How can we make a better experiment?

Every time you are doing something new, it is an experiment. 

So, when this is true, the question should be: What will we learn from this?

Most of the time the outcome of an experiment has to be a quantitative outcome like a number of products sold, designed or developed. 

But actually when you are doing something new, the outcome should be: 
"What did we learn?"

Keep on experimenting, and by doing so, learning.

What is your company's purpose?

The purpose of a company needs to be outward looking. The day's of an inward purpose are over. More profit, more market share etc. does not work.

What do the customers really desire? What do they really need? What does this world really need?

And, the companies and businesspeople who are the most successful in this, are the ones who have clear and good core values themselves. And large ambitions. 

Try to ask yourself this question: " Who must we fearlessly become?"

What should we stop doing?

Do you ever ask yourself this question? It is an uncomfortable question.

Most of the time we ask ourselves what we should start doing. Immediately.

Most of the time we do stuff which takes a lot of energy and actually is not serving us, or the project we are working on. By starting something new next to that, it only becomes harder.

So, the saying: "kill your darlings" could be very fruitful to do. And hard also, because we do not like to kill our darlings. Because once they where THE new thing to do, the starters.

But by stop doing certain stuff, it also means you have more time to do the things you want to do. And maybe also something new.

Lack of passion is fatal.

In the newspaper I read that almost 60% of the people going to work actually do not want to go to their work. 

60% of these people have "external" drivers, mostly financial ones, like mortgage, holiday's, a new car or something else external as a driving force to go somewhere in the morning, while honestly they do not want to go there.

I was looking around on the highway to Amsterdam and counted 10 cars, off which 6 drivers did not want to be there according the article in the newspaper. (It would save us a lot of traffic jams was my first thought)

How is it possible one is spending all, or part of his or her professional life, going somewhere they do not really want to be. Driven by an externally force.

That is why, in the end, it goes wrong with so many organisations in this world. They are driven by 60% workers who do not want to be there. 

That's why a lack of passion is fatal. Find your one reason in life what makes you cry, die or fly, and go for it. In this one precious life you have. 

It will make your and our world a far better place.

Sustainability: something for hippies.

Still I meet them. People who think that sustainability and social business is something for hippies. People with high positions in companies.

With a serious and a little pityingly face they try to express that you are like an alien according to them. Because it is for them a little ridiculous that sustainability and social business and behaviour are main drivers in your life. And in your organisation. Because that is not what business, success and career is about according to them.

Strange. Because life is about social. And about sustaining. Keeping yourself and your surrounding in the best possible shape.

Actually: like hippies. Hippies posses a core belief revolving around the values of peace and love as being essential in an increasingly globalized society.

Which values and believes will bring us, and the planet we live on, much further and in a better shape and form, than the pityingly faced conservatives. 

Start with a great idea.

It sounds obvious. Simple. Start with a great idea. 

When you start with a great idea, you already won half the battle. 

The other half is to find the right market. For that you need to tell the story. Your story. To the people who matter. Do not make it bigger than it is, do not make it smaller than it is. The story. As it is.

My idea: better to whisper your story to the right people, instead of shouting it to everyone.

The marketing part: what is your great idea? Who are your audience? What is your story? Via which channels are you going to talk (whisper) to them?

Find the best people.

When you want to make a business successful, the team, the people. are essential. 

Flexible and innovative people, and most of the time, in the start of the business or a project, you want generalists in the team. Later on the specialists take over. 

But the main thing is that the people need to be excellent. Excellent in being human. And this is not a trick.

Because real people, honest and trustworthy people, will build up your business.

Always be transparent.

As an organisation this is a major important point. Every team, every employee should know about what is going on in the company. 

By facilitating full transparency they start living and breathing the company or project. By having access to all the information they know what is happening, and by far most important: what should happen. What they should make happen.

A honest working environment brings security. That they know, or can know, everything what is going on.

And, when there is bad news to share, it does not come as a shock. It also brings in responsibility of employees and possible taking initiative into their own hands.

Trust is a very important base for this. And, if you trust yourself, you should also trust your team.

Speaking at conferences and other non entrepreneurial stuff.

Speaking at conferences, writing blogs and keeping your Twitter timeline up to date, as well as your Facebook Page. A lot of people are (only) busy with that. 

But, unless you are Tom Peters or Seth Godin: These are not entrepreneurial actions. It is also being called creating background noise.

Tweets, speeches and blogs are not going to change the world. neither do Facebook posts. They might start something, awareness for example, but that's it. Or they might direct to action. But that is the max.

Action is what real entrepreneurs do. Real entrepreneurs stop talking about what they are doing or what they are going to do, and they DO it. 

Quoting Jerry Springer: "There are three types of people, those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those that ask 'what happened?'"

How entrepreneurial are you?

People do business with people.

Starting point of doing business are people. So the way business is done starts with people, persons, you and me.

This is an important acknowledgement. For me as a facilitator in Business University and Knowmads Business School Amsterdam, and also for business education in general. And all training and programs aimed to do more or better business.

No use to put students trough a program, model, spreadsheet, project planning tool or whatever. If the starting point is not human, trying to see the other, trying to take care of the business relationship you have or are building, all is useless.

Thank you Johanna Anna Laura Robert Kristin Leonard Neza Tom and Anastasia for your end presentations which showed a lot of you. 

And of how you will be and act in life. And in business.



I

I’m looking forward to it.

Are you looking forward to your day of work? 

When yes, when it is "hard to do" what you are going to do today, it has no meaning to you.  Hard work is easy to do when you like what you do.

If your daily work is becoming uninteresting, boring, hard to do, so is your life, and so are you.

Your daily work is filling a large percentage of your time in your life. A large part of your time here on earth. 

Do work which you want to do. What you dream of doing. To make the majority of your live interesting. By doing so you give yourself an injection. Every day.

The key? Find, and do work that means something to you. Or connect your work to a goal that has meaning.

Looking forward to it?

Individuals don't win. Teams do.

This is a saying most of the times used by managers of teams. 

And, it is true. Because no man is an island, and you are always surrounded by people. In your private situation, work, sports, school, university. In life.

So, if you want to win, and not only in the meaning of competition or sports, but make "profit" in your life about the things which move you, see if you can form a team. A team which is committed to make it happen. A team with members who want to make it happen, for themselves, and for the other. 

Or, as Al Pacino says it in Any Given Sunday" Either we heal, as a team, or we will crumble as individuals. The one who is willing to make that extra inch, to make that extra effort for his team-mate, that team will win".

Do you have the feeling that you belong to a team like that?

Organisations make a difference through people.

Sometimes people ask if it is OK to work with big corporations. Like we, at Knowmads Business School, work with clients like KLM, Achmea or T-Mobile. Or are talking with other big corporations like SHELL.

I always start with the idea that companies are made by and consist of people. People make it happen, not a ghost, a computer system or outer space creatures. 

And, organisations can make a difference through the people working there. Or not. So I always look at the people I am talking with, not the logo on the building, the brochure, the advertisement, website or the business card. And when you realize that it is a human being, sitting in front of you, with feelings, experiences, his or her own story, I want to hear their story.

Who is the person in front of me, why does he do what he does, how does he see his company, what does he want to do and to change and to make better, different, and how can we grow something together which makes us better. 

The together us, our common personal purpose we will find out together. Or not. And that is also OK. Based on a humanistic view. Not a website, a logo or a story in the newspaper. 

Personal. Because organisations are people. Persons.