Entrepreneurial Personality

“Do you have an Entrepreneurial Mindset”

... Are you ready to change your life to support your vision and passion.

See how you measure up:

1. Do you work well alone? [Y|N]
2. Are you disciplined? [Y|N]
3. Are you naturally competitive & persuasive? [Y|N]
4. Do you harbour an inner drive to succeed? [Y|N]
5. Are you confident and assertive? [Y|N]
6. Do you have a sense of humour & a positive outlook? [Y|N]
7. Can you make decisions and live with the outcome (good or bad)? [Y|N]
8. Does being told NO, it can not be done - make you try even harder? [Y|N]
9. Are you understanding and humble? [Y|N]
10.Are you always looking for ways to improve something, or yourself? [Y|N]

If you answered yes to 7 or more, start writing your business plan and go for it.
If you do nothing else for yourself this year, make 'Six Figure Mindset' your transformational year a priority

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Common dilemma company grows, leadership roles change

“Symptoms of a personal/professional misalignment may include”

* Frustration.
* Lack of energy.
* Not enjoying going to work.
* Feeling as though you're leading two lives.
* Not feeling lucky.

When a CXO's individual goals are out of whack with corporate objectives, it undermines your passion, which is an important source of persistence and creativity.
What's more, a lack of passion on your part affects the synergy and energy of your staff. When employees see that their leaders aren't committed, they back off on performance.

Goal alignment revolves around:

• Mission. Why are you doing what you're doing?


• Vision. Where are you headed? What specific milestones are you aiming for? (This is especially important for partners to agree on.)


• Values. What's most important to you? What makes you feel satisfied and happy?

If you're not touching the parts of the business that you love, it can be a big problem and cause a disconnect

Balancing Act
Aligning personal and corporate goals fuels growth, leadership and creativity.

Guideposts for growth
Goal alignment benefits CEOs in a variety of ways.

• If you're clear on goals and values, you're not going to be sidetracked
  
• If employees embrace your corporate goals and values, they'll be proud to be there every day, they'll respect the work that they're doing — and they'll respect each other.

That creates synergy for the organization; the whole group can move together and push to new levels.

Guiding Behaviour
Values are the meat — they're where your goals come from

Reconnecting
Introspection is an important part of goal alignment. Take the time to examine your level of commitment.

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Six Sigma achieves extraordinary ROI

“Making the Business Case for Six Sigma Deployment”

You may have read about and seen the benefits of Six Sigma but are unsure how to approach your senior leadership about the opportunity because they do not have a concise package of information to convey.

Here is a series of tried and tested steps to gain management buy-in on the benefits of Six Sigma.

The Importance of Leadership Buy-in

Without leadership buy-in, there is little hope for Six Sigma adoption. A company's executives must believe and support Six Sigma's potential with dollars, words and actions just like any other corporate objective or goal. Executives are looking for a return on investment (ROI), risk mitigation and competitive advantage. Therefore, to convince them of the value Six Sigma will bring to the organization, it is important to present the benefits as a business case. Follow these 8 steps to deploy an effective Six Sigma programme.

The major steps to developing and presenting the business case are:

1. Identify and evaluate your audience.
2. Research and summarize successful launches at other organizations
with similar functions; include the ROI and a sample project.
3. Document critical success factors.
4. Define deployment requirements.
5. Define a pilot project.
6. Calculate and display the potential financial savings range and ROI
including "soft" elements such as corporate image and competitive advantage.
7. Present and sell Six Sigma to the executives.
8. Get ready for deployment!

Defining Six Sigma ...
Six Sigma is a strategic, top management driven transformation of an organization that focuses on profitably fulfilling customer needs using highly trained employees who use data in a disciplined and methodical scientific approach to continuous improvements in competitiveness, processes, and products through effective resource alignment.

The essential components of Six Sigma:
* Is driven by top management.
* Focuses on profitable customer fulfillment.
* Requires everyone to be highly trained.
* Is data driven, not based on beliefs or conjecture.
* Requires disciplined and methodical (i.e., scientific) problem solving approaches.
* Fosters continuous process and product improvement through resource alignment.

