Small Business Odyssey – Page 3 – Real world advice and tips for small business marketing

March 2, 2012

Eckhart Tolle Talks to Google: Technology and Consciousness

Bradley Horowitz interviewed Eckhart Tolle at Google and discovered Tolle’s views on technology and consciousness. The interview in front of Google staff is available on YouTube or can be played directly from this blog (90 minutes – 60 minutes interview and 30 minutes Q & A).

It would be a bit of a stretch to call it an ‘interview’ – for example, Horowitz asked Tolle, “What is Wisdom?’ and 20 minutes later was able to ask another question.

The responses from Eckhart Tolle to a limited number of interview questions were both profound and practical. He started off by extolling the openness and transparency of the Google work environment and its conduciveness to creativity. However, he had a warning, ‘We are in danger of losing ourselves in technology’.

Eckhart Tolle’s Question: Are you losing yourself in technology?

A key point that Eckhart Tolle makes in the interview is that you are constantly bombarded by information and get sucked into the endless stream of new knowledge. The consequence, he suggests, is that you can lose yourself in technology. He argues that you end up living in your mind and not in your consciousness which fundamentally determines who you are. So if you are not connected to your real self, you can become confused, over-powered and disorientated by more and more information.

Tolle advances the idea that living in your mind all the time creates a number of core issues. You become preoccupied with problems and with the future or the past – you are not in the present. He maintains that it is only in the Power of the Now (the present moment) that you become truly creative. Being in the moment taps into your consciousness and your creative existence. It ultimately contributes to your productivity because you are able to better use your time.

Eckhart Tolle: The return to consciousness

Tolle suggests that you can stop yourself even for a minute or two (or 30 seconds) to tap into the present moment. You can do this on a number of levels:

your sensory perception – seeing and feeling your surroundings and the energy embedded in the objects in your environment
your inner body – getting in touch with your own body and inner sensations (e.g. how you feel in the moment)
your consciousness – the essential you.

Tolle offers a number of simple ways to access this consciousness and your essential self. He proposes a number of simple steps that you can take to still your mind and get in touch with your consciousness:

fix your gaze on something natural, e.g. a plant, the sky, the trees outside your window
look at some image on your computer screen that you have added to serve as a meditation reminder or catalyst
be conscious of your in-breath and your out-breath for a moment – conscious breathing.

He maintains that if you practise being in the moment often enough you will attain a new level of consciousness, increased creativity and a better quality of life – you will actually live, not just think. The other key benefit that Eckhart Tolle offers is that your problems will fall away because you will have new insights and perspectives that will help to dissolve your issues.

It is intriguing to watch Eckhart Tolle talk to managers and staff at Google (the epitomy of technology), about the dangers of technology and the need for a return to consciousness to maintain the quality of our human lives.

February 21, 2012February 21, 2012

Force Field Analysis: A Strategic Approach to Goal Planning

Force Field Analysis is one of many goal planning techniques that you can use as a small business owner or online marketer.

Often you will find that your approach to goal planning and goal achievement proves to be inadequate or incomplete (the evidence lies in the fact that you may not achieve your goals). The beauty of Force Field Analysis for goal planning is that it offers a strategic way to approach your goals. It is easy to use, but incredibly powerful. It can give you new insights into what is getting in the road of your goals, including lack of awareness of your strengths and the inability to capitalise on them. It will also help you identify the things that you need to work on and strategies you need to employ to achieve your goals.

I’ve used this approach, as an organizational consultant, since the early 1980’s with small business owners, managers in organisations (public and private sectors), university faculties and doctoral/masters students. I have also used Force Field Analysis with colleagues in action learning groups as we planned our career transitions.

[Image credit: Goal by Sean MacEntee]

How to use Force Field Analysis for goal planning

Force Field Analysis was first used by Kurt Lewin in 1946 when he was working with minority social groups. What struck him was how people were becoming stuck in their disadvantaged position in society. He needed a way to help them move beyond where they were now – to achieve their life goals.

Lewin was acutely aware that many things conspired to maintain the status quo. He realized that what gave effect to the current situation for these people was a group of hindering and helping forces that created the current equilibrium represented by the status quo. He recognized that if you analyzed these forces and put in place strategies to address them, you could change the equilibrium and move towards your goal. Hence the name, Force Field Analysis – analysis of the helping and hindering forces within a particular arena (field). Lewin was able to create major social change by using this method with people who were suffering social disadvantage.

So it is with any goal you wish to pursue, whether expanding your small business, developing your small business marketing online or improving personal productivity. Once you identify what is helping you move towards your goal (helping forces) and what is hindering you (hindering forces), you can plan concrete strategies to address these forces.

Specifically, you can work out ways to strengthen the helping forces and weaken the hindering forces – thus changing the equilibrium of the current situation and enabling you to move towards your goal. It’s this two-way approach that creates the major shift. So it is not enough just to work on the hindering forces, you also need to strengthen the helping forces.

