Everything in life is a negotiation!

Resources to check:

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” — Admiral James Stockdale.

The Stockdale paradox is about stoicism! The Stockdale paradox takes its roots from Epictetus’ Enchiridion.

James Stockdale was a US Navy vice admiral and aviator. He was a prisoner of war for over 7 years in Vietnam. Stockdale was the most senior naval officer held captive in Hanoi, North Vietnam.

The book that saved his life was Epictetus’ “Enchiridion”. For 3 years non stop, Stockdale read Epictetus’ books. These books taught him the importance of autonomy and the freedom of his own mind. Something that no one could never be take away from him!

To Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control; we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline.

Stockdale Paradox in business:

On a higher level, and when it comes to business leadership and management, this duality helps to guard against disappointments that will hit you in the business world. Optimism may drive innovation, but that needs to be put in check to help ensure that you're still on this plane of reality and not bumbling naively into something that can't happen.

It's a great mechanism to keep yourself grounded, but also entertain the idea of being incredibly successful in whatever pursuit you're after.

The Stockdale Paradox can help out an organization assess a current situation and plan accordingly to tackle the challenges they come across. It enforces both the idea that you can be positive and believe you will overcome all difficulties while at the same time you are confronting the most brutal facts of your current situation. The latter is what turns people off, because it can be misconstrued as negative or overly pessimistic.

Epictetus - Wikipedia

Enchiridion of Epictetus - Wikipedia

James Stockdale - Wikipedia

Let's celebrate our last Friday of January with laughter! 50 episodes down & amazing news everywhere! Cheers to an amazing beginning of 2021! Let’s chill & laugh!

In general, optimists are best suited to lead entrepreneurial organizations. On our episode today we are going to review why both perspectives are valuable.

These natural traits motivate people to take action, different actions, but at least action.

A pessimist tends to focus on safety and security. A pessimist is your best ally because pessimists thrive on fixing errors. For this reason, pessimists can make good operational leaders but will never lead well!

An optimist prefers to think about how they and others can advance and grow. Optimists also have larger social networks, solve problems cooperatively, and are more likely to seek help in difficult situations. To energize an optimist, positive feedback is absolutely essential, because the optimist builds on incremental achievements and a sense of positive movement.

Choose optimists to lead growth activities in your family organization.

As a determined optimist, I do want to share one important finding from my 36 years of field research a.k.a life: Effective long-term planning and investment requires an optimistic approach, with contingency planning by pessimists, because things never go exactly as you want them to.

Level 5 leadership

“We have tons of level 5 around us, our problem is not an absence of level 5 in our societies, our problem is the absence of wisdom to put them in a position of responsibility and power!”

First “who” then "what"

“The direction of the bus is not really important. If we get the right people on the bus, the right people on the right seat and the wrong people off the bus, we’ll eventually figure out how to drive it to a great place! If you begin with “who” rather than “what”, you can easily adapt to a changing world! If you have the right people on the bus, the problem to motivate and manage people largely goes away!"

“There is no such thing as an incentive system, there is no such thing as a motivational compensation system, there is instead attraction and retention systems, to keep the self-motivated and self-disciplined people that will produce results because it is who they are!"

“Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems!”

Technology accelerators

"When used right, technology is a curator of momentum not a creator of momentum! You can not make good use of technology until you know which technology is relevant!"

"Business schools are bombarding people with the importance of technology that is completely wrong!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_to_Great

Our episode today is about Legacy & mental health!

Once you know what you want your legacy to be, you start living in the way you want to be remembered! It will allow you to start doing what matters, NOW. Knowing what you want your legacy to be will allow you to make better use of your time and other. It will influence your day-to-day decisions in a positive way! Gaining clarity on what you want your legacy to be can give your life meaning and purpose. It will enable you to allow the legacy that you’re building to determine how you show up in the world each day!

“For everything there is a season”, make sure to live them all!

The crucial decision is whether a family member or outsider would be the best choice to run your family business! 

Whichever type of CEO you ultimately choose, it’s a good idea to develop successor candidates who appreciate your culture, respect your strengths, and who are good at preserving key relationships. But they should also be able to move the organization away from activities and practices that are holding it back, toward those that can grow the assets of the company and revitalize it.

The Family Insider

Family Insiders are the traditional and preferred choices of successors in most family companies. They have the backing of the owners and bring to the job a deep understanding of the company. They understand how things get done in the company. Family Insiders often have difficulty changing the business model mainly because significant changes often require letting some loyal people go.

The Family Outsider

Family Outsiders who make good CEO candidates. These family members have the right values and they respect the strengths of the company but can be aggressive change agents.

The Non-Family Insider

These executives really understand the company’s internal systems and respect its culture. But Non-Family Insiders can have the same difficulty changing the company as Family Insiders.

The Non-Family Outsider

Non-Family Outsiders have the deep skills and experience needed to change and then grow the company while respecting the strengths and culture of the company. They have to get to know the family first! This is the only option that has never been involved with the family. 

Hermes: Hermès - Wikipedia

On our business episode this week we are going to review the 2020 Small Business Problems & Priorities by the National Federation of Independent Business.

Every 4 years, the Problems and Priorities Survey asks small business owners (members of the NFIB) to evaluate 75 issues on a scale of 1 (a critical problem) to 7 (not a problem). The issues are then ranked from top to bottom by their average score.

The cost of health insurance, labor, and taxes remain at the top of the latest 2020 survey. The data reflects small business owners’ views 4 years into one of the largest U.S. economic expansions. This year’s (2020) data was collected PRIOR to the Covid-19 health and economic situation. The survey was published in Feb/March 2020.

The “cost of health insurance” remains the number 1 problem for small businesses, unchanged since 1986.

“Locating qualified employees” moved up in importance from ranking 10th in 2016 to its current 2nd place ranking.

Tax-related issues continue to be a significant problem for small business owners, however, the percent finding them “critical” issues has declined since 2016, certainly due to the passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by President Donald Trump which amended the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

Our focus today is going to be on the 10 top issues:

Self-maintenance is taking care of your primal needs.

Self-care is all the ways we take care of ourselves beyond simply staying alive.

It's hard to shake things up without offending the family

Navigating complex relationships and understanding unwritten processes are among the many challenges of transitioning a family-owned business to the next generation.

Challenges lie in navigating complex family relationships, transitioning from first to second-generation ownership, understanding how unwritten processes & procedures work, dealing with problematic financial accounting, and facing the possibility of deteriorating service as the former boss pulls away.

Our Wednesday family this week is about change and shaking things for the better!