(Author's Note: If you want this issue in an MP3 recording format that you can download to your MP3 Recorder, send an e-mail to info@thecoughlincompany.com and in the subject heading write "Business Acceleration Newsletter June 2008" and I'll make sure it gets e-mailed to you.)

Shake Things Up with a Purpose in Mind

Barb and I have a special marriage bonding ritual. On Sunday nights we put the kids to bed and then we cuddle up and watch Desperate Housewives. No matter what challenges we're facing nothing compares to the lives on Wisteria Lane. Hey, don't blame me. Barb was the one who wanted me to watch Terri Hatcher and I just got hooked.

At the end of season four, something very strange happened. The last scene started with three words: Five Years Later. Then everything seemed turned upside down. Susan had a new husband, Lynette and Tom's young children were suddenly teenagers, Bre was a mega-successful party planner, and Eva Longoria inexplicably looked frumpy. We thought maybe it was just an end of the season joke, but we found out the next day that the producer, Marc Cherry, had created these changes with a purpose in mind.

He said he just wanted to start the next season with a clean slate. He found that he was falling into a trap of just extending story lines from the first three seasons, and he wanted an opportunity to energize the creativity on the show. So he shook things up and took a chance. The show might bomb, but at least he demonstrated the courage to not settle for the status quo and instead to reach for something new within the framework of the show he created.

Apple's Forays into the Wilderness

Sometimes we forget that Apple was not always the most admired company in the world, as it was named by Fortune magazine this year. Back in the late 1990's Apple was doing everything it could to reduce inventory, get focused, and avoid bankruptcy. So they decided to shake things up with a purpose in mind. They decided to open up Apple retail stores so that customers could see their products up close and get to know them better. They were also able to provide great hands-on training. Gateway Computers had just exited retail stores having lost a ton of money. Critics said that Apple would regret opening up stores. Well, let's see. They soon generated a billion dollars a year through those stores, and later generated a billion dollars a quarter. Sometimes it's worth it to shake things up.

New Ideas Don't Always Work, But they Do Open Up New Possibilities

Thomas Edison was always shaking things up and oftentimes failing spectacularly, not just in light bulbs but in concrete and phonographs and telephones and on and on. But even in his failures he found some nuisance that could be used in combination with other ideas. Same could be said for Walt Disney and GE and virtually every successful person and organization. Be willing to mix things up.

To be Purposeful You Have to Have a Purpose

Why does your organization exist? Don't look at your corporate brochure, just tell me conversationally why your organization exists. What is its purpose? I've helped dozens of organizations and groups answer that question for themselves, but I almost never took the time to think about it for my one-person business. Then it dawned on me that no matter how big or small a business is it has to have a purpose in order to shake things up with a purpose.

On a flight home last week I started doodling around in the back of a book and I landed on my company's mission and philosophy. Those words seem so fancy for such a small enterprise, but the impact a company has on other people is not based on the number of employees it has. It is based on the value contributed to the customers.

Here's The Coughlin Company's Mission & Philosophy:

• Provide practical processes to propel great performances.
• Embrace simplicity and avoid process creep.

Those 13 words summarized my whole approach to creating value for customers. At the end of the day, my work is to give you a process you can consider using to improve your results. Also, as I have written before, I've noticed that smart, hard-working people tend to want processes that are really complicated because simple ones seem too easy. Smart, hard-working folks tend to take simple processes that are delivering really good results and make them really complicated in the hopes of achieving amazing results. It doesn't usually work that way. My philosophy is to encourage people to embrace simple approaches and then work to hone them to an even greater degree of simplicity rather than a greater degree of complexity

Clarify Your Purpose

In order to shake things up for yourself or your organization, clarify your purpose. Then within that purpose ask yourself, "What can I do or we do to mix up what we've doing and generate new levels of innovation, creativity and customer value?" Don't try 20 changes. Just select one or two things you're going to shake up a bit and see what possibilities those changes create.

Book Recommendations

I read two wonderful books this month: The Enzo Ferrari Story by Enzo Ferrari, and Inside Steve's Brain by Leander Kahney. Both of these books talk a great deal about the importance of shaking things up with a purpose in mind at Ferrari and at Apple.

Have a great month,

Dan Coughlin

Republishing Articles

Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

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