At a first glance, many businesses in Nigeria have all it takes to hit it big in business locally and internationally. Of course, we are good business people with sound business acumen and savvy. I know that you will agree with me.
Ironically, countless number of businesses, including those favoured by political, economical, social, technological, environmental and legal (PESTEL) factors, are still struggling in spite of huge investments. Something obviously may have gone wrong in their business equation.
You and I are familiar with the hard business operations like management, accounting, marketing, strategies, planning, and other operational models. Today, running a successful business has gone beyond having the money, minute, machinery, material, and the man behind the wheels like a military man on duty. It requires that pressing the magic buttons that produce the desired results. There is more to business that what we do presently.
It’s high time we looked at a new side of business that has emerged in the new economy –the soft side of business. This is the new business order which turns every other thing on in the business world. While the hard business is important, soft business is very, very paramount.
Suffice it to establish this premise: evidence everywhere indicates that the hard world is irreversibly softening. Our present, run by the intangibles, has gone soft and still goes softer by each passing day. This is the hallmark of the new world, or rather business dimension and you can gain a huge advantage by riding on this trend. Gone are the days when we relied on the physical or hard strengths to get results and take the lead. Times, indeed, have changed; everything has gone soft. Microsoft, the highest valued company today is a soft company.
The same change has hit our business life, which constitutes the core of our living. To keep your place in the present business economy, you’ve got to be compliant by basically going soft. Let me express it this way: it’s either soft or you rust.
The business universe is evolving and expanding daily. I know you would like to be left out. That would be very suicidal in this fast-paced business dispensation. You have in your hands the opportunity to escape being a business dinosaur.
As I pointed out earlier, what drives business has changed, and keeps changing; it’s no longer business as usual. The business operations no longer tilt towards the hard-side but the soft-side. What has brought us to our current business level may not take us beyond this point. There is indeed another side of business, the soft-side of business.
What is the whole idea of this new business paradigm? You may ask so impatiently.
The soft-side of business by definition is that aspect that meets the human pressing and usually unexpressed needs. It’s, in other words, business with human face, or still, the human side of business. This business model uncovers our ‘humanness’, touching our lives on a deeper level with immense intensity. It has the power to attract, keep and multiply clientele because it is human and speaks the language every one of us loves to hear. Who wouldn’t like it?
The challenges in today’s business life are most those of the intangibles, which over the years have suffer neglect, and also suppressed in most business deals. But the rule of the game has tainted for good.
This new-fangled business economy is based on the understanding that every person has a need, a drive, a motivation, a taste, a want and some yearning that they want met in the course of doing business. Check it out, in every business transaction; people are hungry for love, connection, respect, warmth, care, attention, relationship, and acceptance. There are never enough of them. And the tougher the times, the more important and scarce they become. In most cases, these virtues are value that the very transaction that brought us to the establishment in the first place.
How we are perceived as human beings is becoming increasingly important in the new business globe. And the difference maker in business today comes from this very side of business.
There are diverse sides of this business archetype. But for the purpose of this discussion, we would be looking at two main side of it: the emotion and the connection.
Join me as we examine the soft business that will make you win in the hard world o business. See you then.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Redefining Success
Success is a word that has captivated the attention of all. It has gained more popularity and attracted more publicity than the greatest king whoever lived in human history. Everywhere you go; people talk about it with much relish. The word tastes sweet, sounds great and smells good. It is treasured more than gold, adorned more than a god, and ‘succeeds’ more than anything the mind of man could ever imagine. Even the devil himself wants to succeed.
Success is a subject that many great men have talked and wrote about, and many more are still on it. No other word could best describe how the society feel about it, except to say that success is everything, and everything thing that succeeds is success.
No wonder everybody has gone out there in search of this priceless treasure, which may have appeared elusive to many. Some have even gone beyond the ordinary means in search of success, yet to no avail. They at the end would curse their fate, and look for whom to blame for their failures.
Is that enough to say that the word success does not exist? Or is it a thing meant for the super-humans? If not, why are we not succeeding in our individual lives? We salivate at the thought of this magic word, maybe wait to take our eternal exit without a touch of it.
Indeed success is rare but attainable. It is an irony that under the same condition, some folks literally wine and dine with success. By every indication, they are success personified. What then must have gone wrong with the rest? Or could the success we know be different from theirs, or could be redefined. What is your own definition of success? What exactly is success? It is necessary that you know , to enable you go for it.
Thousand and one definitions have been made on this all important subject, by different calibre of people. But, how many of such definitions have defined what success truly is. Suffice it to say, how many of such definitions have stood the taste of time. That is just the point. A word wrongly defined would be misconstrued. And that is like leading the whole world astray.
Dozens have tried to define success as something that happens to us. But, when we separate success from who we are, we automatically become bunch of failures. Success begins with you as a person and it’s lived out. It is more of your nature than your activity. It is an intense journey into yourself. Every other thing outside this is secondary.
Of all the definitions of success I have come across, the one that makes more meaning to me than the rest combined is this: success is who you are. And who you are is what you are. In the words of Jim Rohn, "Success is not a set of standards from our culture but rather a collection of personal values clearly defined and ultimately achieved". And Herbert Casson added, ‘The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves’. So, true success is who you are.
Success begins inside out. Success we have known is a journey and not a destination. And the journey is an internal trip. To grow out, you must first grow in. Trying to be outside, what you are not in your inside is the genesis of all frustration. Life will always give you who you are because your nature will put limit to your performance and results. The world is designed to be piloted by man’s internal forces. Those who surrender their lives to external forces never succeeded.