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Great ‘mindshare’ between client and bank,”

“Viswas Raghavan transforms JP Morgan European division equity-linked prowess into a broader platform ...”

I stumbled across this article the other day. An interview with JPMorgan’s Viswas Raghavan Head of Equity International Capital Markets. When I knew Viswas back in the early years 1993-6 at Lehman Brothers where we both worked in Investment Banking ... a mathematical genius, a very intelligent person who continues to shape future leaders of the investment banking world.

At the end of the 1990s, the state of JPMorgan’s European equity capital markets (ECM) business looked in jeopardy. Drained by a sometimes painful merger with Chase Manhattan and the inevitable staff exits, its presence in the market was negligible.

It is a very different picture now. In 2006, JPMorgan’s share of the Europe, Middle East and Africa equity issuance market jumped by 30%, and in the league tables it rose from sixth to joint first in terms of the number of eligible deals completed, and to second by dollar volume. In the year to date, it is first for global equity and equity-linked business, and second in Europe.

The foundations of JPMorgan’s resurgence in ECM have been built on the strength of JPMorgan’s equity-linked platform. Over the past several years it has become an enviable franchise, to the point where JPMorgan’s equity profit and loss was more or less accounted for by equity-linked transactions.

Viswas Raghavan, who joined JPMorgan as head of equity-linked operations in 2000 from Lehman Brothers and who is now head of international equity capital markets, has played an instrumental role in the division’s revival and the translation of equity-linked strength into broader ECM business.

Being ‘branded’ as an equity-linked house was not a slight, Mr Raghavan says, but an ideal platform on which to build an initial public offering (IPO) business. “We did the complicated bit first and then built out the vanilla business; if you can place a convertible’s delta in the market, then you can distribute straight equity. It is not a surprise for us to be where we are.”

Standing out from the crowd

Building the business in that way enabled JPMorgan to differentiate itself from competitors and prove its creative credentials, says Mr Raghavan. “Because we placed the delta we knew the investors and could deliver them to the client. Doing equity-linked deals gives you the opportunity to be smarter and more innovative. That’s a great way to build your footprint.”

The translation of equity-linked expertise into conventional equity business has slowly gathered pace over the past five years or so, spanning deals such as that for Fortis in 2002 when JPMorgan invented the floating rate equity-linked subordinated hybrid (Fresh) product – the first convertible bond to qualify as bank capital – and the extraordinary deal for Allianz in January 2005, which combined an equity-linked exchangeable bond, a straight equity placement and a hybrid capital issue.

It was not rocket science, yet this deal managed to satisfy an entire year’s funding needs in a single €4bn swoop without damaging the insurer’s share price, and at the same time strengthened earlier structures.

“There was a great ‘mindshare’ between client and bank,” says Mr Raghavan. “Intellectually, we had fun, while making sure we achieved all the client’s objectives.”

Mr Raghavan believes that this kind of mindshare is a quality that defines JPMorgan’s ECM business, and is partly determined by the longevity of the bank’s ECM team. This includes key members such as Klaus Hessberger and Ina De, co-heads of EMEA ECM origination; Monika Weiler, responsible for the equity-linked business; Sylvie Sauton*, head of ECM for France/Belgium; and Donal Quigley, head of ECM execution.

“It is the same team that has taken the bank from 18th in the league tables to the top tier, and we have worked zealously to get here. That level of achievement over so many years creates continuity and a close relationship with clients,” he says.

In 2006 – the first year that Mr Raghavan believes showed all the fruits of the team’s hard work – the firm demonstrated an impressively (and in the current climate, reassuringly) diverse business in terms of product, industry and geography. The bank’s equity-linked business continues to impress – with transactions such as the $5.8bn mandatory convertible for US-based mining firm Freeport-McMoRan – but it is participation in a growing list of trophy IPO deals that shows how JPMorgan’s ECM business has matured.

