Kevin W. McCarthy

Dr. Wayne Andersen

What a wonderful experience to speak at the Take Shape For Life National Convention.   Here I am pictured with Dr. Wayne Andersen, co-founder of the this amazing division of Medifast, Inc.

In addition to giving the Saturday morning keynote address to the 800 plus in attendance, I signed books for another two and half hours.  It is always such an honor and privilege to sign books at events.  Many people are a bit embarrassed to ask for a signature.   With me, please don't be.   Think of it this way, what if someone were to walk up to you and ask for your autograph... you would be flattered.  I am too. 

One of the true joys....

Business Purpose - Noble or Not?

Ask the average person why a business exists (purpose) and the typical response is, "To make money or a profit."  That is a truthful, but incomplete and narrow view based solely on the economist's perspective.  Economics is but one science or discipline of study touching business and touched by business.  Unfortunately, this popular viewpoint often casts business in a negative manner - seeing the glass half empty.  In fact, business is so much more.

Business is also an institution of society and plays a specific role of service, continuity, scale, and sustainability.  It is through the profit motive that prices actually fall, not rise, and standards of products and services rise.  Business people seek competitive advantage most often on these two fronts.  Who wins?  It is the buyer in the marketplace who wins.

Business is also a free enterprise phenomenon so one must also see it in context of government.  Absent a free market economy supported by a government, the role of business is owned by the ruling power, be it communism or monarchy.   I'm proud to be a capitalist because I understand that capitalism and a free society are interdependent. 

Very simply, a business is an integration of economic, social, and political realities to name but three of the core disciplines at work.

As a huge advocate of the nobility and creativity of business, let's embrace a robust understanding of business rather than a one dimensional economic view only.  The On-Purpose Business perspective says a business exists to serve in both a social and economic role within the context of a government freeing individual pursuits with a system of checks and balances.

Here is a rather heady discussion from a You Tube video on the "nobility of business" from the World Economic Forum. It is nearly an hour long and has a rich panel discussion.  Enjoy! 

Please feel free to comment.

 

Networking

Networkers ask, "How can this person help me?"
TOP Performers ask, "How can I help this person?"

Purpose Redeems the Past, Part 2

Thelma was working with a woman named Shirley about a purpose and plan for her life using On-Purpose^® tools and methods.  In the course of the coaching, Thelma asked her client to write down her career aspirations.  Shirley refused to allow herself that luxury because her dreams were gone based on some choices she had made in years passed.  This inner city single mom of two children under ten years of age worked two jobs to just barely make ends meet.  She worked a clerical job during the day, went home to fix dinner for her kids in the evening, and then went to work as an orderly at a mental hospital at night.  This exhausting routine was her life.  There was no emotional margin for dreaming.

Thelma is a strong woman who as a single mom herself raised a son and a daughter.  She refused to take no for an answer from Shirley.  Finally Shirley relented under Thelma’s unwavering insistence.  Turns out that this woman was musically gifted.  She could read music, play any instrument, and dreamed of creating an inner city symphony orchestra for at-risk kids.  She would teach them to play instruments and what it meant to be a part of a musical ensemble.  This would be a way to a better life for those kids.

Purpose Redeems the Past, Part 1

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)

Do you feel like you’ve wasted away so much of your life that you’re now living with regrets?  Where have the days gone?  When did I detour from the dreams and designs of my life and get in a rut?  Have I become a person as Thoreau described – one who is living a life of “quiet desperation”?  Fear and doubt cloud judgment, belief, and confidence. 

Take heart!  Your purpose is an antidote that redeems the past, inspires the present, and directs your future.  What once appeared as a waste of days transforms into a season of preparation.   There’s a full harvest of past life and work lessons that are now readied for gathering.  In due season you plant seeds that bear fruit in the future born from the lessons of the past.

Purpose provides boldness and clarity.   Deliverance from past transgressions may be too hard for you to imagine.  Yet, time and again, miraculous turnarounds begin when the simple act of articulating your purpose takes place.

Gordie Allen, CEO of Leads Plus, Inc., of Killarney, Florida had three brothers scattered across the US.  Since their parents had died the sons drifted apart and seldom spoke to each other.  Gordie attended an On-Purpose^® Person workshop in 1994.  There he clarified his purpose and felt compelled to reconnect with his brothers. He devised a simple strategy.  Each Tuesday he would contact one of his brothers in order of birth.  So the first Tuesday he would contact his oldest brother, the second Tuesday his second oldest and so on.  Years would pass.  When Winston, his second oldest brother, died suddenly of a heart attack, Gordie was the only family member who could give a meaningful eulogy because through those years he had followed the routine.  Since the funeral the three remaining brothers have grown closer.

Business Strategy > Corporate Culture > Branding

Let's connect the dots today on three aspects of your business as mentioned in the title of this posting.  Over the years, I've been amazed at how compartmental I find these "functional areas" are in most businesses.  Let's break the code on the "functional areas" and put it in terms of people.

• Business Strategy is code for "Senior Management / Shareholders."
• Corporate Culture is code for "People" inside the business or "Administration, Operations, and Sales."
• Branding is code for "Customers" with experience with the company's service and products. 

Senior Management is responsible for writing business strategy plus creating and supporting a corporate culture to execute the strategy.  In turn, the customer experience is a direct result of the output of the corporate culture.  Alignment of all three "functions" isn't simply a matter of putting together gears in a wheel.  The physical stuff needs to happen for sure, but that's the easy part in reality.

Business is all about the people.  The true challenge is getting the people aligned, communicating, similarly motivated, and prepared to perform their jobs with excellence.  Unfortunately, I've watched a "Fake it 'til you make it" approach of branding ourselves into the appearance of alignment.  Marketing is asked to fix a world of sins within the company by portraying the company as something it isn't able to deliver.   This short-lived approach can actually produce results and fool the customers and team into believing they're something they aren't - successful.

Eventually, the hypocrisy emerges.  High integrity people realize the problem and attempt to fix it in their functional area of authority.  Unfortunately, the addiction to the quick fix has set in and so begins the battle between the long term thinkers and the short term performers. 

Who wins?  Nobody wins because the house is divided. 

Whose fault is it?  Senior management is ultimately to blame because they set the corporate culture in motion, they have the authority to fund and fix the necessary changes to bring integrity to the system.  This alignment pays dividends and makes the flywheel of success spin effortlessly and profitably.  If management hasn't done their job then the entire system underperforms.

Sadly, the battle is most often won by the short term, numbers people, who milk every penny out of the system that steadily kills the golden goose. A subtle, but significant series of departure begins.   The people with true integrity battle within their functional area for doing right.  Dependency on short term cash flow builds to such a degree that the situations become so desperate that the "only option" is the short term fix.  In time, the people taking the high integrity approach depart frustrated because they're unwilling to continually make and fail to keep promises to co-workers and customers.  As the people of low character "win," the company grows disreputable over time and falters.  Like rats on a ship who ate away at the very rigging that holds it together, the rats jump ship in droves to work their "magic" somewhere else.

So what's the solution?