How to create a peak performance business - Part 1 SWITCH ON

Over the next 8 blog entries I will describe the GREAT 8 activities in creating a peak performance business.

SWITCH ON

Switch on to your people, your business, your market and your industry better than anyone else. Switching on means putting important knowledge front of mind, it means becoming a student of the game.  The things you need to know about, and what you need to know about them, are always right in front of your face – you just don’t see them until you switch on.  Here is an analogy for you: when you want to buy a new car and you know what you want, you actually start to see plenty of those cars on the roads. They were always there but now you see them because you are switched on.

Switching on takes practice.  It requires you to keep a journal with you at all times so you can make notes about your observations and the ideas that come from them.  Once a month also write notes about each of your staff or team so you create an on-going commentary for yourself about these important people who make your business tick. You can revisit these notes at performance review times and when coaching your team.

Read the newspaper about the economy, your market and your industry.  Read your industry magazines and websites.  Learn everything you can so you are switched on to how to do business better than before. Write important things down in your journal.

The key thing to understand about switching on is that you should  never try to switch off – it is mentally impossible.  You can only switch on to the next thing.  When you go home from work you will not be able to switch work off, but you will be able to switch on to your home, your children, your sport or community activities. As you switch on to one activity, everything else takes a rest.  

www.peakperformanceguru.com

Leverage an ancient business tool.

I recently checked out an article regarding ancient Greek laughter -I have no idea why - perhaps I was just intrigued by the joke that was on offer. I was more intrigued that somebody a few thousand years ago wrote a joke book in Greece and had it published. A Greek comedian called Laupheis Histeriopolous was the first comedian of note to be recognised as the founder of comedy or laughter as a form of formal entertainment in ancient Greece.

The story goes that he used to observe what was going on in his local community and then mimic things and turn them into something funny. While the ancient Greeks were incredibly civilised they lacked laughter and humour. Histeriopolous became the ancient version of Robin Williams or Chris Rock and took great delight in taking the absolute mickey out of Greek society.

From what I have read I believe he accumulated quite a lot of wealth and was actually sponsored by a Greek nobleman called Givitonomy. Givitonomy literally gave away money to people in need and then learned that he could give money to people and get back in return quite a lot of recognition, which meant he could make more money to give away. So the early version of sponsorship was created and by all accounts it was very profitable.

Histeriopolous used to promote Givitonomies business. Givitonomy was is the business of teaching farmers and herdsman how to better manage their herds -and eventually branched out into all forms of agriculture. He would be paid mostly in goods, of which he would keep what he needed and sell the rest to other people. Because of Givitonomies advice the farmers looked after their farms better, grew more and harvested more and so Givitonomy became quite famous(and rich) and gathered more clients. This is where it all gets quite interesting; because his business grew, he had to employ and teach others to do the same job as him and it is recorded that one of Givitnomies employees was a man called Consultiopolous who went on to establish his own teaching school and so the word consultant was born into business language.

It just keeps getting better because Consultiopolous thought a better way to do business was to get others to do it and he would have a share in their business - basically the equivalent of a modern day franchise. While the word franchise was not used in ancient Greece - Consultiopolous first franchise holder was a man called Levaria who was very successful with his franchise. Consultiopolous told new franchise holders that they to could teach and earn money 'Levaria's Way' - or by what we now refer to as Leverage.

So a chain of events 2-3000 years ago was the set up for a modern business language, a chain of events set in motion by a man called Laupheis Histeriopolous who got some financial help from a Greek entrpreneur.

Fact or Fiction???