Thank God for the ATO

On the big screen adaptation of life as business we can see the series and episode catalogues and marvel at the storyline so far. The labyrinthine spiritual journey to the centre of self, the Architecture of accountability structure, the mythic struggle for Global advocacy viewed through the latest cause, the large loyal loving loud family, the political party ambitious and hungry for power and influence, the epicentre of thriving commerce, the hip funky rebellious lifestyle choice, the alchemy of financial manifestation, the library of the Guru, the Heroes Journey Call to Adventure and the never ending quest for cultural revolution. For the past almost 20 years, 80 people with “history” have walked through the halls of my company and during their time with us have identified one part of themselves through these narrative dynamics. Seeking to voice a character while reliving plots either from memory or fantasy, every single person has left an imprint.

These storylines listed above, have been both “motivation” and “inspiration” for myself and my business partner to create, forge, build and maintain this enterprise. We each have our own histories and experiences and made a commitment to achieve a certain end result therefore crafting an initial purpose for the business to exist that lay beyond our own personal stories. Obviously we both had agendas that we sought to pursue and as an observer looking back elements of our personal journeys have been manifest through this business. However at the end of the day, the financial reality and legal obligations involved in compliance and accountability – the foundation for every business – served a key external force driving the company towards its Purpose. In many ways the Tax Department is like the Universe, systematic, structured and seeking balance like the laws of Nature. For many enterprises, until they can see their “own” Universal story, the Tax Department provides an external foundation for a Company Purpose.

This can works in the short term, then after a while questions are asked “Why am I working for the Tax Department? Why am I working for my employees? What am I really doing here? What is it that I want to achieve in this business that is deeper than simply abiding by external rules?”

Typically, questions of this nature can terminate a business or simply forge a deeper foundation purpose. Both actions serve. A personal storyline will include variables that seek to create a structure designed specifically to support each quest – motivated AND inspired – modus – action - external AND inspirare – to breath - internal. The investment of everything we value will always return dividends. It is up to us to value and identify the form.

While finalising details with the team on a particular project yesterday, I observed the emergence of a character I haven’t witnessed for a while – that of the poor struggling artist. Three of my employees were complaining about how tough it is for performers, entertainers, artists and musicians and that we responsible for the advocacy of a just and fair system to enable them to express their art and be handsomely rewarded for it financially and I suddenly saw how their jobs served this perspective and where the gap between the benchmarks and their actual performance was directly connected to this belief and agenda.

Light Bulb moment!

Over the years, I’ve encountered this character in the faces of a variety of actors written into several episodes in numerous guest appearances of this series I call the "story of my business". Focused and centred on their few lines with zeal and passion, their every encounter is charged with a dragon-seeking quest. Motivated to identify an external force responsible for their struggle, they never seem to reach a pinnacle of personal achievement balanced by an internal inspiration. Their greatest value is attributed outside of themselves limiting their ability to convert that incredible focus and zeal to real time self value manifested in financial reward.

As long as sympathy is accorded to the “poor struggling artist” the Music Industry will itself struggle to achieve real time financial wealth. This could very well be said about every Industry – not just Creative Artistic like Art, Dance, Literature but every business every industry every craftsman. What we craft – what we create is a value driven by what we identify with.

Looking at the above storylines, I can clearly see myself on the "never ending quest for cultural revolution" and can easily identify with my three employees seeking justice for the "poor struggling artists of the world." I've taken up arms to fight the good fight on a number of issues.

All I can say is thank god for the ATO for in many ways, they have kept my business on purpose.

Inspiration or Motivation

I have owned and managed an Entertainment Agency for 18 years. Until this year I have focused all my energy on training, workshops, seminars, qualifications, personal and professional development programs, counselling, coaching and rewarding my team – always trying to find ways to motivate them to excel and shine and add value. For me it was an important investment - It cost our company a fortune with monthly awards, lunches, dinners, treats and gifts. I created a family culture – we celebrated birthdays and milestones with parties and games – each year setting the benchmark higher and higher. I’ve hired clowns, singing telegrams, waiters, dancers, jugglers, performers – you name it – we’ve done it. This impacted on my family life. I was often late home, working at night, missing meals, behind on housework with some weeks where I wouldn’t even see talk to my children as they were in bed when I arrived home.

Our team have been well known in the industry for its cohesion and congruency. I can see how much this has added to our bottom line as much as budget. We have held our market share longer than any other competitor in this industry – a rate of four to one actually – and in part, I would consider that our value of human resource has contributed to that. It also cost us four times more to maintain!

Working in this industry is challenging. We broker perception of talent and the currency is emotion and ego – a tough market! To compensate for the daily stress of stroking and sucking, I consciously worked to balance my team’s experience by keeping them happy and creating fun. I therefore created a fantasy to balance the nightmare. The truth was that both were merely perceptions. The industry is an industry – clients are clients – jobs are jobs.

Every 3 – 5 years, someone would leave and I would feel great resentment at all the wasted investment into their development yet when the next recruitment was finalised I continued to invest in their position and subsequently upgrade the value and become infatuated with this new recruit with the “Finally my training would develop this candidate as per my vision” expectation. :-)

This investment cost my time heavily and I was subsequently working longer hours to complete projects as I established an open door policy and placed the team’s needs before the needs of my own obligation to the company. One of my life values is that People are the Gold – so I can totally see the creation of this professional pattern in my business.

