It’s spring, it’s passion month and I’ve just returned from the XL Entrepreneur Business School in Bali. What did I learn – lots!
First, you cannot achieve anything amazing on your own. The entrepreneurs who wanted to “own” all the ideas and way their business was going to run, has much smaller ideas that those who accepted input. I know this and now I’m committed to supporting managers and businesses to make sure they have got team support, not try to do it on their own. I’ve also come back with some great team processes, so if your team needs a top up, give us a call.
Second, you cannot excite people to contribute 110% if it’s only about you (or shareholders). Those who had a purpose beyond profit were much more exciting to be around and got the most help too. And the flip side of this, the feeling “what about me?” was a good indicator for me that I was feeling an incongruity between the business and its offering.
Third, I got clear that my passion really is to support social enterprises to flourish, so look out everyone, I will be beating the drum of “purpose beyond profit” to you in the near future.  Check out Buy 1 Give 1 if you want to find out more.