Watch: The Story of Stuff

Beyond debit, extrapolating the faux security of credit, it’s not hard to see how quickly things can get out of hand.

Perhaps you’ve played with different levels of budgeting with varying degrees of success. But unless you’re hyper-disciplined it can be difficult to maintain the fortitude to persist. Over at getrichslowly.org there’s an interesting blog on using a Per-Diem system to achieve a tangible sort’ve budget. Check it out!

With roots in ecology, the literal translation of the word involves two Japanese characters, kyo which means working together and sei which means life – taken together their most literal interpretation is cooperative living or symbiosis. With such energy at it’s root, it is no surprise that much of the most fruitful thinking of how to practice kyosei today revolves around mimicking natural systems in manufacturing, design and other aspects of business.

The twentieth century saw the word begin to be applied to the business environment – most notably by Ryuzaburo Kaku, Chairman of Canon Inc. His goal was to foster the understanding that long-term business success can only be founded upon a respect for the interconnectedness any business has with people, communities and the environment. Kaku defined kyosei as a “spirit of cooperation” in which individuals and organizations live and work together for the common good.

The incorporation of the principles of kyosei into mainstream corporate thought in Japan, however, goes back four hundred years. The earliest thoughts can be found in a document known as the shuchu kiyaku which is rooted in Confucian philosophy. The core tenets of Confucian philosophy underpinning the practice of kyosei are not the exclusive domain of Asian philosophers by a long stretch – to the contrary, they would be considered by many to be universal foundations of common sense and morality. These include such principles as:

• A belief in the principle of reciprocity and abiding by the golden rule of treating others as you would like to be treated.
• An understanding of our fundamental interconnectedness and the fact that our actions have an impact both in local (visible) and far-reaching (invisible) ways.
• Valuing the “middle path”. This may take the form of practicing moderation in personal habits as well as taking only calculated risks in business. It also includes the need to find a healthy balance between self-interest and altruism. As of course, either one (taken to extremes) can be a source of harm.
• Valuing character and virtue of the individual and the organization more highly than personal gain or corporate profits. This principle, unfortunately, seems to be the most challenging to practice as the immediate payoff of the latter is far more tempting than the subtle long-term satisfaction of the former.
• The importance of constant learning and growth - what in Japanese is referred to as Kaizen.
• A preference for simplicity. This preference is linked to a belief that the elegance of simplicity is more likely to bring us into harmony with others and the planet.

In upcoming posts, I will continue on the topic of kyosei with a more detailed look at why it is an idea whose time as come and the stages that individuals and companies go through in building their capacity to fully practice kyosei.

1) Don’t make resolutions!

At least not in the traditional way. Most people’s New Year resolutions look like an overwhelming laundry list of “to do’s” that would require herculean willpower (not to mention an extra 40 hour work week) to implement. The challenge, after the initial enthusiasm for doing a complete life and work overhaul subsides, is that the energy required to implement so many changes simultaneously simply cannot be sustained. Unfortunately, rather than just cutting back when they realize they bit off more than they could chew, most people give up all together and slowly (or sometimes quickly) slide back into their old habits.

So what does work?….
2) Express Gratitude:

I always start my New Year off by ending the old year with expressing and cataloguing all that I am grateful for from the past year. This appreciation of my successes and blessings is not only energizing, looking back on all the many things I am grateful for in the course of the past year helps me to see what experiences and achievements have been most meaningful and fulfilling for me. Very often the things I am most grateful for were not things that I had planned for or had to achieve. They were the simple joys of living such as being able to earn a living doing what I love, having great friends, being healthy, and having a loving family. This gratitude exercise will help you to get perspective on your true priorities and inform your intentions and theme for the year.