2007 Head of international equity capital markets.

2006 Head of EMEA and Asia-Pacific equity and debt capital markets.

2003 Sole head of EMEA equity capital markets.

2002 Promoted to joint head of EMEA capital markets.

2000 Joined JPMorgan as head of equity-linked capital markets for Europe & Asia-Pacific.

1998 Promoted to head of equity-linked capital markets for EMEA and Asia-Pacific at Lehman Brothers.

*Sylvie Sauton (Lehman Brothers) ... I remember you as well.

Full Article: The Banker (subscribers access)

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Playing to your Strengths

“The one thing you need to know about sustained individual success”

Discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it.
Marcus Buckingham - The One Thing You Need to Know ...

The odds are that you – like most people – are not playing to your strengths at work most of the time. Recent polls reveal that less than two out of ten people – the actual figure is 17% – say they spend the majority of their day "playing to their strengths". Even if you devote 25% of each day to all those things you don't like to do, or that bore you, or frustrate you – your non-negotiables – this still leave 75% of your time at work to fill with activities that call upon your strengths. And yet so few of us do.

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My Journey to the Top

“Eleven women with big dreams from many different backgrounds. The path to power meant facing obstacles and their biggest fears ...”

Women still have an uneasy relationship with power and the traits necessary to be a leader. There is this internalized fear that if we are really powerful, we are going to be considered ruthless or pushy or strident—all those epithets that strike right at our femininity. We are still working at trying to overcome the fear that power and womanliness are mutually exclusive. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn says "If you want to change the world, who do you begin with, yourself or others?"
Full Article

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Best Companies To Work For

“Best 25 of the 100 Companies to work for”

Times Online has ranked W L Gore & Associates as #1 in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For survey for the fourth year running.

2007	2006	Employer	Sector
1	(1)	W L Gore & Associates	Manufacturing
2	(2)	Sandwell Community Caring Trust	Health
3	(3)	Pannone	Legal
4	(4)	Beaverbrooks the Jewellers	Retail
5	(NEW)	Hydrock	Engineering
6	(NEW)	Edward Jones	Financial services
7	(5)	Data Connection	Telecommunications
8	(11)	Denplan	Health
9	(NEW)	Napp Pharmaceutical Holdings	Pharmaceutical
10	(31)	Heat	Services
11	(NEW)	Handelsbanken	Financial services
12	(78)	Hill McGlynn & Associates	Recruitment
13	(43)	Camelot Group	National lottery operator
14	(8)	Office Angels	Recruitment
15	(NEW)	Hydrogen	Recruitment
16	(14)	Drivers Jonas	Property
17	(16)	King Sturge	Property
18	(NEW)	Steer Davies Gleave	Transport
19	(NEW)	Bravissimo	Retail
20	(NEW)	Totemic	Financial services
21	(20)	Admiral Group	Insurance
22	(34)	Robert Half International	Recruitment
23	(15)	Bacardi-Martini	Food & Drink
24	(13)	SThree	Recruitment
25	(7)	Badenoch & Clark	Recruitment

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Knowing me, knowing you

No,its not a rendition to Abba ...

“How do you gain an edge on your competitors? The answer lies with knowing your customers.”

Alison Clements writes in the Times today, that - Pioneers of business-to-consumer customer management have inspired organisations around the world to be closer and more responsive to their customers. In the last ten years, Tesco’s Clubcard and the sophisticated data mining technology behind it, has changed how the global supermarket group serves its customers. In-depth customer knowledge has been instrumental in Tesco’s tremendous and highly profitable growth. Insight gleaned from analysis of shopping patterns has shaped actionable marketing and retailing programmes, so that busy mums are delighted by discounts on nappies and wipes, and young gadget fans hear of the latest deals on phones and electrical goods.

Clements goes on to say that - US supermarket heavyweight Kroger has followed the same path, like Tesco harnessing marketing company Dunhumby’s expertise in the field. “Customer relationship management has helped me reset my understanding of what the customer is after, and it helps replace intuition with actual data and actual facts,” says David Dillon, CEO of Kroger. He adds: “It’s those facts that are driving our decision-making.”

