Nicholas Bate

Easily-Made Mistakes in Business, 50

1. Taking notes but not listening. Then not reading the notes.
2. Failing to qualify (is there budget? who decides?) new business.
3. Craving certainty.
4. Believing we are limited by conclusions from Belbin, MBTI, StrengthFinder or any other handy diagnostic.
5. Thinking pizza and soda will boost productivity.
6. Not being your own customer and finding out what it is really like to try and order something, complain or even say thank you.
7. Creating slides which are great notes for us, the presenter but paralysingly boring visuals for the audience.
8. Thinking Steve McQueen had a leadership style. He was cool. He drove nice cars, fast. But he didn’t have a leadership style.
9. Forgetting to do marketing strategy not just marketing communication.
10. Cancelling training and development when times are tough.
11. Upping the sales forecast based solely upon a spreadsheet growth function.
12. Not giving feedback to a member of staff immediately, good or bad.
13. Forgetting that money alone is not a motivator. But people feeling really, truly deeply valued is.
14. Drinking bad coffee.
15. Driving when we could be walking.
16. Thinking we are too busy. Actually we lack focus.
17. Not asking for 360 degree feedback and seeking it 360 days of the year.
18. Stopping exercising. When it will give us exactly the life we seek. Energetic, impassioned, focused.
19. That time is measured by a timepiece. Time is measured by value delivered.
20. Failing to stop and think.
21. Using the wrong kinds of drugs. The right kind?
22. Believing a job title means anything.
23. Trying to please all customers. That long-tail of bizarre customers will bring down your business.
24. Thinking sleep is an option.
25. Not putting e-mail replies though a 4h incubator. Receive/draft reply/incubate/edit/send.
26. Hoping everybody will love you for your thinking. If your thinking is useful some will hate you for it. C'est La Vie.
27. Thinking a headache is a call for paracetamol. It’s a call to change something.
28. Failing to respond to e-mail promptly. But see 25 above.
29. Not understanding decision vs. action.  Decisions are stagnant: I have given up smoking. Actions have momentum: crushing the current packet.
30. Certainly not understanding explicit (let’s reduce debtor days by 25%) vs. implicit (let’s improve).
31. Diluting reach and/or brand by trying to do everything.
32. Not being different. Different is company x solution x you.
33. Thinking an MBA is the end. Actually it is just the start of realising there is a science to business. And it does work. And social media is just 2.3% of that science.
34. Thinking meetings and e-mail are free. They are not.
35. Not reading to simply be better than you were last week.
36. Using lifts/elevators when by taking the stairs you raise your heart rate which helps you cope with the next meeting.
37. Using it’s when we mean its. And vice versa.
38. Allowing the business to become a country club with lounges, Italian coffee machines and lunch-time yoga when it needs to be a base camp with a planning room, check-lists and focused, passionate individuals poised for the assault.
39. Staying sort of OK. Yeah, sort of. Right. When excellent is just a decision away.
40. Not using the first quiet hours of the day for thinking.
41. Selling using discount.
42. Failing to leave some days blank. 
43. Chasing work life/balance. Chase a job you love. Talk to your family. The issue disappears.
44. Getting annoyed at airports. Airports are a free anger management workshop without the PPT slide deck. Yes sir, you do have to take your shoes off one more time.
45. Deferring the enjoyment of life to holidays and/or retirement.
46. Melodrama or dramatising trivia.
47. Failing to chase money when the due date on the invoice has passed.
48. Not growing up and realising we write the novel called Life.
49. Staying late when your kids want, need and love your bed-time stories.
50. Thinking that vibrating phone needs to be answered now, right this minute.

More detail in Instant MBA.

 

Always Helpful, 124

Behind every spreadsheet is a beautiful real world.

Beyond every PPT deck is a language which make sense.

 

Always Helpful, 123

Get the basics correct.

Of tennis, of presenting, of cooking.

All else will follow.