3) Identify Your Intentions:

Go through the different areas of your life and identify your overall intentions for the changes you would like to see by the end of the year. As you all have heard me say many times, make sure that your intentions are in alignment with your Four Passions. If you write down a change because you think you “should” or “have to” make a change in some area, it is far less likely that you will be able to sustain the energy to follow through than if it is something that is in alignment with who you truly are and want to be. A common example for many people might be losing weight. I avoid setting specific goals around losing weight because, for me, this falls into the “should” realm as I really don’t care that much about the weight itself. Instead, I set intentions around what I want to experience physically. Since I had a baby this year, something far more meaningful to me is to return to my old levels of energy (can you say sleep deprivation?) and physical ability. My intentions in this area are to get more sleep and to be able to do the Grouse Grind and join a Bootcamp – two activities I enjoyed pre-pregnancy and would love to do again. This year I wrote personal intentions in the physical area, the spiritual area, my relationship area, and my creative area. My business intentions were focused in the area of solidifying systems and expanding product/service outreach. To set your intentions ask: Which areas of my life and work would I like to see change in that would have the most positive impact on my life overall? Describe specifically how you would like things to look rather than making a to do list of how you are going to create that change.

4) Pick a Theme:

Now the above might not sound so different than the typical goal-setting method, but here’s where the real power is. Look back over all of your intentions to find an overall theme for the positive changes you want to see in your life and work this year. In my case, when I looked over all of my dreams and desires for 2009, the thread that I saw running through everything was “Rebuilding Foundations”. Having had a baby this year I realized that all of my old routines had been disrupted. I can’t/don’t eat, sleep, exercise, socialize, or work the way I used to. All of the rituals, routines and habits that I had in place before baby came along that I took for granted now need to be rethought in light of the wonderful new addition to our life. I need to rebuild my foundations. So while I do have specific goals and plans around exactly what I plan to do, be and have this year, if I think about all of them at once it could become very overwhelming. By being clear on my core theme for the year, I can keep this top of mind on a daily basis and use it to guide all of my actions and decisions. This takes far less energy, provides more flexibility, and allows me to flow with choices in the moment rather than trying to force myself to stick to some plan that I made in a moment of expecting myself to be a far superior human being than I can usually manage when the daily demands of life come calling. No matter how overwhelmed (or sleep deprived) I am, I can usually manage to hold one theme in my head. The easiest way to do this is to form your theme into a question. My question this year is “How can I rebuild the foundations for thriving in my life and work so that I can minimize energy required for the necessities and maximize energy for the things/people I love?” Being mindful of this question will lead to many different actions that I cannot even imagine right now – while still creating the results I desire. To me, that is much more exciting than chaining myself to a huge list of action items that may not flow with the natural unfolding of circumstances that occurs in all of our lives.

I wish all of you a 2009 filled with passion, prosperity, and fulfillment!

–Andrea Jacques

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(For those of you unfamiliar with the term, swaddling involves using a square blanket and some specific folding techniques to wrap your child in a nice snug blanket cocoon. The power of this technique to soothe babies and help them sleep longer lies in two simple facts: 1) It simulates the cozy, if restricted environment they were so used to living in for nine months in the womb. This familiarity is comforting to them. 2) It prevents them from flailing around and hitting or scaring themselves. Infants don’t have control over their appendages, nor do they even really recognize that those things flailing around and, at times, whacking them in the face even belong to them. Swaddling prevents the unexpected appearance of said appendages by keeping them snugly tucked in near the infant’s body.)

In one of the first weeks after my discovery of swaddling, I was spouting off about my discovery of this miracle tool at my regular writer’s group meeting and the joy of having eight hour of sleep in a row. As I spoke, the eyes of Carrie Gallant, a fellow writer and a specialist in the art of negotiation for women, lit up with a laugh.

“That is amazing,” she commented, “On the drive here today I was just thinking about swaddling and how that is what I need to keep me focused on key areas I need to build my business and keep me from flailing around trying to do so many different things.”

