages across 75 countries on all continents.

I am amazed at the speed of psychological change even more so than the technological change.  Traditional business approaches are crumbling and entire industries are born and die, all because today a 60+ year old retiree who was born under Stalin’s rule can select a doctor by reading the online feedback, can have goods made in China to his specifications shipped right to his apartment and whose circle of friends with whom he regularly communicates extends around the world.

Current ways of doing things are simply no longer adequate. This is why Structured Creative Thinking (TRIZ) is the only set of tools that can stand up to the challenges of today’s and future world. I can feel a daily unfair advantage that I have because I have learned to think using Structured Creative Thinking and it drives my desire to teach others and give them the same advantages that I have.

In the world of business, as I am sure in many other areas of human life, there are many things that we do that don’t really make a lot of sense. One of the most powerful reasons for that is INERTIA, something we get when there is a lot of MOMENTUM.

Inertia is inertia precisely because we assume things. It is very hard to see. It is very stubborn. It is often bigger than us and there is little we can do about it. There are a ways to train our minds to be alert for it, but they require constant exercise and our inertia does much to keep us from it.

The situation is worse than it seems. The problem will become rapidly compounded as the speed of change is increased. In the past, inertia was less of a problem because there was less need to adopt rapidly. But today, vast percentage of human effort goes to build momentum behind something that is no longer needed or is counterproductive. Businesses don’t grow as healthily as the could, people do not develop their talents as rapidly as they should and above all we are always surprised with the results.

The very things that worked for us in the past are killing us today.

So how do we overcome inertia? By being aware of the growth patterns and major shifting points that happen in a life of every individual and every business. There is lots of variation and lots of special dynamics, but the overall paths are surprisingly predictable as they fit in to a few patterns that are as old as the world. Realizing the patterns allows us to transition to new models when we are ready, not to soon, but even more commonly, not too late. It allows us to ignore all advice that does not apply to our current stage of development and focus on things that are relevant to us. And here is the best part, these patterns, though not perfectly defined, yet, are slowly coming together and are starting to be tested and revised through the Bucket Brigade and its customer base.

At last, nearly 40 years after publication of Creativity as a Science, by G. Altshuller, as a way to overcome the difficulties he has seen in the development of technical systems, we can talk about Business as a Science, as a way to overcome the same difficulties in the development of the organizations.

I am a capitalist. Well really, visionist, a person who believes that people with a vision (rather than capital) should control the world. However, a well functioning, transparent capitalism is a fairly close approximation, since people with the vision usually can align the resources behind it. Some of the wealthiest men today did not start with a capital, but with a vision and that’s the kind of capitalistic society that I want to live in.

So, why do I love Progressives, with their nontransparent government programs, that exaggerate the problems by trying to fix the symptoms using approaches that ignore human motivations and frailties, rather than create an environment where market forces can address the problems from within? Why do I love their, what I consider,  misguided efforts to change the world? I love them because the demonstrate the greatness of our nation, a country where people can express views and even work to enact policies that are clearly counterproductive for all parties involved, and then go on to misinterpret the results as a need for more of similar types of programs. I love them because their paranoia keeps capitalists more honest than they would be otherwise. I love them because in debating with them, my ideas get crystallized and are sharpened. They are the best vaccine against totalitarian communism precisely because we get enough of them to build up an immunity and to keep fighting off the disease.

So, I celebrate the diversity of views among my friends and colleagues, while focusing on doing all in my power to be productive, rather than getting caught in useless and self destructing hate and frustration that seems all too prevalent regardless of the ideology behind it.

Being productive is a habit that can be developed and can be lost. I see it every day in the stores where employees are under-worked. When it comes time to be busy they have a hard time picking up the pace and thus lose customers and continue on with the same under-worked pattern. Keeping productively busy even during slow times is crucial for good morale. Great managers are great, partly because they can invent many productive engaging tasks for their employees and even turn routine work in to something fun.

Games, friendly competition, promotion, learning, even giving extra people time off is the key to achieving just that. But in order to do that, the manager first has to get so good at managing his/her own time that they have time to focus on managing everyone else’s workload proactively. Thus ability to effectively train and delegate is  an essential component of effective growth.