Force Field Analysis: An Example of Goal Planning

Let’s assume that you have set a goal, “To be effective in small business marketing online”. I have developed an example Force Field Analysis based on an imaginary set of forces (helping and hindering) that are impacting on your goal achievement. Ideally, you would do this analysis with at least one other person, but you can definitely do it by yourself.

So what you have here is the second rung of goal planning – you have a goal in mind and now you have to establish sub-goals and strategies to move forward. Force Field Analysis helps you to do this as illustrated in the example below:

FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS

GOAL: To be effective in small business marketing online

Hindering Forces	Helping Forces
1. lack of time	1. good brand recognition
2. lack of knowledge	2. motivated
3. don’t know where to start	3. have a good speaking voice
4. not a good writer	4. have friends who are good at small business marketing
5. have no presence on social networks	5. access to good online resources
6. don’t know how to create a WordPress blog	6. prepared to have a go

So now you have to decide which helping forces you will strengthen and which hindering forces you will work to reduce. So some options might be:

In relation to the helping forces, you might employ two or more of these strategies to strengthen the things that are working for you:

develop a podcast blog (to build on your speaking capability)
set clear, achievable milestones to maintain your motivation
use specialists in online branding to strengthen your brand online
talk to your friends about what works for them
study up on your online resources with a particular focus and goal in mind
join a small business online forum or group on one of the social networks.

To reduce the impact of hindering forces you might decide to do two or more of the following:

work on improving your productivity
use your online resources to build your knowledge (in a focused way)
purchase a resource that covers “small business marketing online”
outsource your writing
start with one social network that you are comfortable using, e.g. Squidoo or LinkedIn, and build from there
outsource the design of your WordPress blog to a web design service.

Force Field Analysis has many applications including evaluation of outcomes and processes. MindTools.com explains how to use Force Field Analysis for decision making and offers a free worksheet for using the tool.

Force Field Analysis offers a comprehensive approach to goal planning and has been proven over many years to help small business organisations and individuals achieve their goals.

February 20, 2012February 20, 2012

Is Indecision Crippling Your Productivity?

Indecision has a major impact on productivity – in fact, it can cripple your productivity. When you are undecided, your cannot focus or gain momentum in a particular direction. You spend all your energy on the decision process rather than taking action.

Have you experienced yourself ‘going around in circles’ – unable to decide which direction to move in? Or have you sat there at your table endlessly tapping your pencil (as in the image above) – and becoming agitated by the pain of the decision process? Indecision can not only detract from our positive energy, it can also create negative energy and lead to exhaustion and depression. The best antidote for depression is action – but indecision prevents us taking action and becoming productive.

[Photo credit: Tapping Pencil by Rennett Stowe]

Dealing with indecision to improve your productivity

Sometimes indecision is a result of too many opportunities. If you try to pursue every opportunity, you will dissipate your energy and achieve very little on any front – you need to grasp the nettle and make a decision. Until you do decide, your indecision will erode your energy and your productivity. You will spend all day ‘tapping pencils’.

It’s always hard to make that decision – you are torn between too many alternatives. Your emotions tell you one thing and your mind another. Deciding is about making a choice between alternatives – in the process you not only decide what you will do, but also what you will not do. This exclusion process is the hard part of decision making. Often, we really don’t decide – we say that we are going to do one thing and then continue to do the other thing in our ‘spare’ time. The net result is that our productivity suffers and we are unable to give the one important thing our full focus.

Making the decision – a process to improve productivity and overcome indecision

There are many decision making processes you can use and sites like MindTools offer great advice and tools for decision making. One of the decision making approaches that I have used recently (and found very useful) is the cost/benefit analysis approach.

Basically, you look at the likely benefits (upsides) and costs (downsides) for each option you are considering and evaluate the overall net value of each option. You need to decide then which option will give you the greatest net value (benefits over costs). It pays to do this process with someone else and talk through your analysis and decision dilemmas. Often another person can offer an alternative perspective and help you make your decision.

While ever you are stuck in indecision, you can’t move forward and your productivity will definitely suffer.

February 18, 2012February 18, 2012

Procrastination: The Enemy of Productivity

Procrastination can have many manifestations but ultimately it impacts heavily on your productivity. Some authors suggest that procrastination is putting off important tasks in favor of less important tasks or doing tasks you enjoy rather than tasks that will lead you to your goal.

There are many reasons why we procrastinate. In my personal productivity course I discuss fear of failure and fear of success as possible causes. In this blog post, I will look at procrastination in terms of pursuing our preferences, over doing what we should do in order to be productive.

[Image credit: Procrastination Flowchart by jean-louis zimmermann]

Procrastination: doing what you love rather than what will make you productive

One of the manifestations of your procrastination could be that you avoid the mundane, routine tasks that are necessary to realize and maintain your goals. If you are a creative-type person, you will find yourself spending time on creating new things – new websites, blog posts or other endeavors – at the expense of doing things that are necessary to move you closer to your goals – things that would enhance your productivity in terms of goal achievement.

