Links

The State of Grace Document is a radical new alternative to business and personal contracts built on trust and respect.  Companies of all sizes, all over the world, are using the State of Grace Document.

The Small Business Advocate with Jim Blasingame is a fantastic site dedicated to small businesses and entrepreneurs and their interests.  He interviews approximately 1000 experts in small business per year, and has himself won numerous awards for his work.  He is an amazing resource for small business owners—are all available to cruise and learn from.   His site is an amazing resource of information which otherwise, small businesses would have a hard time tracking down. 

Business on Main is a fun, free site that has interesting videos and a good Q & A section for business questions. 

The Learning Room
(articles, links, tools)

Articles

When Breaking the Rules Is Your Best Chance

Can Synergy Be Negative?  Yes!!  And How to Avoid It!

Is Positive Thinking Passé?

A Paradoxical Journey, from Western North Carolina Woman magazine, 12/02-1/03 Issue

heroism: shifting the paradigm, from Western North Carolina Woman magazine 12/03 Issue

Tools

THINKING STRATEGY TOOLS
To learn new thinking strategies, it is important to pick a “practice” and work on it on a daily basis in the real world.  Pick one to start with, and apply it to the events and situations that come up throughout your day.   Stay with it for at least a month.  When you feel well-versed in the new thinking strategy, pick another one and do the same.

These thinking tools are practices that you can print out and slip into your wallet or binder as your reminder to practice daily.

CONFLICT
When there is conflict between people, do the following:

DEMAND FOR INCREASED LEVELS OF PERFORMANCE
When you and your people receive a demand for an increased level of performance on top of your current workload, do the following:

• Implement a priority management system
• Know when to “kill” a task or a project
• Become experts at planning and implementing
• Share management of workload according to unique strengths as well as professional expertise.

Only by implementing efficiency practices and priority practices can you meet the demand of increased performance on an already full work schedule.

IMPROVE YOUR THINKING
Ask yourself these questions as a practice to improve your thinking:

• Where is my reasoning going?  What are the implications of what I just said / thought?
• What are the facts, and what are the assumptions I and others are making?
• Have I looked for another point of view?  Am I clear about my own point of view and its limitations?
• What concepts are present in my thinking?  Do I understand them in depth?
• What am I taking for granted?  Am I justified in making the assumptions I am making, and if so, why?

TRANSITION OR UNDERGOING CHANGE
When your company is in transition or undergoing change, and you’re dissatisfied with how your people are responding, do the following:

• Break the frame of reference they’ve been operating from and give them a new one.
• Get people to think as though they own the business.  They will become invested and they will make the right decisions more quickly.
• Figure out how to get quick, measurable results that show progress and bind people together.

Only by breaking people out of old mindsets can you get them out of old, unproductive thinking and behavior and into the new, productive way of doing things.