Make A Job, Don't Take A Job: The Essence Of Enterprise

The world of work and business has changed radically. I’m writing this in a bar in Spitalfields East London which I have commandeered as my office for the morning. There’s loud music playing and I’m taking advantage of the wifi, running my business sprawled on a sofa. To those not familiar with this style of working, I may look like I’m at play. But I’m working; and this is how thousands of people work today. We have created our own micro businesses, monetising our talents, working for ourselves, running businesses our way.

This is Global Entrepreneurship Week, and when I think of business and enterprise, I don’t think about the office blocks of the City a stroll away from here, I don’t think about business tycoons on their private jets, I think about people like me, and you. Through the window I can see the red awnings of lines of market stalls at Old Spitalfields Market - to me, this is the perfect example of business at its most basic. A bunch of stall-holders have paid £10 for a table for the day. Some are selling handmade bags; others prints and photographs. Someone else is selling second hand books, another clothes and jewellery. They may not think of themselves as entrepreneurs but they are: they are selling their wares in the market. Some may fail, others will succeed.

What unites the coffee-shop entrepreneurs and the market traders is that we have all made jobs for ourselves: there is not a job description or appraisal form in sight. The theme of Global Entrepreneurship Week is ‘Make A Job, Don't Take A Job’ and that’s music to my ears. It’s what I’ve always done in my career, whether I’ve been self employed or not. Carving out a role that reflects my talents and desires, breaking the boundaries of a fixed job spec. I’ve always encouraged working for yourself; my first book is a guidebook for people taking the leap. You don’t need a bunch of qualifications or a business education to work for yourself, but you do need the right mindset;and it’s not for everyone. Working for yourself and setting up your own business is tough: there’s no switching off, it takes stacks of perseverance, commitment, energy and passion. So ‘Make A Job, Don't Take A Job’ is a good mantra for entrepreneurship so long as we recognise that not everyone has the self-belief and motivation to make their business idea happen. To help people believe in their ability we need to bust a few myths about business, taking it out of the boardroom, doing away with the jargon. And that market stall is a damn good place to start.

Step Away From The Desk: How To Get Those Big Ideas

There was a piece in the FT on Monday entitled ‘How To Be An Iconoclast’ that featured Gregory Berns, professor of neuroeconomics at Emory University and author of ‘Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How To Think Differently’. Berns says that if you are in the same environment with the same people every day, you’re unlikely to have radical ideas: “the easiest way to create new ideas and remix old ones is to put yourself in situations you’ve never been in before”.

I’ve banged on about this in many previous posts but it still amazes me when I see companies - big and small - task their people to come up with great ideas, and expect that to happen at their desks or in the office. It ‘aint gonna happen.

That’s why I use train rides and coffee shops to do my ‘big thinking’. It’s why I’m going to Paris next month to start writing my third book.

So if your business or organisation is looking to produce new thinking, send your people out to a coffee shop, for a walk in the park, a train ride to see a client. If you liberate people from the corporate baggage of flip charts, brainstorm sessions and agendas, you might find that’s when the ideas will flow.

Try it.

Lessons From A One Man Factory

I'm always keen on exploring non obvious places for stories that can inspire us in business. Before I met the musician Dave Stewart I did not see him as an obvious business role model but it’s clear his success as an entrepreneur provides lots of lessons in business. Dave describes his business as his very own ‘ideas factory’, and recently I spent an hour in the studio of another creative who turns raw materials into ideas: potter, Richard Baxter. Richard's an original sole trader; he’s never been on a payroll, instead monetising his talents to create pieces of pottery for nearly thirty years: “I’m going from a real raw material dug out of the ground ... through to totally finished material. I’m a one man industry”.


Here are five lessons from Richard's story for sole traders and micro entrepreneurs:

1. MOTIVATION. Richard told me he’s motivated by passion not money, and that has driven his success.
2. PUT THE HOURS IN. Malcolm Gladwell famously said you need to invest 10,000 hours to be good at something. Richard reckons he’s produced 90,000 thousand pieces of pottery over his career, which reminds us you can’t be an overnight expert.
3. MONETISE YOUR TALENTS. Richard’s story is a reminder of the real basics of what enterprise is all about. He takes raw materials (in this case clay) and turns them into functional pots and pieces of art that he makes a living from. And it doesn’t get much more basic than that.
4. PLOUGH A NICHE. In order to get a reputation and stand out from the crowd, you need to plough a niche. As the first in his field to go online with a website, Richard has really benefited from the web, using it as a shop window to win high-profile commissions from clients like BBC TV and Stella McCartney.
5. BE MULTI-DIMENSIONAL. Richard’s talents do not stop by the pottery wheel. He’s also an accomplished musician, playing in two bands The Famous Potatoes and Arcadian Driftwood. He gigs, teaches and also helps organise a local art festival. His work life is a reflection of his multi-dimensional talents and passions.

