Three Basics an Entrepreneur must not forget .

There may be very many areas that an entrepreneur must be good at. However in my stint as a coach with entrepreneurs & business people , I have noticed that there are few areas where the successful one certainly do better than those which are not as much successful. So what are those areas ?

In my opinion, there are three areas & these can be called basics, which an entrepreneur must be aware of and work consciously building them in to his way of doing business.

1. Successful entrepreneurs understand that making money and profits are functions of business. They focus instead on identifying the purpose of business. Essentially they create a vision for their business organization. One entrepreneur whom I am coaching, after almost a year of assignment signed me again recently. This time while creating goals, he defined his vision as “Creating 100 entrepreneurs”. Research has shown that people work with you and stay with you longer when they know your purpose and buy into it. Imagine the motivation of the person who works with my client when he realizes that his principal / employer is interested in his success.

Perhaps entrepreneurs need to answer the question “What is the core purpose of my business?” Each Entrepreneur who grows and achieves success has clearly a defined purpose and if one has not achieved desired level and quality of success, perhaps need to ponder on whether the purpose was defined well, shared & lived.

2. Entrepreneurs need to answer a question “How much salary will you pay to a person who does the role I am doing in my business”. If the answer suggests an amount which is lower than what you earn and take home, there are very high chances that you are an employee in your own business. You have a “job in your business”.

Successful entrepreneurs by any standards are always working on their business and not in their business. Working on the business allows the entrepreneur to start building new businesses too.

3. Entrepreneurs are always busy. They are chasing things all the time. They are making things happen. Let us face it there is always the issue of work life balance an entrepreneur is challenged with. The defined purpose of business and working on business is the key to achieve a work life balance for an entrepreneur. In one of my coaching session on “time mastery “with a Founder/Entrepreneur, I asked “what is value of one hour in rupee terms”. He thought, calculated and stated a magnanimous amount.

Then I asked him “What all do you do in a day which fetches a value substantially lower than the amount you mentioned”. He smiled and understood but what he said later was interesting. He shared that by stopping doing those activities, he could easily save 2 hours each day. This time could either be put to “working on business” or pursuing some interests like walking in mornings, reading and learning to play musical instruments.

This client did few simple things; Hired a secretary – This saved him tons of time as the secretary would screen and redirect unconnected calls to other employees, saved him time in managing logistics of travel.

Peter Drucker says “We all tell leaders to start doing new things of things differently but we never tell them to stop doing certain things”

Please write down 10 things that you will either stop doing completely and / or delegate to others. The trick is to understand value creation out of your time and if it does not it must be stopped or at best delegated. These things will help you save at least 1-2 hours each day, could be more. Imagine value of this time. Go out now and do what you wish to do but never got down to doing it.

Remember when things go wrong, it is said, go back to basics. Ironically basics are what we forget easily and soon.

So let us begin with writing down the purpose of your business.

How would rate your satisfaction with this session?

At the end of session, when I seek feedback as a coach, I request for feedback with the question, how would you rate your satisfaction with this session on a scale of 1 to 10?

The client said 11. The rating said it all but client went ahead and said “I wanted to postpone the session as I felt that I have not accomplished actions that I had agreed to do & wanted more time. But then I thought of not postponing it & that decision was one of my best in last week”.

Client generally looks forward to sessions with their coaches for a host of reasons. Coaches are sounding board, confidantes trusted fully by clients to share their innermost fears without the risk of being judged. Clients feel surprised on being appreciated and acknowledged for seemingly perceived negatives. It encourages them to deep dive and share as they do not fear ridicule instead expect good listening, empathy & facilitation. The journey of coaching is transformational in many ways. Having recognized own beliefs and assumptions , understanding own values and behaviors in various coaching conversations leave a lasting impact & therefore enrich the client in a life changing way.

What have been your new insights in today’s session?  

Another question which made the client reflects & say “I realized I need to be challenged more. Today I felt every uncomfortable with the initial questions, almost challenged. It slowly dawned on me while reflecting and responding that these difficult questions only would make me think, act & stay focused. Now I am confident & clear”.

Coach facilitates new thinking in their clients around the challenges and concerns that they may have. Facilitating positive change through improved thinking is perhaps the definition of coaching & coaches could adapt various styles based on client’s preferences & style ranging from collaborative to challenging.

It is not just for above two examples of questions and client’s responses that the coaching is considered valuable by those who experience it. The experience transforms most; their thinking and they become more successful than what they were before the coaching.

How do you rate this blog on a scale of 1-10 in terms of giving a glimpse and idea of what coaches do & what coaching can do?

If your response is less than 7, please drop in a line to share what would you like to know more or specifically about. You may write here or send me a mail at deepak.sawhney1@hotmail.com . 

Thank you for the feedback.

Leaders are like Ducks!

 What is common, yet unique, among Jack Welch, Sachin Tendulkar & Google’s Schmidt?

They all are very successful

They are role models for their people and generation

They are inspirational

& you can add many more here

The one that is not likely to be added or noted is that they all have had “Coaches”

What?

Yes, they have engaged coaches.

Why would they do that?

The probability of leaders to reflect and see what behavioral changes needs to be improved upon, is not very high. Their success is measured by results & outcomes. There is no measurement of what could have been achieved by them with changes to their behaviors at work. You can’t fault them; they have been a success for so long that they start believing they have the mantra and recipe.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith in his iconic book “What got you here won’t get you there” shares twenty one habits that could hold you back from reaching the successes that you ought to. If I were to share that “Goal Orientation” behaviors could be stopping the leaders from achieving higher successes, lot of eye brows would be raised.

To be successful leaders go out & seek feedback on their behaviors. They then go out and work diligently on building new behaviors which they believe will propel the team and organization to different levels. We all know that it is quite challenging to change behaviors, not until you have feedback. So when was the last time, one has identified a behavior, which is limiting the impact or results. Even if identified how many have gone ahead and successfully changed or improved that behavior.

Feedback is just the beginning, one also needs support to break out of those habits and acquire new. This phase is daunting & challenging.  Well in case of sportsmen, beginners to icons, they have coaches till they retire. So when they face challenges at their game, they go to their coaches who work with them. The coach then observes his player in practice sessions, helping bring the desired changes. The player then moves back to playing more confident of his abilities.

When we see a MS Dhoni, a Roger Federer or Messi playing like a true artist, we do not get to know & see the time spent in practicing just to be able to stay at the top of their game. These sportsmen are akin to Ducks, a smooth performance on ground while under that cool demeanor on ground they have worked hard in practice & net sessions.

Akin to the sportsmen are leaders who need support to stay at the top of their games, consistently. They are working furiously under, like a duck, maintaining a cool and easy demeanor on top. Well interestingly some of the iconic leaders have had a coach in their professional life. In the book Dr. Marshall Goldsmith shares stories of his coaching MD, CEOs of Multi- Billion Dollar global enterprises. These leaders have worked hard on themselves, seeking help from coaches , have led admirably & attained newer heights of success for their organization, yet very few knew that they have had the support from a coach.

So the next time you are inspired & motivated meeting a leader, do ask him “Are you a duck”. If he does not understand, smile and explain. You would see him smiling back.