Homeostasis was published in Edition 22 of the Inner Self Magazine. www.innerself.com.au

Ever had a massage first the first time in a few months and it really hurt? Your body has settled into a position where it held itself in a safe pattern for survival so it could control the pain by walking a different way, or hold your shoulder in another angle in homeostasis. It is only when massaged that you actually become aware and actually feel the pain.

This metabolic equilibrium, known as homeostasis, is maintained by complex biological mechanisms designed to minimise and offset disrupting changes to your physical body. Of course, without that massage, you would eventually feel excruciating pain resulting from the inevitable homeostatic imbalance thus providing you with feedback and information to make new choices and craft new behaviors to balance the health of your body. Pain provided feedback that drove you to that massage in the first place. Designed for survival, your body constantly adjusts its internal environment to maintain a stable equilibrium. Hence your blood clots in response to a cut, you shiver when you are cold, or sweat when you are hot to cool you down.

This intelligent seemingly automatic balancing act of homeostasis isn’t limited to our physiology. NASA scientist, James Lovelock, formulated the Gaia hypothesis in the 1960s, based on his research and observations of Earth’s systems which displayed cyclical behaviors consistently producing environmental conditions necessary for its survival in a constant state of homeostasis. Weather is one typical homeostatic response created by the cyclical behaviour of water specifically designed to keep the earth in balance. As with the body, extreme pain can be experienced for example when storms, floods and droughts express a planetary homeostatic imbalance thus providing humanity with feedback and information to make new choices and inspire new behaviors to equilibrate the health of our earth.

As with the body and the Earth, your business is a complex organism demonstrating the same
natural cycles and homeostatic behaviour. Every organisation began with someone’s story. A
perception of pain was the source behind the creation of your organisation – whether commercial, not for profit, company, partnership or sole trader. There is a story at the core of why your organization began and this story with its patterns, design and structure is the source of your homeostasis. There is organization and an order – cycles, behaviors and balance – and these produce conditions necessary for survival as a business.

As the Global Financial Crisis was marketed via the world media, small business belts were tightened as financial service companies closed their doors, banks regulated their lending rules, people began to save more and spend less driving the world’s economy with new consumer behaviors. Overnight, key businesses across the globe failed, while end user wealth declined resulting in extreme bottom line pain.

We humans truly don’t like to experience pain. While our bodies and our environment clearly
demonstrate the feedback functionality of pain, humanity perceives pain as unpleasant and
something to be avoided, fixed, cut out, anaesthetized and numbed. Yet pain provides the greatest source of feedback in every system. Consider how our perception of global financial challenges impacting on our markets, affecting the ebb and flow of customers and subsequently our bottom line actually highlighted the importance of our awareness of the inherent balance that exists in our business.

DAN SIMMONS in the book The Fall of Hyperion said “Pain … has a structure. It has a floor plan. It has designs more intricate than a chambered nautilus, features more baroque than the most buttressed Gothic cathedral…. it is a poem.” When the going gets tough the tough get creative and find new ways to attract a customer, new products and services and new markets to sell to. Innovation and Creativity is one form of homeostasis. Financial homeostasis, debt, maintains money in circulation for people to earn and spend. Consumers will always consume. What they consume depends on the greatest pain in their lives. We are all consumers and how we measure the metrics of our own stories impacts on our purchasing decisions. Get a massage OR buy a new pair of shoes? Join the gym OR buy the latest I Phone? Hire a new staff member OR buy new office furniture? $410 billion military budget OR build a space age stadium and make a bid for the 2020 Olympics? The metrics of why and where we spend our money as consumers is great feedback to use as marketers in our own businesses.

Start with your current reality of your business and see the beauty as well as the pain of it. Ask these questions. Where is the pain in your business? Where is the homeostasis? What is the core story in your business? Do you know your target market homeostasis? Do you know their story? What are their cyclical behaviors? What are their purchasing and investment cycles? What feedback do they regularly give you? Start with yourself as a consumer and evaluate your own behaviors and apply that to your own business. Value what you have now and value the metrics of the homeostasis inherent in your business.