A lively discussion about swaddling as a metaphor for the value of coaching and for the kind of support necessary for success ensued. Here are the main points:

We are like babies. When faced with change, whether internally imposed by our attempt to learn and grow or externally imposed by a change in our environment/circumstances we flail around a lot, fall down, and generally spend more time getting it wrong than getting it right. This is scary, frustrating and exhausting. We don’t understand that the appendage that keeps hitting us in the face actually belongs to us. Having a mentor or coach helps to gently restrain us from hurting ourselves. It wraps us in a cocoon of confidence from the assurance of someone else’s experience so that we can relax and rest awhile before getting back to the inevitable work of growing.

Just like our son, Zen, most people rebel against swaddling at first. Free choice is part of the gift of being human, so it is natural to dislike being given limits. Yet it is precisely by creating boundaries for ourselves, setting limits, and enforcing deadlines that we also create freedom – the freedom that comes from following something through to completion.

Andrea Jacques

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First, the bad stuff. Depression and stress disorders represent the fastest growing category of disability claims. They currently account for more than $9 billion in disability claims, or 30 percent of the estimated $30 billion that disabilities and presenteeism (the problem of employees being at work but not fully functioning) cost Canada’s economy each year (as reported by the BC Business and Economic Round table on Mental Health).

One of the most disturbing things about this increasing trend toward depression, stress and other mental-health related disabilities in the workplace is the fact that, while 80 to 90 percent of people with these disorders can be treated successfully, only one third of them actually seek help.

So what does all of this have to do with networking?

This month I attended the Canadian Mental Health Association’s annual conference on mental health in the workplace where one of the most inspiring and empowering speakers was a tiny, dark-haired, passionate woman in her 50s, Sandy Naiman.

An accomplished journalist, broadcaster, teacher, mental-health advocate and public speaker, Sandy has also struggled with mental illness since she was 12-years old – a journey that has included 20 hospitalizations and four different diagnoses. As I listened to Sandy’s stories, it dawned on me that what had allowed her to create such a successful career, despite a serious mental illness, was her ability to cultivate her network.

The secret to Sandy’s success, however, is the exact opposite of what most people are taught to do when building their network. Sandy was fortunate to have a mother who both encouraged her to discuss her illness openly and not to see it as a defining factor in who she was and what she was capable of.

Sandy became equally comfortable describing both her limitations and her strengths. When she wanted to attend journalism school, for example, she walked into the office of the chairman of Ryerson University’s journalism program, sat down and explained to him that she had a serious mental illness, but that she very much wanted to be in the program. After listening to her story, he admitted her on the spot and later was instrumental in paving the way for her to work at the Toronto Sun.

We can all take a lesson from this when building our personal and business integrity, as well as strengthening our networks. In this day and age, where customers and employers are becoming increasingly suspicious of anything that sounds too good to be true, being honest and open about limitations builds trust.

I believe that it was Sandy’s acknowledgment of her weaknesses that helped to lay the foundation for her confidence in her strengths. In presenting herself as a whole person, rather than hiding her weaknesses, she learned that she was useful and valued just as she was.

The lesson for networking is this: building a strong network that will help you and your business to thrive is not only about promoting your strengths. In today’s economy it can also hinge on your willingness to be vulnerable. Vulnerability builds trust, the key to solid relationships in all areas of life and work – and to high-performing organizations.

This kind of authenticity also builds my confidence and trust in yourself. Seeing that others, with all of their imperfections, have succeeded, provides confidence that you can too.

If we would all have the courage to begin building our networks by presenting ourselves as whole people, with both strengths and weaknesses, it would go a long way to stem the rising tide of stress, depression and mental health issues in the workplace.

And so, between baby coddling sessions, I managed to tear myself away from our adorable new nephew long enough to join in their candid conversations about the lessons of Silicon Valley.

Having lived in Vancouver, my brother-in-law was passionate that Vancouver has all the critical ingredients to become a booming Silicon Valley itself – yet has not developed the spark to ignite the mix. Like the San Francisco Bay area, the Lower Mainland has great universities and colleges, is a great place to live, and has a thriving economy with sophisticated investors ready to go. In spite of this, the leadership and long-term thinking have not emerged to integrate these resources sufficiently to achieve the hotbed of technological business seen in Silicon Valley.