There are no failures in this life, except men and women who see success as something happening to them and not something happening in them. They often mistake success for luck and end up locked. You are the success or the failure people talk about. Separate every successful work from the people who achieved them, what you have left is more or less failure. Just think of any great individual or body or organization or country that is very successful. What do you think have made them so?
At the centre of every success is the man. So, success is the man who succeeded. Success is internal and not external. Success is within and not without. Success is what you have, and not what you are given. Success is in the inner world and not in the outer world. Success is all about you as a person. And more of your being than your doing. Everything that happens to us is directly proportional to what is happening in us. Of course, life is not what is happening to us but what is happening in us. For you become outside, what you are inside. Jim Clemmer said it all, "We don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are". Come to think of it, you reflect outside what you are inside.
A man said, "The key to winning in life is what’s inside a person". And Wilfred A. Peterson also buttressed, "success is not confined to one part of your personality but is related to the development of all parts: body, mind, heart and spirit. It is making the most of your total self".
What more could be added to this? If your inner man is successful, it will be definitely show in your outer world. So wake up to reality and live your success. Why running to and fro in search of that you already possess. In you is the success that you need to succeed .Locate it, turn it on and you will become enviably successful. How? By working on yourself, with clearly defined goals and values. Then you will attract to your life that which you are Listen to this thought shared by Zig Ziglar, "You already have the ability necessary for success. Man was designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowment, with the seed of greatness". Isn’t that wonderful! You have to break in now to break forth.
I end with this word from a sage written on marble, "Not in the clamour of the crowded street. Not in the shouts and defeat, but in ourselves are triumph and defeat". I know you would not like to be defeated. Just tell yourself that you are the success that has long been announced. What are you waiting for to start succeeding? Develop yourself now and watch the amazing result in your life. You are lifted!
Tony Ajah
0805 140 3056
Success is a subject that many great men have talked and wrote about, and many more are still on it. No other word could best describe how the society feel about it, except to say that success is everything, and everything thing that succeeds is success.
No wonder everybody has gone out there in search of this priceless treasure, which may have appeared elusive to many. Some have even gone beyond the ordinary means in search of success, yet to no avail. They at the end would curse their fate, and look for whom to blame for their failures.
Is that enough to say that the word success does not exist? Or is it a thing meant for the super-humans? If not, why are we not succeeding in our individual lives? We salivate at the thought of this magic word, maybe wait to take our eternal exit without a touch of it.
Indeed success is rare but attainable. It is an irony that under the same condition, some folks literally wine and dine with success. By every indication, they are success personified. What then must have gone wrong with the rest? Or could the success we know be different from theirs, or could be redefined. What is your own definition of success? What exactly is success? It is necessary that you know , to enable you go for it.
Thousand and one definitions have been made on this all important subject, by different calibre of people. But, how many of such definitions have defined what success truly is. Suffice it to say, how many of such definitions have stood the taste of time. That is just the point. A word wrongly defined would be misconstrued. And that is like leading the whole world astray.
Dozens have tried to define success as something that happens to us. But, when we separate success from who we are, we automatically become bunch of failures. Success begins with you as a person and it’s lived out. It is more of your nature than your activity. It is an intense journey into yourself. Every other thing outside this is secondary.
Of all the definitions of success I have come across, the one that makes more meaning to me than the rest combined is this: success is who you are. And who you are is what you are. In the words of Jim Rohn, "Success is not a set of standards from our culture but rather a collection of personal values clearly defined and ultimately achieved". And Herbert Casson added, ‘The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves’. So, true success is who you are.
Success begins inside out. Success we have known is a journey and not a destination. And the journey is an internal trip. To grow out, you must first grow in. Trying to be outside, what you are not in your inside is the genesis of all frustration. Life will always give you who you are because your nature will put limit to your performance and results. The world is designed to be piloted by man’s internal forces. Those who surrender their lives to external forces never succeeded.
There are no failures in this life, except men and women who see success as something happening to them and not something happening in them. They often mistake success for luck and end up locked. You are the success or the failure people talk about. Separate every successful work from the people who achieved them, what you have left is more or less failure. Just think of any great individual or body or organization or country that is very successful. What do you think have made them so?
At the centre of every success is the man. So, success is the man who succeeded. Success is internal and not external. Success is within and not without. Success is what you have, and not what you are given. Success is in the inner world and not in the outer world. Success is all about you as a person. And more of your being than your doing. Everything that happens to us is directly proportional to what is happening in us. Of course, life is not what is happening to us but what is happening in us. For you become outside, what you are inside. Jim Clemmer said it all, "We don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are". Come to think of it, you reflect outside what you are inside.
A man said, "The key to winning in life is what’s inside a person". And Wilfred A. Peterson also buttressed, "success is not confined to one part of your personality but is related to the development of all parts: body, mind, heart and spirit. It is making the most of your total self".
What more could be added to this? If your inner man is successful, it will be definitely show in your outer world. So wake up to reality and live your success. Why running to and fro in search of that you already possess. In you is the success that you need to succeed .Locate it, turn it on and you will become enviably successful. How? By working on yourself, with clearly defined goals and values. Then you will attract to your life that which you are Listen to this thought shared by Zig Ziglar, "You already have the ability necessary for success. Man was designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowment, with the seed of greatness". Isn’t that wonderful! You have to break in now to break forth.
I end with this word from a sage written on marble, "Not in the clamour of the crowded street. Not in the shouts and defeat, but in ourselves are triumph and defeat". I know you would not like to be defeated. Just tell yourself that you are the success that has long been announced. What are you waiting for to start succeeding? Develop yourself now and watch the amazing result in your life. You are lifted!
Tony Ajah
0805 140 3056
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