leadership

Patience Is Not Standard Equipment On Entrepreneurs

November 5, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

One of the markers of American culture is the “sticker” on the window of a new car. This document reveals to shoppers a listing of standard equipment and options, plus, of course, the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, or MSRP.

But what if someone is shopping for an entrepreneur to work for? That may sound silly, but prospective employees increasingly do it all the time out here on Main Street. Yes, the money comes into play. But these days, it’s the list of “equipment.”

A prospective team member would be justified in expecting the list of entrepreneurial standard equipment to include characteristics like courage, creativity, perseverance, and adaptability. Innovative, creative, and visionary are other important line items. One of the newer expectations increasingly prominent here in the third decade of the 21st century is values. What are the values of this prospective entrepreneur/founder/employer? What do this business and its founder stand for?

But there’s one trait that’s historically not itemized on an entrepreneur’s standard equipment list: [Continue Reading]

The Quest For The Essence Of Entrepreneurship

October 29, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

Ever wonder what’s behind an entrepreneur’s decision to take a risk? There is a spectrum for this, with the calculation and reasoning of due diligence on one end, foolhardy on the other, and a variable called faith that lives in the middle.

We’ve all heard stories about the legendary entrepreneur’s hunch. But without some foundation of facts and reasoned assumptions supporting a financial projection, a hunch is the equivalent of a belt without loops. And everybody knows what you call trying to hold up pants with a belt that’s not connected to anything – foolhardy.

Still, that foundation you seek is challenged by the truth that the most important decisions are powered by their own urgency. The time will come – usually sooner than later – when an entrepreneur must take action without the benefit of all the answers; when the fog hasn’t yet lifted on your quest for clarity. And in that moment of not knowing, but going forward anyway, we find the quark of entrepreneurship, identified by the paradoxical twin emotions of apprehension and exhilaration.

These emotions presage possibility: [Continue Reading]

Implications of the Pandemic Workforce Diaspora on Corporate Culture

September 20, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

“Frankly, I’m amazed at how well we’re working right now. We’ve experienced zero drop in performance.”

That quote, and variations of it, came from several CEOs during the second half of 2020, in response to my question: “How have your teams performed so far during the lockdown?” These CEOs were guests on my weekday, syndicated radio program, “The Small Business Advocate Show.” In fact, they were so pleasantly surprised that one executive even asked rhetorically, “Tell me again why we’re spending $5million a year on office rent?”

For date context, that was the initial period when the marketplace was essentially locked down, and the workforce was sent home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Overnight, millions of workers across the globe started working remotely and, ready or not, subsequent teamwork, collaboration and meetings were conducted in the two-dimensional digital domain, like on a Zoom call.

Based on the answers to my question, it seemed that this emergency, once-in-a-career, global workplace disruption had revealed some previously unknown magical management formula [Continue Reading]

Awareness and Consciousness: The Secrets of Success of Highly Effective People

August 11, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

Ever wonder why some people are more effective than others? Life just seems to be easier for them, right?

The answer to this mystery is likely found in one of the most obvious traits that separate us from other members of the kingdom Animalia: humans are self-aware.

Human’s self-awareness looks like modesty, shame, empathy, fairness, greed, selfishness, selflessness, and ambition … just to name a few traits from our awareness inventory. But the most self-aware among us – those highly effective people – are informed by a bigger picture perspective regarding the impact of their behavior and actions on the world around them, especially with other humans.

As students of Newton’s 3rd Law – for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction – highly effective people are not surprised when and how the world reacts to them, because they’ve already role-played at least some level of that potential response in their minds. And members of this special cohort of effectiveness fashioned all this awareness into something that looks like a practice, a behavior, a skill, and/or a tool, but is called self-analysis. Intuitively named, self-analysis helps regulate future behavior for maximum effectiveness. More on self-analysis in a minute. [Continue Reading]

How a Small Business Is Like a Tour de France Team

July 12, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

If it’s July, one of the most amazing athletic competitions in the world is being staged. Since 1903, the Tour de France has been the pinnacle of professional bicycle races, and arguably the most grueling of all sporting competitions.

Contested over 23 days, with the 21 stages averaging more than 110 miles each, there are only two days of rest in the middle. These super-athletes from all over the world navigate diverse road conditions, rain, wind, heat, and legendary mountain ranges – no less than the Alps and Pyrenees – that God surely made for us to ski down, not pedal up.

If the sun’s coming up on Main Street, millions of small business owners also mount one of the most grueling competitions in the business world merely by opening up. Against all odds, they start, run and grow their operations in conditions few corporate America CEOs would be willing to face. But unlike the Tour de France, small business owners run their race every day of the year.

Combining my admiration for both of these types of super-humans, I’ve identified four required elements to successfully compete in the Tour de France or the marketplace. [Continue Reading]

America celebrates liberty and the world is the beneficiary

July 4, 2022 by Jim Blasingame

Seven score and nineteen years ago, in his inspired speech at the 1863 dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery, President Lincoln delivered these immortal words: “…our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Four score and seven years earlier, one of those “fathers,” an inspired Thomas Jefferson (with suggestions from no less an able editor than Ben Franklin), authored what is arguably the most momentous secular document in history. The second paragraph of America’s Declaration of Independence begins with this passionate passage: [Continue Reading]