Here’s a brief video excerpt of me talking with Richard:

A Lesson In Embracing Change

We often hear people don’t have a natural ability to deal with change, and that’s cited as an obstacle to implementing organisational change.
But I know someone who’s recently embraced radical organisational change with no fear or complaint.
He went from being a part-time member of a 15-person team to being in a team of 30 within an organisation of several hundred.
His hours have been extended significantly; he now has to leave the house much earlier and gets home much later.
He’s mixing with a totally new bunch of people, and has a lot of names to remember.
He’s now using technology every day, whereas before he didn’t have that much experience.
He has a new culture to embrace with its rules, quirks and requirements.
Apart from the fact that he’s knackered every day, he’s never complained once about this big change in his life. In fact, he loves it!
Have you guessed who it is? 
It’s my five year old son. He’s embraced the shift to full time education with no fear or grumbles. 
If only executives and workers could get in touch with their five year old selves, change might be a hell of a lot easier.

Changing speed and shifting gears in portfolio working

In ‘Juggle!’ I talk about the need to be adept at shifting gears in multi-dimensional work lives. That seems more common than ever. Martha Lane Fox wrote in the FT Diary at the weekend: “The portfolio life is generally fantastic but occasionally I find the range of meetings surreal. One day this week started in the Cabinet Office in my role as Digital Champion, talking about my review of government websites, and then moved quickly into the world of karaoke and Lucky Voice, the karaoke company I cofounded and now chair.”

That mirrors my own experience; days that range from a meeting in a coffee shop off Southend High St to the rather different surroundings of the Groucho Club; from a chat with a small business on a trading estate in Essex to a conference call with the States.

Simon Kuper wrote a piece recently in the Weekend FT magazine ‘Stuck in the rush hour of life’ (sign-in may be required) that introduces the notion of ‘changing speed’ alongside gear shifting. Simon talks about working couples replacing the sole male breadwinner in a new extended career trend that matches the modern life-course: “In the new career, these dual earners will work for 45 years, during which time they will periodically change speeds. They can start in the fast lane, working full-time until they have kids. Then many men as well as women will want a spell in the slow lane, even if it means a pay cut”.

That concept of ‘changing speeds’ also resonates with my portfolio life. A typical week sees a couple of days of meetings in London, perhaps a day in another city, with a couple of days working from my home office/ a neighbourhood café sandwiched in between. On those more flexible days I can change speed to collect my two year old from pre-school, then shift – seamlessly – back to work. I call it ‘work/life integration’. The downside is the inevitable never-switching-off, forever checking the iPhone. The upside, the autonomy/the flexibility.

Whatever you label it, it’s clear that as more of us move to work/life integration, the distinction between the ‘professional’ and ‘personal’ sides of our lives are blurring (hat tip to Shane Mac who tweeted about the blurring of professional vs personal).

Soaking Up A Do Lecture To Get Things Done

Our in-boxes and twitter stream get bombarded with links to the latest must-watch video with promises to inspire or change your life. Inevitably - as The New York Times reported this week - we abandon said video after 60 seconds because we don't have the time or it's just not interesting enough. So it's hard to know what merits watching. Like everything else, I guess you just have to trust your instinct.

Last week, a meeting cancellation liberated my day. So when I saw that the Do Lectures had launched videos from their 2010 series of talks, I decided to pick one and invest the time - with no distractions - to watch. So I put the player on full screen, sat back, and with my Moleskine at my side soaked up my own experience of a Do Lecture.

And boy, was it a good investment; ironically all about managing time to get things done. I'd heard a lot about David Allen's book 'Getting Things Done' but hadn't got around to reading it; so it was great to hear David's story. This isn’t a philosophy about outsourcing your life or techniques in speed-reading. There's no gimmicks in sight. It's more powerful than that. It's about having the self awareness to have a strong sense of purpose, and be incredibly focused on what you do and why you do it. Since David and the DoLectures guys were good enough to share this with the world, let me share my personal takeaways:

1. GTD is not just about creating any space or time in your schedule; you need to create 'psychic space' where you're in the right mindset.
2. the importance of CONTROL: capture stuff that is not on cruise control , clarify what you need to do with it and write it down. David says 'your mind is for having ideas not holding them'.
3. the importance of PERSPECTIVE: know why you're here, know what your vision and goals look like and what you need to do to get there. 'If you know where you're going and what you're doing, efficiency and style are your only improvement opportunities'.
4. 'nail now' - get under control where you are now. Decide desired outcomes and actions required to get there.

'GTD is not about getting things done. It's about creating the space to follow the voice that's always been there'.

So watch the video below (or follow this link) and start getting things done. It's worth it.

Stop Chasing Numbers: Part 2

As a follow up to my post earlier in the week about connections on LinkedIn, yesterday The Financial Times published a letter from me on the subject. Check out the letter on FT.com here (sign-in may be required) or click on the image above to enlarge.