Ultimately, the key ideas that emerged from our discussions were relevant for businesses of all sizes to thrive. Here are the top three themes:

1) Blur the Lines

In Silicon Valley, Stanford University maintains close ties with the venture capital community and encourages research and development with practical business possibilities, spawning such companies as Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Google and Yahoo!. While the mentality is changing in Canadian institutions about the many benefits (for students, businesses and society) of such collaboration, in the past these links were often discouraged due to an academic purist view that considered research tainted if it was skewed towards business spinoffs.

While scandals in the pharmaceutical industry illustrate the importance of separating research from business interests to some extent, purists often lose sight of the fact that without business-funded research, much of the life we take for granted today would not exist. Rather than advocating all-or-nothing approaches, business, government and academic leaders need to become more comfortable with diving into the gray zone and, in so doing, leverage the highest benefit for the common good.

2) Compete – Together

In a global economy, larger businesses are conscious of the economic necessity of looking beyond their borders in a literal sense. Closer to home, however, small and mid-size businesses need to stop focusing solely on developing internal skills and expertise in order to become more competitive in their industry. They must learn to adopt a wider view and identify long-term strategic alliances by asking which other organizations have a complementary mission, vision, product or service and challenging themselves to think about collaborating to maximize the strengths of all concerned.

3) Be Willing to Fail

The final thing that stood out for me about Silicon Valley was that, while there are many successes, there are even more failures. My brother-in-law had numerous stories of friends and acquaintances on their second or third attempt at startups. In fact, stemming perhaps from a ‘debugging’ mentality shared amongst truly geek entrepreneurs, business failures were considered necessary steps towards success, creating learning to be implemented in the next version – Business 3.0, perhaps?

Entrepreneurial success is not just about good ideas getting adequate funding – it requires commitment, passion and ingenuity on the part of the entrepreneurs to follow through to success. Of course there are those “lucky” ones who were in the right place at the right time, but business success still comes from a unique vision combined with the courage to persist until the dream is realized. In the end, the main source of “financing” any dream is still the currency a person holds in his or her own heart.

Andrea Jacques

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While it is difficult to attach numbers to exactly how much these intangibles impact the bottom line, the evidence that they do can be seen in the fact that all too many businesses, once sold, fail to live up to the performance expectations anticipated prior to the sale. For this reason, many purchasers insist on the owner and other key staff staying on for anywhere from one to three years after the sale.

It can also – as in the case of a colleague of mine with a very successful consulting business – be what limits you from selling your business at all. Despite annual revenues of $1 million, he discovered that his clients were resistant to working with anyone but him as he began exploring selling his business to an associate.

The bottom line is that, whether or not you ever intend to sell your company, understanding and maximizing intangible assets is critical to building a business that is not dependent upon you or any other specific individual in it – the mark of a truly successful business.

An example of this are two good friends of mine, Lawrence and Lori-Ann Keenan, who run a very successful ESL school here in Vancouver. They began the business as a couple, doing almost all of the work – from teaching the classes to marketing the school and everything in between – themselves. After just 10 years, she now works only one day a week, and his involvement with the business is negligible, save for focusing on investing their profits.

What has allowed them to have such freedom is that they have created and continue to refine written systems for everything they do. The importance of creating systems is understood by most business owners, but generally they focus on creating bare-bones systems that reflect simply the “how to” rather than the “how we do it here.” What sets my friends’ business apart and allows their success to continue to grow despite less and less involvement from them are the systems they have developed for instilling a distinct culture and personality into the school.