Sometimes we can become productive in the wrong things – we can concentrate on the 80% of things that don’t lead directly to our goals and ignore the 20% of tasks that do. Yaro Starak describes this 8o/20 rule in the following terms:

… the important thing to understand is that in your life there are certain activities you do (your 20 percent) that account for the majority (your 80 percent) of your happiness and outputs.

If you focus only on the things that you enjoy, then you will avoid the things that are less exciting but that contribute more to your goals. In fact, one of the things that have been identified about successful people is that each day they do first the things that they don’t like doing but see as necessary for goal achievement (before they do the things they like). This daily discipline is a way they overcome procrastination to improve their productivity and achieve their goals in life.

So if you want to improve your personal productivity, it pays to look at the important tasks that you tend to avoid because they are routine or boring. Ask yourself how you could give them a new priority, instead of leaving them to last (when you invariably have no time to complete them).

It may be you are putting off social bookmarking, writing that important blog post, updating your browser or making simple (but important changes) to your website – all in favor of enjoying endless interactions on websites such as Facebook or Squidoo. Alternatively, you may be avoiding engaging on these social networks because you find logging in, reading and commenting boring tasks.

You really have to take a close look at your procrastination and determine what is going on for you, if you want to improve your productivity.

February 15, 2012

How to Overcome Writer’s Block to Improve Your Productivity

Writer’s block is the curse of all writers, whether writing online or offline. Even the great novelists report that at times they experienced writer’s block.

In an earlier blog post, I offered suggestions on how to achieve your daily blogging goal. That blog post on daily blogging focused mainly on creating productive habits and establishing a routine. But what happens if, despite your routine, you are lost for words on a particular day when you want to write? What if, despite your best efforts, no ideas come to mind?

Well, there are a couple of strategies that I use that you might find useful to help you overcome writer’s block and improve your productivity.

[Photo credit: Writer’s Block by orijinal]

Strategies to Overcome Writer’s Block

I have developed these strategies over time while writing both technical and popular articles and blog posts. They have really helped me overcome writer’s block.

1. Talk to the computer

This sounds a bit strange but it is a valuable technique. I learned this approach from a colleague when we were doing an Australia-wide research project on action learning. Whenever we got stuck for writing, he would go to the keyboard and start typing questions like:

What do I want to say here?
Who am I saying this to?
What’s the key message that I want to get across?
Why would I bother to write this?
What can the reader learn from what I am writing?

He would then progressively start to answer these questions as if they were questions asked of him by the computer. Invariably, we would have no trouble progressing once we responded to his questions on the computer.

2. Record yourself – create a podcast

Sometimes the act of writing is itself an impediment to what you want to say – you can’t find the right words to start. What I have done to overcome this particular writer’s block is to use an audio recorder, my smartphone or a program like Audacity or AudioBoo to record what I want to say. When you move to the auditory channel, your natural instincts to edit are turned off, so a natural speaking flow can occur. You can then type from the audio and play around with the grammar and structure. You could use the questions mentioned in (1) to get started. It is amazing how using a different communication channel can free up your ideas (and overcome innate fears that can cause writer’s block).

3. Speed writing

This is a real challenge to the perfectionist who may suffer from fear of failure or fear of success. It is a similar idea to the previous one but here you stick with writing as the primary task. However, instead of concerning yourself with structure, grammar, spelling or complete sentences, you just write any idea that comes into your head about the topic that is the focus of your attention. What you will find is that one idea will lead to another and you will find new ways to develop ideas mentioned earlier in your speed writing. It takes a bit of work to edit the writing, but at least you will have captured the ideas and linkages – you just need to structure them and edit your expression.

Speed writing can really free up writer’s block because it enables you to overcome your lifetime conditioning – having to proceed in a logical way and write perfect sentences. The speed writing approach stresses lateral thinking and randomness, and activates the right brain. Eventually, you need to activate your left brain to impose some order on what you have written. The speed writing process can really help you overcome writer’s block by tapping into a part of your brain (the right side) that you may not use on a regular basis (depending on your type of work).

4. Record a reflection

Yesterday I was lost for a topic, so I reflected on what helped me to become productive with my blogging. This led to my extended post on the how you can use focus to improve productivity. That blog post started out as some random ideas that I thought I could write 200 words on and it ended up as a 7 point article of more than 1,200 words. So even if you are slow to start writing, the very act of starting can loosen up your mind and capture the connections that are already resident there. In the case of the focus blog post, I ended up jotting down some key points that turned into the 7 reasons why focus helps to improve productivity.

This current post came about because I was experiencing writer’s block and was reflecting on how I had overcome it in the past – hence the focus of the article.

5. Don’t try for perfection every time

It’s better to write something, however short, rather than nothing. The more you write, the easier it gets. Not every blog post is going to be a ‘pillar article’. So it’s worth persisting and settling for something that may be good but not great. Action generates ideas and ideas build on each other.

If you want to be productive with your blogging, you need to explore strategies to overcome writer’s block – hopefully, my strategies will prove fruitful for you too.