Confucius said “The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.” Get to know the self-regulating mechanisms that preserve survival not only in your body or on your planet but in your business so that when you experience pain, you see it as an opportunity.

Author Bio:
Nichola Burton International Consultant for Branding, Business Planning, Personal Development, Human Behaviour Systems
PO Box 86, Sumner Park Qld 4074 Telephone: 07 3124 4051 +61414975201
www.pressingissues.com.au Email: nicki@pressingissues.com.au
Copyright 2010 ©

I was at a day spa last week. It was early in the morning and I was the only customer so far. The owner was working with me and became was very distracted by his staff who were chatting and giggling and playing in the absence of customers.

I asked him if he had a plan for no customers and he angrily replied: “Of course not. I expect customers all the time. Why would I plan for none?” I explained to him that holding an image in his head of 100% capacity custom will lead him to frustration. All of us in business subscribe to the same fantasy at times so he is definitely not alone. I mean, without a whopping big fantasy for inspiration, none of us would be in business in the first place right?

However, with a clear plan and simple easy steps to take and follow, that dream can be converted to a viable set of business goals that can be achieved and managed.

In business, as in life, there is an ebb and flow and seasons and cycles. There WILL be times when the phone will NOT ring and the shop WILL be empty. There will be times when equipment will break down or power or internet will be unavailable. There will be times when your team all get sick or worse still – YOU do.

John F Kennedy said: “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”

Create a schedule of activities for your staff for down time.

• This may be a time to clean out the store cupboard, desks, and staff kitchen or conference room.
• Catch up on filing; conduct an inventory for office stores or office files.
• Refresh Staff Training.
• Get on the phone and start marketing.
• Commence work on project development
• Get some research done for the proposals that you want to make to new customers

This list can be endless. Start with all the round tuits. You know – all those annoying little jobs that you never get around to. Start with them. Plan the time to sit down and make a long list of every possible activity that could be done when there are no customers.

That is the first step.

The next step is to ensure you have resources already set up for the staff to use in these activities.

• Ensure your Training Manuals are up to date and that you have one team member fully trained and able to take the rest of the team through the information.
• Have a marketing script ready to go with product and service lists, client activation database list and a campaign approach always on hand.
• Create a filing, storage and inventory map so that your staff know where everything needs to go.
• Establish a cleaning list and make sure you have all the equipment and cleaning detergents ready to go.

Someone has to be prepared for this in advance and that someone may be the office or store manager or the owner of the small business. This can be easily delegated and checked as part of your regular routine.

I know, when you are busy and stressed and exhausted, the last thing you want to do is MORE work.

Think of this as like making a commitment to yourself for a health and fitness regime. You recognise the need to feel a little healthier so you decide to join the gym and cut carbs and increase protein. As part of your new regime, you KNOW that you will fall off the wagon so you identify the possible circumstances when you are taken outside of your regular routine (going out to dinner, working late, travelling, sickness etc) and you consider and include the management of these circumstances into your health and fitness plan. So that when you get invited to cousin Julie’s wedding, you have a plan to stay on track.

Well, planning ahead in your business is exactly the same. By valuing your business enough to plan in advance, you can value your cost of staff by ensuring that they are productive regardless of the circumstance.

Planning for no customers becomes a critical aspect of your business planning activity.

Author Bio:
Nichola Burton International Consultant for Branding, Business Planning, Personal Development, Human Behaviour Systems
PO Box 86, Sumner Park Qld 4074 Telephone: 07 3124 4051 +61414975201
www.pressingissues.com.au Email: nicki@pressingissues.com.au
Copyright 2010 ©

Getting the Short Straw was published in Edition 20 of the Inner Self Magazine. www.innerself.com.au

Very successful, wealthy, high profile advertising guru and, up until this point, extremely fit and healthy, my client, let’s call him Jack, found himself in an emergency ward at 2am one morning last week suffering chest pains. What events took this energetic self made man to this potentially life threatening situation?