The school is very much centred around Lori-Ann’s personality. Like her, it is high-energy and fun with a no-nonsense professionalism and a passion for excellence in customer service. An example of one of the systems that sustains this is a weekly high-energy graduation ceremony at which all students are present. This event involves plenty of clapping, singing and general fanfare. Back in the staff room there may be some rolling eyes in the anticipation of this weekly ritual, but once staff step into the limelight to play their part in the celebration, they find it hard not to be caught up in the simplicity and energy of the familiar routine.

Companies like Google have systematized a culture of innovation by requiring employees to spend 20 percent of their time on side projects not related to their daily work. West Jet systematizes fun with their pre-landing jokes – no matter how corny they may be. Nordstrom has systematized customer service excellence through rigorous and ongoing training programs on empowerment and customer service excellence. Southwest Airlines systematizes its culture by training all of its staff in “Living the Southwest Way,” by practicing the three characteristics of having a Warrior Spirit, a Servant’s Heart and a Fun-LUVing Attitude.

All of these are examples of how to build those intangibles into the core operating systems, principles and standards of your business. Not only will these types of systems make your business more attractive to potential buyers in the long run, they will make it more attractive to those employees who are best equipped to deliver on your brand promise, thus attracting and keeping loyal customers. Ultimately these intangibles are not only what drives a strong bottom line, but sustains it over the long term. They are, at the end of the day, where the true value of a business lies and what helps any business owner to realize the full value of the business they have built – whether they sell it or not.

-Andrea Jacques aka. Kyoseigirl

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Leadership participants were given a list of statements and asked to choose which ones excited or inspired them. Interestingly, many said they were inspired until they saw the organization the statement belonged to. One example was an international company whose purpose was “to give unlimited opportunity to women.” That statement was questioned because it came from a cosmetics manufacturer and the group perceived the beauty industry to run counter to creating better lives for women.

Clearly there is a large gap in many companies between their asserted brand promise and its actual fulfillment. But where does this begin and who is to blame? Is it the ad agencies pushing hype beyond true promise? Is it the company itself, ‘over-visioning’ and under-delivering? Or is it emblematic of a society overwhelmed by constant big company marketing bombardment? Do these messages mean anything anymore?

An abundance of marketing data has given companies the ability to become very sophisticated in hitting the hot buttons that entice customers to buy, yet these techniques backfire dramatically when the product or service doesn’t live up to the claims. Just as broken promises have led customers to become increasingly cynical about “marketing hype,” the disconnect between the claims organizations make to their own employees about being an “employer of choice,” and the degree to which these claims are actually fulfilled, is leading to increasing employee cynicism and turnover.

An example of this is the recent trend to tout “work-life balance” as a key value and principle. While I can think of several organizations that make this claim, few deliver as much as they promise. In one instance working with a client, I had to applaud the courage of one new employee in the HR department who stated she felt her department was one of the worst offenders in terms of not delivering on the work-life balance promise.

Marketing is conventionally thought of as being about building a brand and selling products to customers, but this view of marketing is incomplete. Marketing is about building trust both internally and externally.

As with building trust in real life, it is more a result of what you do than what you say. It is about integrity. Building trust with customers begins and ends with internal marketing – that is, the degree to which an organization not only communicates, but delivers on its “employee promise.” When a company makes false claims about a product or service or does not deliver on the promises it makes, then customers lose faith in the product and eventually the company. When employees experience this same loss of faith as a result of broken promises, a business is doomed. Employees who see that the organization does not value promise-keeping will be less inclined to worry about keeping promises themselves – both to customers and to the company.

A final thought, as purpose, mission and values statements are meant to be aspirational and call the organization to higher ground, no organization is ever perfect on delivering these promises. Fortunately, perfection is not required – just constant and authentic intent.

Take this leadership challenge:

Do you know what your organization’s promise is to your employees? If you can’t readily list the purpose, mission, and values of your organization, chances are high that you are not delivering on them as well as you could. What’s more, if you can’t list at least three regular practices, systems, or habits that demonstrate on a daily basis how these are being lived in your organization, there is plenty of room for growth.

Andrea Jacques – kyoseigirl

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