A brand anthem expresses to your customers the core values related your brand and products, much like a vision statement expresses the core values of your company.
I was sitting in an exceptionally beautiful church on Easter Sunday morning.
There were garlands of fresh daffodils and orchids draping the sanctuary.
Easter lilies were everywhere, consuming the floor of the chancel and the empty spaces on the altar rails. Small children were dressed in their Easter finery, sitting awkwardly in their new suits and dresses anxiously awaiting the Easter Egg hunt following the service.
Christians everywhere know that the hymn, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” also starts the Easter service and marks the procession of ministers and laity down the aisle to the altar.
It is unarguably the best known Easter hymn, a holiday staple like O’ Little Town of Bethlehem, Joy to the World and other holiday songs at Christmas.
I’ve pretty much know that Easter hymn by heart … sang it every year as a child … and can’t imagine an Easter service without it.
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Winston Churchill could have been an entrepreneur to have so eloquently dramatized the thrill associated with building a business.
Whether you own it yourself or share it with partners, it’s yours to build, to mold according to your dreams and values.
You may be building it from scratch or seeking new opportunities to jumpstart a mature company. In either case, I hope this will help you on your journey.
Why do you have your own business?
Independence, many will say, the chance to run my own show?
Be my own boss?
Do things my way – maybe because you’ve seen them done the wrong way and you can do better?
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– Mark Twain
Barely 500 years ago, Girolamo Savonarola was an outspoken and strident critic of the current order, angrily vilifying the worldly possessions that tempted people to become sinners.
He was ultimately excommunicated from the Catholic church, condemned for heresy, stripped of his priestly garments, hanged, and his body burned in the town square in Florence, Italy, a stark and ignominious ending to a life committed to vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
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“If you don’t like change,
you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
– General Eric Shinseki, retired Chief of Staff, U. S. Army
A rose is a rose is a tulip? No, that’s not right. A rose is a rose is … well, by any other name, I think it’s still a rose. Right?
We’re pretty famous in this country for euphemisms, aren’t we, particularly for unwelcome issues.
Eternal rest.
Cement shoes.
Adult entertainment … I think you catch my drift.
There are also a lot of ways that the entrepreneurial mentality has been described.
We first read about “constructive paranoia,” a phrase popularized by Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel in his book, Only the Paranoid Survive.
It’s hard to argue with his mantra:
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For years, I have used Facebook simply to replicate the articles I’ve published on Sword Tips, the Exkalibur blog.
I rarely provided anything else on the Facebook platform to help you and other business leaders solve their everyday problems … even though that’s what I do every day everywhere else.
That’s not really what I intended, but it was early in the Facebook lifecycle and I wasn’t sure what I should be doing differently on the Exkalibur Facebook page.
Maybe you’ve faced the same questions as you’ve surfed the Internet waters, uncertain about what you may find where and what you can do to more efficiently to find just that exact piece of information to help you with a particular issue?
Don’t you think we’re both trying to figure out how to manage the information tsunami flowing fromblogs, RSS feeds, Facebook pages, twitter feeds and a host of other sources?
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“It’s not the will to win that matters, everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” ~ Paul “Bear” Bryant
Many moons ago when my daughter was 3 years old, she really wanted a Barbie dollhouse for Christ
mas. She never played with Barbie dolls … never liked them much either … but she loved all the little people and things in that doll house. We found one and hid it in the attic to await Christmas Eve when we could sneak it under the Christmas tree.
My wife and I went up to the attic around 10 p.m. that evening and it was only then when I noticed the small print on the side of the large box … “less than 500 pieces.”
What? 500 pieces? To assemble? At this hour? Alas, yes … and man, was it painful to have to stay up until 3 a.m. putting it together. How’s that for preparation?
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This week, two North Bay organizations deserve a round of applause!
First, congratulations to Amy’s kitchen for its innovative approach to employee health care. They recently opened a primary health care clinic at their Santa Rosa production facility.
From time to time, we offer a round of applause to organizations and individuals making significant leadership contributions in their companies and communities.
This is a terrific idea and a clear recognition that a company CAN do more to meet the health care needs of its employees. It’s encouraging to see a prominent North Bay company take this important step.
Brian Ling has been a long time friend and colleague in Sonoma County, and has been recently hired as the new CEO of the Sonoma County Alliance.
“Every organization must be prepared to abandon everything it does to survive in the future.” — Peter Drucker
If the execution of a company’s plans is an avowed priority, critical to the success of both the CEO and the business, why aren’t CEOs spending enough time on it to make it successful?
Why is it that every time the Conference Board surveys CEOs to identify their Top Ten Challenges, “consistent execution of strategy” or “excellence in execution” is invariably cited as being in the top two or three “greatest concerns” … yet, when CEOs are asked about their greatest disappointments or failures, they routinely list their company’s inability to execute?
Huh? How is it that a subject among the top three goals of most CEOs is the very one where the CEO has the least amount of success? Is this simply a conundrum tucked inside a mystery hidden inside an enigma … or can we sort out some of this ambiguity?
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Déjà vu all over again?
How often have you heard that phrase banging against your skull … and how often was it telling you … “I’ve been here before” … “Didn’t we already solve this problem?” … “Why does this subject keep coming up all the time?”
Late last year, I embarked on a retrospective of my first 100 newspaper columns from the last four years. You may recall that I emphasized how often so many of those issues continue to be the same challenges year after year.
They’re constantly resurfacing, often in disguise as a different issue altogether … but really, the same ‘ol, same ‘ol.
I promised you then that we would attack the litany of reasons that these same issues keep popping up like whack-a-moles. I don’t think we’ve gotten “dumb and dumberer,” so what’s going on? Why are we tackling the same problems over and over again?
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Welcome to Exkalibur. I’m Lary Kirchenbauer, President of Exkalibur Advisors, Inc. Please take advantage of our resources to help you build your business ... and let me know what more we can do to serve you.
Read my latest column from the NY Times affiliate, the North Bay Business Journal.
Lary is one of the brightest and most energetic professionals with whom I have ever worked. His skills in dealing with privately held firms and the aggressive and creative solutions made him a valuable asset to any business.
F. Bart Smith, President (retired)