Pensieri

Pensieri

A collection of popular posts. Free.
In handy PDF format.

Download Pensieri 

A collection of popular posts. Free.
In handy PDF format.

Download Pensieri 

Friday Catch-Up, 35

1. 25 Mini Standards.
2. The Writing Primer.
3. Meet Molly is now out. A love story. A parable. A good read. ”This book is a must read. To be savoured.” And the sequel just out. Molly and Ben have settled into their island haven and are busy making friends and building a business. Their little coffee shop has become a local hub and Molly is a sought after source of help and advice for other business owners. But there are darker forces at work on peaceful Kasta, and soon Molly will need to call on all her resources to counter the threats the community faces.
   This sequel to ‘Meet Molly’ is an equally delightful read; romance and adventure and a cast of quirky characters in an idyllic setting. It is a story about love, friendship and community - a book to curl up with and forget everything else for a while.
4. How to Start your Very Own Business.
5. Instant Productivity.
6. Seven choices.
7. 22 Essentials.
8. How to Create your Home Office.
9. plus The Start Up Myths
10. Stay STRONG
11. Crazy Bold Experiments
12. Just say NO to PPT
13. The Marketing Primer.
14. You, Only Better, the book. 
15. Redundancy
16. Hunter-Gatherer 21C
17. Tackling Stress.
18. Manage that career
19. Be Bold 101
20. You still haven’t read Being The Best?! 
21. Things They Don’t Teach at Business School
22. the secrets of success
23. Life Tips 101
24. Zen & Art of Cubicle Freedom
25. Carnage At Kodak
26. The Very Best Drugs You Need
27. Billions of Light Years Away In Another Galaxy
28. 22 Routes To Your Non Fiction Book
29. Lists For The Life You Love
30. How To Lessen E-Mail Pain
31. Professionalism 101
32. 21 Ways to Improve your Zoom Conference Call.
33. Productivity Primer
34. 101, redux
35. The Basic Basics.

On Writing, 35

Accept that creating your novel means bringing a wild beast into the world.

It will need a lot of taming before you can reveal it to the world.

But it’ll be worth it, despite the scars for life. 

Go write. 

Sometimes 7

1. You get it wrong. Learn.
2. You are lost. Try a different map.
3. You are too fatigued. Rest deep and long.
4. You can't be heard. Be bolder.
5. You lack focus. Find stillness and meditate.
6. You need greater resource. Ask nicely and persistently.
7. It works. Take the time to celebrate. 

Always Helpful, 122

A good novel to escape awhile. 

Monday: The Keys to Freedom.

(1) know what freedom is for you and for the love of your life: have that discussion otherwise it's often a mutually misunderstood assumption (2) that's the first key to freedom (3) then decide to get really, really good at something; then you can charge for value rather than time (4) that means you gain time which is the second key to freedom (5) and the third key to freedom is understanding that when you get exceptionally good at something you tend to really enjoy doing it so work isn't-well-really work anymore (6) the fourth key to freedom is realising you do not need that much stuff after all, despite it seeming to be the basis of a global conspiracy; still you do not need to be a part of such a socially induced trance (5) we need a bit of stuff to be happy (6) but too much stuff makes us unhappy because we can lose it and thus become miserable and/or we have to work harder and harder to both look after it and get more fresh stuff (7) so key four is to chase quality of life rather than standard of living (8) key five to freedom is to realise that most-if not all-of what we want, is available to us now if we simply slow down and notice it. (9) Key five is thus don't defer good times. Don't think when. Nor one day. Think now. Build them in now: breaks, walks, conversation, home cooking, reading to the children, learning that skill, charity work, learning how to knit (10) key six is to note that people become free every day in an instant when they wake up and realise that the thing for the majority of us in this part of the world is that freedom is a decision not a goal, qualification nor purchase. A decision. And that's pretty damn cool. Thus key seven: make that decision. In this instant.

Always more in You, Only Better. 

Nearly twenty years old….

Still works….