Earlier this year, my business partner and I took the team and their partners out to dinner as a special reward. Everyone was joking about how we were a family and I was their mother. Suddenly it hit me like a lightning bolt – Why was I here with strangers when my own children were at home without me. I saw that for the past 17 years, I had been working for my staff - I had been in their service – I was accountable to them more than they were accountable to me. My sole purpose had been to keep them motivated. My resentment level was out of control as it became painfully obvious that I was out of fair exchange in my own business and with myself.

The very next day, I moved the contents of my office back home and set myself up to work remotely. I made the choice to serve my company instead of my team and to be available for my own family instead of my staff. Since then, I have been able to complete projects, create new products and expand into new markets and networks and develop other service options – all because I have committed myself to serving my company. I’ve also been able to keep up with my household obligations much easier plus I save money on fuel by walking upstairs to my office instead of driving for one hour each day. I considered this new phase in my life as a win win and began to congratulate myself.

But as we know, nothing is missing, there are two sides to every story and where there is a yin there will be a yang. In the meantime, my team had lost their focus, there was little motivation, and benchmarks were not being met, unproductive, demanding, attention seeking and now major cost factors to the business.

Why? – it is all about the difference between Inspiration and Motivation.

Like all important words "inspiration" comes from the ancient Greeks. The oracle of Delphi would sit in front of a fissure in the earth and breath in (inspire) earth vapours and in a half-drugged state, make her decrees. Inspiration also comes from the Latin spirare means spirit or to infuse with an encouraging or exalting influence. It is the act of breathing in, and to animate, to stimulate by divinity. It is genius, an idea or a passion. Inspiration comes from the soul. Inspiration is internal.

Motivation, on the other hand, comes from a complex of words beginning with "mo." Motion, motor, momentum - they all denote physical action. Motivation comes from the ego and is forced upon us, or by us, from the outside. Motivation is an external response.

The bottom line is value – how you value yourself, how you value your service and how you can appreciate how your service adds value to you and to the company and vice versa. When you appreciate, you grow. When you love what you have, it becomes what you love. When you value yourself you are inspired. When you do not, you need motivation.

Many times for each of us, we all need motivation. We need someone to pat us on the back, give us feedback, give us guidelines, create structure and micro manage our role. When accountabilities are not met, we will find a ready excuse. This provides a balance. It is impossible to be inspired all the time. You can only ever expect 50% at the most. We might try to fool ourselves that we are inspired beings of light but it may be that tax bill lurking in the background that is motivating us to get that job or create that income opportunity.

I know that I didn’t value my own service to the company. I didn’t see my own value or appreciate the opportunity that these industry challenges presented me. Therefore, I created a dependency where my team needed external motivation to do their jobs. They were uninspired internally and were unable to add value to my company without my investment. This indirectly added value to me didn’t it? I can list hundreds of benefits for me because of this. I can also list hundreds of drawbacks for the very same action.

The difference between Inspiration and Motivation extends to energy expelled. To be motivated carries effluent energy. There is an agenda, a motive, a HAVE TO. Inspiration on the other hand comes from a place of certainty that doesn’t use much energy as it is deep solid and integrated in every cell. Inspiration is effortless and a LOVE TO. We will always conserve a balance of both. In a company, we will always need to allow for both.

So I now view my present experience with my team as a wonderful opportunity. They have the choice of developing skills, enjoying freedom, appreciating self accountability and creating strategies by working as internally inspired self starters or moving on and gaining benefits from being victims. Both actions are valid and perfectly natural.

Consider how you value yourself? How do you value your service? How do you value the company that pays your wages? How do you value the employees that work for your company? How do you value your vision? How do you appreciate the challenges? How do you appreciate the inspiration as well as the motivation?

There is nothing to change but endless opportunities to appreciate!

Upgrade of Business

There are two key ingredients to every business.

Number one: The Business Owner
Number two:The Customer.

Number one: The Business Owner
Businesses inevitably are an extension of the owner. My businesses are most definitely an extension of me. My voids drive my business enterprises.

A small business or a huge corporation, the culture is almost always dictated from the top down. This can positively or negatively affect all aspects of the company. My personal strengths and weaknesses are reflected in the strengths and weaknesses of my businesses.

Before I can upgrade my business interests, I need to look at myself.

What are my values?
Where are my strengths?
Where are my weaknesses?

Quality Questions getting to the very core of me will greatly determine these answers.

Number Two:The Customer.

They pay for the product or service.
Their $$ is the objective of the enterprise.
No business without them.

Seriously, it doesn’t matter what you sell - bands, words, apples or promises. To make the most of your business you will need to develop satisfied loyal quality customers.

Satisfied customers are those people who are happy with your products and services, but may not come back again and will still go to competitors depending on price and convenience.
Loyal customers keep coming back again and again because you have developed a relationship with them and they value the network and relationship.
Quality customers value your service and show it by paying for it on time.

Satisfied Loyal Quality Customers provide invaluable word of mouth referrals which are a cost effective marketing tool for your business.

To understand your customers, identify their values and voids by asking quality questions.

Continue to ask questions, never rest on your laurels, never be afraid to value yourself, your products and your services and value your customers by providing the best products and services possible for the price that is charged.

The upgrade of my business will be complete when there no longer IS a business to upgrade.