I agree, if only more companies thought the same way, they would be getting it right everytime ... like in Clements observation of Amazon -

Amazon.com is equally erudite in its relationship-building activities. Customers are sent regular email alerts for product recommendations and discounts that really appeal to that individual, based on their known shopping and reading habits. The web giant impressed the UK book industry this year when it was able to start taking pre-orders for the new Harry Potter book well before the publication date was even announced. This was possible because Amazon.co.uk was already in email contact with a database of signed-up Potter fans, built up through purchases and enquiries for previous HP titles over the years.

Alison Clements is right. Knowing your customers and being in constant contact with them puts you ahead of the crowd. Just look at the giant's in industry who have invested in CRM solutions (better results - happy customers - more profit)

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Do It Now, Don't put if Off

Cure for Procrastination

“If you want to procrastinate, why don't you put it off?”

A proven method of overcoming procrastination is to repeat saying to yourself:
"Do it now!" for 22 times in the morning and the afternoon for 22 consecutive days.

Both "do" and "now" are powerful switchwords that propel action. You will be doing the right thing at the right time highly focused and motivated. A small price to pay for a great asset, don't you think?

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Good will always shine through

“Focus ONLY on the good for yourself and others ...”

What you impress on your subconscious mind will create your reality. Good thoughts or bad thoughts. You have to choose. Remember "Thought Become Things!" ... To go from where you are to where you want to be, one has to start re-energizing one's thoughts ... and visualization is one of the best technique.

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Creating a Prosperity Mindset

So how is a mindset created?

“What makes you have a mindset that has you expecting breathtaking success every time you attempt something?”

Well, a number of things come to mind.

You don't suffer from jealously about the success of others. George Lucas doesn't have to have a bomb so Steven Spielberg can have a hit movie. Madonna's new album doesn't have to tank so that Beyonce can have a hit. There is enough prosperity to go around. So it's important that you celebrate the success of others. Even if you perceive them to be your competition. In most cases, competition enlarges the available market.

Another important thing is to study people who have been successful in the area you are interested in. This does a few things ...
First and foremost - it builds your belief that a successful outcome is possible. If you're fighting cancer and you read Lance Armstrong's book - it gives your beliefs credibility.

Second, this just gives you overall positive programming. And when you're getting positive programming - it means you're not getting negative programming!

Finally, studying people who are successful in your area gives you the opportunity to model what they have done. You learn from their experience and can achieve your own sooner.

Another important factor in developing a success mindset is hanging around successful people. Jim Rohn or whoever suggested taking a millionaire to lunch had a very good idea.

It's been said that your income will be the average of your five closest friends. Not only do I believe that is true for your income, but I also think it holds true for your health, happiness, self-esteem and just about everything else. Including mindset.

When you hang around successful people, their belief, habits and actions start to rub off on you.
Of course you have to restrict the negative programming you receive from the data-sphere and counteract it with positive programming.

Give this all some thought. And give yourself a grade on what you're doing to develop a mindset of breathtaking success.

*Excerpted from Randy Gage's The Daily Awakening

Grow your prosperity consciousness and start living a life of true abundance. You are meant to be healthy, happy and prosperous. Once you recognize and accept this, it is simply a case of learning the principles that abundance is based on and applying them in your life. Get on the road to prosperity with Randy Gage's 30 day prosperity program The Midas Mentality. Get it today!

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Do you send mixed signals?

If you are not clear you give mixed signals and that's what you'll get back ... Are you a person who works to gets results everytime! increasing in your excellence everyday. Are you thrilled with the kind of results you are getting.

“I seek but never get results”

Until you can release areas of resistance in your life, you'll get more of the same. If your beliefs are compulsive you'll get what you desire.

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Clearing Issues that Block

Every issue you are dealing with at this moment has a reason and will need to dealt with. Maybe we wipe out the forest of issues in one swoop or we get rid of them one by one.

“Issues are like a forest, there are a lot of trees you cut down one tree and the others remain standing ...”

So you probably don't feel much has been accomplished, there are many issues you still need to work through right now, but taking one issue at a time, you've managed to shift one issue and that's okay. Are you ready to start clearing those remaining issues that block you from moving forward.

