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Take a purposeful pause and improve your business

Posted Tuesday, May 15, 2012 by Ric Willmot
Last week I wrote in my Friday Redux that we need to Allow Time to Notice.

On the weekend at a friend’s barbeque afternoon, I was asked how I was able to continually generate ideas, thoughts, solutions and if it is hard to do. One person even commented that I must spend an inordinate amount of time on such matters.

Actually the opposite is true. We need to allow the Muse to whisper in our ear.

Doug King (the poet) said: “Learn to pause … or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you”.

What problem, issue or project are you working on that could benefit from a pause? Find your little piece of paradise, pull up a seat and admire the vista.

 

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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring

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Ric’s Friday Redux No.3: Allow time to notice

Posted Friday, May 11, 2012 by Ric Willmot

An architect designed and built a collection of office buildings surrounding a central green. When the construction was concluded, the landscape contractors asked where the sidewalk paths were to be laid.

“Just lay out and plant the grass solidly between all buildings.”

At the end of the first summer season the new lawn was tracked with trodden trails between the buildings. These trails twisted in easy curves and were sized appropriately according to the traffic flow.

In the autumn, the architect simply paved the trails. Not only did the trails have a design beauty, they responded directly to user-desires.

Sometimes we tend to force things in business without allowing time to notice what the environment is showing us.

Are there areas where you may be able to take your foot off the accelerator to not only admire the vista but recognise what it’s showing you? What are you forcing that you really don’t need to or shouldn’t?

Don’t force it, relax and wait to see what your customers are telling you about where they want to go.

 

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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring

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Ric’s Friday Redux No.2: 5 targets for management focus

Posted Friday, May 11, 2012 by Ric Willmot
Extraordinary business breakthroughs can be elicited by intelligent questions.
  1. Who and what are your targets? Do you have any unique targets of focus that share certain common characteristics?
  2. What do your targets need and want? What outcomes and results are they seeking?
  3. Where will you find these targeted buyers?
  4. Who or what influences your targeted buyers? What’s their ecosystem? — People or places that influence how they think, what they do, and how or what they buy?
  5. How do your targeted buyers want to engage with professionals like you? How do they like to interact that makes them most comfortable?

It is understood we all want answers; my challenge for you is to seek the best questions.

 

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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring


 

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Ric's Friday Redux: 5 Keys to power your business

Posted Monday, August 15, 2011 by Ric Willmot
Power your business to better results with Ric Willmot’s Five Keys:

1. Keep raising the bar – be innovative, focus on growth rather than cost-cutting or problem fixes, and expect more of yourself and those in your employ.

2. Always work towards results and outcomes – being busy doesn’t make you good, producing results does; means are less important than ends.

3. Empowering people is positive – power does not corrupt but powerlessness creates bureaucracy and roadblocks to positive productivity.

4. People believe what they see – influence is more likely through being an exemplar more than hanging motivational quotes on the walls.

5. Perception informs your reality – your perceptions may not necessarily be fact but they do inform your sense of what is real … to you. Walk in the other person’s shoes to get a sense of what may appear real to them.




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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring