This article features my responses to three of the issues raised and discussed in working with small and medium business owner/managers – who need to use their knowledge, skills, observations and experience in guiding the development of their business.    These issues all apply to the day-to-day application of the difference – and relationship – between ‘Management’, ‘Leadership’, ‘Innovation’ and ‘Entrepreneurship’.

 1.    Statements/quotes presented or quoted to owner/managers as sound business wisdom    

These are statements/quotes that appear in business articles, advertisements, 30-second grabs, busy business books, power-point presentations or rapid-fire conversations.  Similarly, they appear in lengthy newspaper and journal articles written in general terms, for a broad audience.   Whether intended or not, these tend to display the speaker’s or author’s knowledge, experience or background rather than offer something of practical value for the owner/manager as listener or reader. 

Such statements/quotes lack what I call a ‘therefore’ suggestion.  

For information or knowledge to be useful, it needs to be followed immediately by ‘therefore, here’s something you can try or do to test or apply this information or knowledge, and aim for an immediate practical benefit’. 

If there is no ‘therefore’ suggestion, owner/managers can experience confusion.  Are they supposed to already know what it means, or what to try or do, or what not to do?  If they don’t know, does this mean they aren’t as responsible or successful as they had thought?  No!  It simply means that they don’t – and probably can’t – find the statement/quote useful.  Hence there’s no or little impact from the speaker or author, and more importantly, no or little benefit for the owner/manager.

My response to you as an owner/manager in this first issue is always to look for the ‘therefore’ statement.  If it’s not there, disregard the statement or quote if you are looking for an immediate practical benefit.  Certainly don’t sense a deficiency on your part! 

2.    Categorizing people according to their ‘generation’

The assumption in this issue is that a person’s birth date will be sufficient for an owner/manager as employer to safely predict the person’s values, work style, aspirations, etc.

There are speakers and writers who consistently and repeatedly apply this assumption to a variety of situations, problems or themes as though it is a universal truth – often with humour, but always as truth.  Owner/managers as employers can do themselves and their staff a disservice if they accept this assumption and apply it as a truth.

My 2008 book One Man Show – the smallest of small business features The Generational Factor (on page 38) addresses this issue.  Joseph Mayo, an early writer about personal values, claimed that our values are established by the age of seven years.  He went on to suggest that to begin to understand any person, think about where they might have been living up to the age of seven – and then think about what was going on around them locally, socially, economically, culturally, nationally and globally during those seven years.  You will then have a fair idea of their personal values that influence attitudes and behaviours.

Mayo Clinic Health Information, accessible on their website, offers an article Workplace generation gap: understanding differences among colleagues (Mayo Clinic Staff, July 6^th 2005).  This article states that ‘people of today’s workplace generations possess characteristics that derive, in large part, from the political social and economic climate of their youth’.  

The article explains anticipated behaviours of each of four generations – ranging from pre World War 2 through to 2005, and offer suggestions on how to work with our own and other generations, together with this caution:  ‘Be wary of stereotyping: not all traits apply to all members of a generation’

Advice from the Mayo Clinic Staff is to:  ‘Be aware of the differences, appreciate the strengths, and manage the differences effectively.’

Additionally, my 1997 book The Left and Right Brain Business examines the many ways in which people in a workplace act or react in a variety of roles, structures, workplace relationships and circumstances.  A workplace relationship exists when two or more people choose – or are required – to work collaboratively for a specific purpose.  They may work as individuals or teams.  The starting point is to identify a workplace relationship, and the basic components by which the owner/manager as employer can:

• establish and maintain positive workplace relationships, or
• recognise and improve not-so-positive workplace relationships.

My response to you as owner/manager in this second issue is to look for the uniqueness in every individual – because it is there.  You can take generations, workplace relationships, levels of skill and knowledge, range of experience, etc., into account when seeking and acknowledging each person’s uniqueness.  Then, when you have identified it, capitalise on and challenge the uniqueness.  You will find what I call ‘star quality’: additionally, acknowledge and protect your own uniqueness.

3.    Being told to ‘work on your business, not in it’. 

The assumption in this issue is that reference to ‘your business’ includes and covers everything you do as an owner/manager.  But not so!  There is one part of your business that you need to ‘work on’ and another part of your business that you need to ‘work in’.  There is the ‘art’ – and there is the ‘science’ – of your business.

‘Art’ is the doing of a thing.  It is necessary to conceptualise the process of deciding what you are doing – or intend to do – and how.   This requires a separation of (a) the way you operate as a business, from (b) the product or service you offer through your business.  You will need to separate and conceptualise both.    It is most likely that your way of doing business, ie your business operation, will be determined by your personality, circumstances, knowledge, confidence, strengths, abilities or comfort zone.   It is most likely that the product or service you offer through your business will be something that you enjoy, that you either know exceedingly well or are inspired to know exceedingly well, and/or that satisfies your creative urge. 

Science is the understanding of a thing.  It is necessary to understand and appreciate the practical implications of (a) the way you operate as a business, as well as (b) your product or service.  If you understand your business, you will be able to plan improvements or expansion, acquire additional resources, maintain or expand your core business, introduce appropriate technology and systems, etc.  Most importantly, you will be able to determine how you will monitor and measure progress.

My response to you as owner/manager in this third issue is to emphasise the difference and relationship between the art and science of your business.  As owner/manager, you are at the heart of your business – and this means acknowledging and accepting:

a)    your critical role in the life of your business, and

b)    your expertness in the way you operate as a business as well as the product or service you offer through your business.

Sure, you may wish to seek advice, read newspapers and journals, and use a variety of tools to understand the people who are involved with or affected by your business.  But be sure that you know – and understand – your business thoroughly.  Look for the ‘therefore‘ statements, find the uniqueness in others and yourself, and revel in the art (ie the doing) and the science (ie the understanding) of your business.

Yes, you are owner/manager – but more importantly, know and accept yourself as a manager, as a leader, as an innovator, and as an entrepreneur.

This June series has the theme of the difference and relationship between management and leadership in the journey to innovation and entrepreneurship.  The next article in this weekly series will address the critical issues of Risk and Quality along this journey.

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The needs of the individual includes being genuinely valued and respected, being able to make a valued contribution and receiving an appropriate reimbursement for effort, ability and skill in a safe and secure work environment. Individual needs apply to both paid and unpaid positions.

The demands of the role in the organisation should be expressed in the role description, and in workplace policies and procedures, work practices, performance measures and organisational objectives.

It is possible to enhance and increase each person’s job satisfaction in relation to:

• tasks, including procedures
• working relationships, including teamwork
• actual work environment, including the physical work location and work station.

Where the level of job satisfaction is increased or enhanced, the quality of contribution and level of confidence are also increased or enhanced. Where job satisfaction is reduced, morale and personal and professional credibility are also reduced. Job satisfaction can only be recognised and measured by the individual concerned, never by the organisation.

It is important to realise that another person’s behaviour that seems without any value to you may well be a behaviour that is highly valued by that person: therefore you are wise to understand that another person’s behaviour is simply demonstrating their own values and offering you a point of entry into their thinking.

Initially concentrating on organisational policies and procedures in her consultancies, I quickly realised that these can produce very few positive results unless human factors are taken into account. If an organisation is able to understand and anticipate human behaviours, they are much closer to increasing:

• individual job satisfaction at governance, management and operations levels of activity,
• organisational efficiency and productivity – which means that available or accessible resources are wisely invested in service design, delivery and conformance, and
• confidently capitalising on opportunities as they arise or are created.

I have found that identifying and respecting the reasons for particular actions and re-actions contributes to resolving many of the problems inherent in employing staff, building teams, allocating responsibilities and achieving desired results. It is most important to understand and predict human behaviour in a specific environment when creating effective business and workplace relationships, which means understanding:

• how and why people think, feel and act differently
• how to recognise and manage ‘people’ problems
• how to create opportunities for yourself and others
• how to build organisational success through Business Brainpower
• how to improve your business, workplace and personal relationship

By utilizing left and right-brain orientation in human resource management, an organisation will increase competencies relating to -

• effective communication
• effective delegation and negotiation
• winning greater commitment to ideas for improvement
• improving internal and external relationships
• rewarding people with ‘other than money’
• generating 110% effort from organisation’s people.

Utilising orientation as a tool in an organisation means that people of each orientation are able and encouraged to increase their:

• sense of self-worth
• acceptance of fellow workers, and
• levels of performance, effectiveness and job satisfaction.
• Relevant natural characteristics related to orientation can be identified, in particular the differences and relationships between them. You can then develop a frame of reference from which to draw a set of most and least likely values, attitudes, behaviours and consequences.

• Read more in The Left and Right Brain Business

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The Left and Right Brain Business

Linking organisational effectiveness with individual job satisfaction

It’s easy to be confused by other people’s behaviour. It’s just as easy to be confused by your own. We can all look back across a number of years and recall particular occasions and relationships where we wish things had worked out differently or better. Or we can wonder why, at other times, everything seemed to go so well, almost without any effort on our part.

Have you wondered why some personal, work and business relationships are more effective or enjoyable than others? Have you noticed that it seems easier to communicate with some people than with others? Are you more comfortable with some people’s behaviour than others? Have there been occasions when you wished you had handled a situation differently or better? This book has the potential to help you to understand and appreciate the similarities and dissimilarities that you feel and notice in your own and other’s natural values, attitudes and behaviours.

As you read, you will understand and accept that some people think and act differently to you. You’ll think about why they do and realise that it doesn’t have a lot to do with inadequacies on your part. You’ll then be able to think more positively and clearly about managing problems, creating opportunities, accepting challenges and making choices. Understanding how you and other people think, feel, act and react plays a key role in improving any kind of relationship… business, personal or social.

Contents

Section 1 – Introduction to Left-brain and Right-brain Orientation

Chapter 1 – Introducing orientation
Chapter 2 – Applying orientation to business effectiveness
Chapter 3 – The Two Hemispheres of the Brain

Section 2 – Applying orientation to a variety of core business skills and responsibilities

Chapter 4 – Orientation as Business Brainpower
Chapter 5 – Application to Business Skills
Chapter 6 – Applying orientation to business relationships

Section 3 – Applying orientation to individuals, teams and groups

Chapter 7 – The Challenge for a Team Leader
Chapter 8 – Orientation and the Chief Executive Officer
Chapter 9 – Orientation and the Small Business Owner-Manager
Chapter 10 – The Business of Selling and Buying
Chapter 11 – Training and Development

Section 4 – Exiting the book

Chapter 12 – Unwise and Unfair Generalisations
Chapter13 – The 7 steps to follow as you exit this book

Buy online

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Since 1988, I have undertaken a sympathetic study of left and right brain orientation through the observation and exploration of the attitudes and behaviours of people in their workplaces, families, social gatherings, community activities and public office. This process has included a diversity of people and organisations.

Activity at every level of every business consists of planning, implementing and evaluating one or a number of individual tasks or situations: some will be of major significance and many will be routine or of relative insignificance. Yet it is predictable that each task or situation will consist of 3 major components:

1. the task itself
   - ie: what needs to be done, why, how, when, where, at what cost
2. the person or persons involved with or affected by the task
   ie: who, who for, by whom, who else, together with their needs, interests and aspirations
3. the environment within which the task is to be accomplished or achieved
   ie: the broad environment, eg political, cultural, social, economic, geographic: or the immediate environment, eg organisational issues, buildings, equipment, facilities, physical comfort.

A left and right-brain business is deemed to be a business that includes orientation as an analytical tool, one which values relationships and allocates time and energy to make each relationship as effective as possible in order to increase and enhance the performance of the business.

This is what I call ‘business brainpower’, defined as:
the ability to understand how people think and act differently to you, why they do, and how to apply this knowledge and understanding to manage problems, create opportunities and accept challenges.

Business brainpower is an important contributor to business effectiveness.

Organisations are made up of people: it is often said that organisations don’t make decisions, people do. Therefore an effective organisation is one that fully understands, respects and capitalises on the orientation in internal and external relationships.

Orientation indicates a person’s natural style, characteristics and behaviour, and is based on the dominance of either the left or right hemisphere of the brain. My writing introduces 3 styles:

• Left-brain style, where the left hemisphere is more dominant than the right
• Right-brain style, where the right hemisphere is more dominant than the left
• Centre style, where there is almost no dominance between the left and right hemispheres

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People in any business spend a great deal of their time selling and buying. They need to sell and buy with the best possible results in terms of cost, benefit, quality and service. Being able to consider and anticipate behaviour enables a business person to develop a range of strategies and options in selling and buying. Along with investing/borrowing, security and access, selling and buying are major factors in business survival.

These are the nine traditional steps in selling a product: the product can be a tangible object, a service or an idea:

1. Approaching the customer/client
2. Establishing customer needs
3. Product knowledge
4. Presenting features and benefits of the product
5. Relating the product to customer needs and wants
6. Handling objections
7. Negotiating price, terms and conditions
8. Closing the sale .. getting the order or the payment
9. Handling complaints through customer service

However, there is a difference between left-brain selling and buying, and right-brain selling and buying.

As a business, you have something to sell and you need people to buy or to make the decision to buy. Always remember that organisations don’t buy – people buy.

When we talk about features and benefits, we can relate them to left-brain and right-brain values. Left-brain people value features: right-brain people value benefits. Why? Because the features are concrete, tangible, measurable and can be subject to cost, delivery and service negotiation. Benefits are personal, intangible, emotional and can be imagined. In short, left-brain dominant people will base their buying and selling style on features: and right-brain dominant people will base their buying and selling style on benefits.

Features and benefits analysis

A feature is a component of a whole which can be described in terms of its contribution to the satisfactory performance of the whole.

Each feature should carry a benefit to the buyer and benefits can best be described by asking ‘What will each feature do for the buyer?’ In order to market, advertise and sell, you must identify a number of features within the product or service and match each feature with one or more benefits for the buyer.

For example, a feature of a fountain pen is that the ink flows consistently through the nib onto the paper as the person writes. The benefit to the owner of the fountain pen is that there will be no ink blotches on the paper or the fingers, and the writing can be done in confidence that the words will appear as the pen moves across paper. The writer can therefore relax and concentrate on the message.

The following ‘Features and Benefits Checklist’ demonstrates the movement between left-brain and right-brain characteristics in identifying features and benefits. This information is invaluable in preparing copy for publicity and promotion for both general and targeted audiences.

Features and Benefits Checklist

Left-brain questions:

1. Exactly what will people get for their money – what are the product or service components and how do they fit together?
2. What can people do with it – how can it be used?
3. What are you promoting and claiming that it will do?
4. What need or want is going to be stimulated or created as a result of its potential?
5. What steps are you taking to ensure that the product will do what you claim it will do?
6. What are you going to do if it won’t do that: what is your service, your follow-up, your warranty, and how much will it cost you?
7. What is your legal protection and moral obligation?
8. How much will it cost to get it into the hands of the buyer?
9. Can you anticipate and therefore remedy any possible faults, malfunctions or discrepancies before they occur?

Right-brain questions:

1. How will people feel when they own it, and when they don’t own it?
2. What need or want is going to be met or partially met by its use?
3. When and where can it be used and not used?
4. Why should it be used or not used?
5. Who should use it or not use it?
6. What are the alternatives to your product/service?
7. What are people doing without it?
8. What and who is your existing and potential competition?

Now, a case study in the art and science of selling:

A sales team consisted of equal numbers of left-brain dominant persons and extreme right-brain dominant persons. There is no need to emphasise that their selling styles were dif-ferent. More importantly, their success levels varied.

The left-brain dominant persons excelled in the administration, structure and rou-tine associated with selling. They weren’t too good on customer relations, but were tops in product knowledge and promoting and explaining product features. Their sales figures were below target.

The right-brain dominant persons excelled in customer relations, building team spirit, being enthusiastic about the product, generating leads and promoting product benefits. Their heart was not in administration, structure and routine. Their sales charts resembled a roller-coaster ride.

The sales manager, strongly left-brain dominant, was new into the position. When confronted with the orientation scoring, we were able to understand the differ-ences and the strengths of the salespersons, set about rescuing the team and improving sales performance.

After being introduced to orientation and analysing the team’s scores, the left-brain dominant persons saw value in adopting right-brain behaviour in their customer relations, and quickly learned to recognise the difference between left-brain and right-brain customers and left-brain and right-brain buying styles. They also understood the difference between left-brain and right-brain selling styles.

Each person became confident about their natural styles and the strength of their natural styles: each person began to value the natural styles of the other orientation and how the two orientations together made up one dynamic sales team.

Person to person selling

When selling directly, or person-to-person, it is wise to remember that the left-brain style of buying and selling will focus on features and the right-brain style of buying and selling will focus on benefits.

For instance, when selling jewellery, the left-brain style is to focus on the price, any discount, technical features of the item, how long it will last – everything that a right-brain oriented person doesn’t want to know.

The right-brain style is to focus on what it feels like to touch the product, how it looks on their dress or body, how beautiful it will look and how wonderful it will make the wearer feel, how the light brings out the brilliant colour and the names of famous people who wear similar pieces of jewellery.

The right-brain style of buying is to try it on, feel it, stroke it: the left-brain style of buying is to hold it under a strong light to check for faults, ask about the components, perhaps even the re-sale value.

If a right-brain dominant customer tries a piece of jewellery on, they enter into their own fantasy-land about how grand they will look and how wonderful they will feel when they own it and wear it. It is wise for the salesperson to sell the emotion, personal appeal, excitement rather than the actual piece of jewellery.

If a left-brain dominant customer tries a piece of jewellery on, it is wise for the salesperson not to enthuse but rather to indicate that the value of the piece can be immediately recognised as it is being worn while im-pressing them with the price, the discount, the quali-ty and the guarantee.

Similarly with car salespersons. When a person who comes in to look at a car is left-brain oriented, they will have been everywhere: they will have looked at every kind of car in their preferred engine size and price ranges, and will have checked out prices, discount rates, delivery dates, engine detail.

Right-brain dominant people? They just want to smell the leather. They want to look at the colour range, the style, get the feeling of being in it and driving it immediately. When they have their feelings sorted out, then they’ll talk price and detail.

That’s the difference between selling to left-brain and right brain dominant people.

In business, every one is a buyer and seller of something: it can be ideas, information, opportunity, knowledge, programs, products, services, buildings, equipment, machinery, etc. It is wise to remember the effect of orientation on buying and selling.

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