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Jimmy Choos on sale for £90m

You're not really wearing a pair of shoes unless its fashioned by Jimmy Choo's (shoes) ... Former It girl is set to make £90m from the sale of Jimmy Choos must have A-list fashion accessory from London to Beverly Hills, Las Vegas and the likes of celebrities from Sarah Jessica Parker to Julia Roberts and Beyoncé Knowles. Tamara Mellon observed that

“At the end of the day, the person who has the money has the control”

Judging by the latest reported developments at Jimmy Choo, the glamorous shoe business Ms Mellon founded in 1996, she is about to enjoy considerably more of both. Ms Mellon, a one-time It girl and Vogue accessories editor, stands to make a £90m fortune from the sale of her business, having appointed the investment bank NM Rothschild to evaluate a number of approaches which have come within the past month. One party is understood to have offered as much as £180m for the business.

Full article

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Breakthrough Change

During change, one of the most important elements for success is management's ability to listen and communicate effectively. Leaders that can consistently challenge, motivate, and educate their people through change are successful. The toughest challenge of organisational leaders today is to manage at the speed of change.

“Change is not the problem: it's resistance; I want what I want when I want it. I will not be an expert anymore. I will be a senior beginner! ... As a result of experiencing growing pains of change.”

4 Keys to Navigating Successful Change ...

Sending clear and united messages
Managing the Journey: with a formal communication plan for change
Using tactics for systematically managing resistance
Never sugar-coating the truth

We live in a world where the technological advancement and knowledge explosion, leaders face tremendous pressure as they attempt to gain support for change. While resistance is always a problem, it is especially harmful during an economic slowdown. Regardless of how good or necessary a change may be, resistance should be expected.

Employees will onlywant to hear messages about change from only two people: the CXO / immediate boss (and these messages are not the same). Two reasons for employee resistance are:-

• 1. A lack of awareness about the change


• 2. Comfort with the ways things are and fear of the unknown

When you communicate well with your employees, you understand their fears and misgivings, you find ways to not only help them through the transition, but involve them in the process > building ownership for the change.

Attempt to change the things you can do. Our natural reaction to change, even in the best circumstances, is to resist. Awareness of the business need to change is a critical ingredient of any change and must come first. Employee resistance (at all levels) is the the top obstacle to successful change ... How well are your people equipped to manage the resistance to change, are you:

• Assessing your overall organisation and the organisational units affected by the change
• Defining a solid change management strategy,
• Identifying the impact of the change on the organisation,
• Developing and implementing a communication and corporate programme,
• Designing and describing the target jobs and organisational structure,
• Designing, developing, and implementing leadership and training programmes,
• Planning the change management implementation and implement the change,
• Monitoring and evaluating your organisation's performance once the change has been implemented.

What will change feel and look like, place your self in the future and look back what worked, what didn't work, what lessons have you learned, how far off target are you, how would it feel if you didn't succeed ...

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20 Best Kept Secrets

1. Open-Source Ad Campaigns
   Let your customers do the marketing.
2. Phone Shopping
   Become your own customer.
3. Extreme Benchmarking
   Compare everything you do against your rivals.
4. Bad News Folders
   Keep a constant eye out for trouble.
5. Strategic Strategy Reviews
   Turn going-through-the-motions meetings into no-holds-barred debates.
   
6. A New Office Pool
   Use prediction markets to tap hidden knowledge.
   
7. The Tech Box
   Create a lending library of ideas.
8. Outside-In R&D
   Bring in experts to help spark new ideas.
9. Office Graffiti
   Let workers speak their minds.
10. The Chief Shareholder Officer
    Head off shareholder trouble before it starts.
11. Always-On Board Members
    Get the directors out of the boardroom.
12. The Corporate Beehive
    Use office design to keep the queen in touch with the worker bees.
13. The Job Audition
    Turn the interview process into an all-encompassing tryout.
    
14. Peer-to-Peer Promotion
    Let employees choose their leaders.
    
15. The Shrink Shrinker
    Reward workers for keeping their hands off the merchandise.
16. The Anti-Star System
    Determine pay using just two factors: Profits and seniority.
17. The Pyramid Scheme
    Use kickbacks--the legal kind--to attract executive talent.
18. The Long Goodbye
    Knowledge Sharing, keep retirees in the labour pool and retain knowledge.
19. The Contra Team
    Appoint official devil's advocates to challenge the merits of deals.
20. "Just Looking" Badge
    Neutralise your customers' worst fears.