Back in September 2009, Jack’s small five man agency landed ten major publicity campaigns
scheduled for April and May delivery. Jack was busy dealing with normal day to day business and the contracts were put to one side until January. Jack had been in this business for a decade and could service these campaigns with his eyes closed. Talented with a natural instinct for marketing, Jack was a creative animal who never bothered with business planning. That was for suits and bean counters – not for a true artiste like Jack!

It wasn’t until one midnight after a month of consecutive 18 hour days, when his office manager was diagnosed with cancer and departed on extended sick leave, his sales manager resigned and his assistant left for her honeymoon that Jack looked at his exploding IN BOX and gasped.

Now at this point, he could have easily called an employment agency to organize temporary staff. However he did not. You see, Jack trained people himself and held no value for training manuals or work procedures. That took him away from doing what he loved best. This team had been with him since day one – quite a record in the advertising industry. Loyal and reliable, they love working with Jack and created their own working system while on the job. Jack believed in trusting people to create their own best practice. He taught by example and repetitive instruction, was a great boss, fun, flexible and very supportive. Now with three people gone and major deadlines looming, Jack had no time to create training manuals for temporary staff to come in and assist. He wasn’t even sure what his staff did in detail. He had relied on his office manager, now uncontactable in a private cancer hospice, to run the show so he could get on with business.

So at a time when Jack felt personally like he had copped the short straw, he did what he knew best. He worked harder and longer doing whatever it took to deliver these campaigns. He also put more pressure on his graphic artist to pitch in and help. She could answer telephones but as Jack had no system, no manuals or procedures outlined for her to follow, she needed constant assistance. Increasingly frustrated with his graphic artist, angry with himself and
way behind with his campaign delivery, Jack suppressed his emotions with sugar and caffeine so he could keep going by day taking four panadol each night so he could sleep.

Jack was so blinded by his personal “story” that he did not appreciate his current circumstances and therefore fuel himself and his business with their value.

Every personal development guru delivers a similar message – gratitude. The common denominator is to appreciate your life as it is regardless of anything else that is going on. Dr John F Demartini says: “What you appreciate grows.” He is talking about counting your blessings. So when your wife leaves you, the kids are sick and your small business looks like Jack’s, it’s kinda hard to feel grateful for the Short Straw when you’re in the middle of it isn’t it?

So Jack’s body gave him some time out to look at his “story” and consider its value in his business and ultimately his life.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

What better way to reconnect with your dream than producing a business plan that manages everything you need to keep your business alive in every situation – copping the short straw or when you are flying.

Humanity has traded since prehistoric times. As an exchange of product or service in a transaction between a buyer and a seller, what early man bartered 21st century man charges in currency. The amount of charge is measured by our calculation of what it takes to deliver the product or service. In Jack’s story, he was being paid one cow in exchange for four months ploughing in a field.

An annually reviewed business plan could have helped Jack to evaluate his resources, plan his client proposals and projects and charge accordingly. Jack’s recent painful business experience clearly demonstrates what is important to him. Jack’s need to do what he loves plus the driving force of proving his worth to his father (one of Jack’s stories) effectively minimized his business risk management strategy limiting his business sustainability.

So when you mean business, have an inventory of what you value, have a renewed appreciation of the “story” that drives the decisions you make in business (and in life) and match these with your business vision and goals; copping the short straw just becomes another opportunity for you.

Author Bio:
Nichola Burton International Consultant for Branding, Business Planning, Personal Development, Human Behaviour Systems
PO Box 86, Sumner Park Qld 4074 Telephone: 07 3124 4051 +61414975201
www.pressingissues.com.au Email: nicki@pressingissues.com.au
Copyright 2010 ©