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Compete to win

How motivated are you to compete to win! ...

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to model success. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz used this powerful technique in the creation of his own company. Whilst on a vacation to Italy he saw how the coffee shop played an integral role in the social lives of Italians. It was a place where friends met, could spend hours at a time mingling. Howard Schultz put it

“Seeing this, I thought to myself, Why not open a coffee bar in Seattle?”

And with that he set the wheels in motion for the creation of what is now one of the most famous brands in the world, Starbucks. Modelling masters can help you achieve rapid success because you are implementing strategies that have been tried and tested, and work. Road to success is straight ahead, stay motivated.

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13 Reasons why Goals Fail

How do you know what to watch out for to avoid the pitfalls of missing expectations? It’s probably happened to you before. You thought you had the perfect plan for achieving your goals. You had no doubt that this time you’d succeed. And then, days, weeks or months later, you realised that somehow you’d gotten off track and never met your objective.

“How do you know what to watch out for to avoid the pitfalls of missing expectations?”

1. Don’t write the goal down.
2. Create goals that are not well-defined or lack specificity. ‘Save Money This Year’ is not the same as ‘Save£1,000 by July 31’.
3. No true personal meaning behind the goal. No driver for doing it.
4. Fail to define a reward for achieving the goal as well as a reward for achieving the intermediary milestones required to get there.
5. Don’t share the goal with another person for accountability, help and support.
6. Keep changing or switching goals as their focus or interest changes.
7. Never incorporate the goal into a realistic plan that includes measurements, timelines and resources.
8. Do not understand and plan for how pursuing the goal might affect their balance across the other Cornerstones of life.
9. Never set a date to actually start working toward the goal.
10. Because of the lack of accountability, they allow themselves to make excuses for not meeting the goal.
11. Reach an intermediary milestone, get comfortable, and never follow through to the end.
12. Don’t acknowledge the challenges of achieving the goal and when it gets hard they give up.
13. Do not think about the goal and the process of achieving the goal often enough.

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Learn How to Say No

Richard Branson Founder and Chairman, Virgin Group.

“Learn How to Say No ... (Even if You're Known as 'Doctor Yes')”

I turn people down with extreme difficulty sometimes, because the people I'm saying no to are people I don't want to discourage. And it should be difficult. Saying no shouldn't be an easy thing to do, and you have to be good at it. I often used to dodge doing it myself, and hide behind other people and delegate it, but if you're the boss, that isn't the right thing to do.

I remember when I was a 15-year-old asking Vanessa Redgrave or James Baldwin for an interview, and the fact that they took the time to respond meant an enormous amount to me. It inspired me. So it's extremely important to respond to people, and to give them encouragement if you're a leader. And if you're actually turning people down, if you must say no, whether it's for a job or a promotion or an idea they're proposing to you, take the time to do it yourself.

I met two big San Francisco entrepreneurs recently, and they said they get e-mail like this too, but they just dump it all in the dustbin. They don't try to answer at all. I asked them why, and they said, "The time we spend responding could be used to create something of value for our business." That may well be pragmatically right, but I still think it's morally wrong, and I suspect that anything that is morally wrong is ultimately bad for business.

Source: CNN

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Maximise and Grow

Six Figure Mindset is an all-round return on investment that you cannot afford to miss out on. This mentoring masterclass will give you success & results-oriented tools that is often offered to influencial leaders from CEOs through to the entrepreneurs. And its also available to you.

“Are you ready to maximise your business advantage and achieve more success”

• Are you facing the same frustrating business issues day in and day out
• Not seeing any increase in your bottom line
• Is creating an action plan still on your to do list
• Finding it difficult to attract new clients
• Your work is taking over your personal life

You can change this, and maximise your business. It takes action on your part, and on my part the tools to make it happen. If you're ready to identify and execute the steps necessary to grow in life and in business ... Contact Enlibra

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