Now I want to get to my point. Today, they really have a leg in the training business. At some point, the software becomes good enough and the next barrier to more clients and revenue becomes training. Your business is no different….we must train our customers. If they don’t know what to do, they are going to screw it up. Good training can make up for a lot of deficiencies in a product and poor training can kill a great product. So here are some questions worth asking yourself.

1. Do my customers know to use my product or services?

2. How do you know that they know how to use your tool / services correctly?

 3. Is your training organized by benefit and is your entire company aligned on those benefits from the strategic vision of the company to the gal who takes calls at the welcome desk ?

What I enjoyed most about the book is that it provides an arc or a foundation for building a great team. Similar to what I have read in Wisdom of Crowds, Wikinomics and Open Space Technology, groups of people have an amazing quality to really make remarkable things happen in this emergent and non-linear process. These dysfunctions, when addressed and remedied really allow for a clearing or space for a team to excel.

Here are the 5 dysfunctions that every leader and team member should be aware of in order to see optimum results.

Dysfunction 1: Inattention to Results – This is largely a function of team members being more interested in status and egoic interests.

Dysfunction 2: Avoidance of Accountability – This is shows up as low standards or low goals.

Dysfunction 3: Lack of Commitment – This is a result of ambiguity of job, direction and goals of the team.

Dysfunction 4: Fear of Conflict – The is evident when you see an artificial harmony within the team. There is such a thing as healthy conflict.

Dysfunction 5: Absence of Trust – This dysfunction expresses itself as members of the team being invulnerable.

Throughout the story, Patrick does a great job capturing the essence of each of these dysfunctions and how a leader can go about addressing these dysfunctions. After identifying each dysfunction, I would say that the next most important part of the book is the final chapter of the book, “Understanding and Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions.” Within this chapter are a list of exercises and resources for addressing each dysfunction.

Below is a really great YouTube video from the author with a short summary of the dysfunctions.

My mother in law loves everything Avon and gets her kids and In-Laws gifts from Avon, every Christmas

So one year she learns that I am a student of Eastern Studies and decides that getting a buddha ,from Avon, would be a great gift for our home. Upon opening the gift, I recall being mortified and really bummed. I remember thinking, “It’s just not right to have a Buddha from Avon! Avon is materialism incarnate, everything the Buddha taught to see past.”

Over the years the Buddha statue has stayed with us and oddly enough, my impression of the gift has changed too. I am a little embarrassed when I think of how offended I was by the ceramic mold that Amber’s mom had given us. Today I realize that its just a statue, nothing more. I like it. Even more interesting is that I actually like it because it is from Avon. There is something silly and profound about having a symbol of wisdom in your home and having it come from a place so detached from anything spiritual.

Thank you Mother-In-Law Phyllis

8 Myths Click Here To Download

For those readers that are not familiar with Infusionsoft, they are a software company that provides small businesses with a host of CRM/Marketing Automation tools. (http://www.infusionsoft.com)

Once a year, this company will host a 3 day free event to anyone wishing to attend.

Here are some aspects of the event that I found very interesting.

1. More than half of the people there were women. This is very unusual given that this is a software company, the application is technical and historically this his been a predominantly male event. I think this is representative to the growing number of new business owners that are women.

2. Over the course of the conference I connected with the owners and employees of the company. I was able to view first hand their commitment, personality and general good will towards their customers. It was fun to meet them, see the latest and greatest developments and figure out where they are heading.

3. The last item I just really wanted to emphasize here was the notion of the small network of service providers that surround Infusionsoft. Infusionsoft is a powerful and technical application. As a result, not every individual is technically sophisticated enough to be able to take full advantage of the application. As a result there is a small community of vendors (including Infusionsoft) that support small businesses wishing to use Infusionsoft’s application. This event proved to be great in being able to network with various vendors and see the neat projects/products they have developed.

Here is a very simple description of the AQAL Model and what you need to know to understand the basics of it.

Every unit of reality is both a whole and a part of a larger whole, has an interior and an exterior. A unit of reality also exists as an individual unit and (assuming more than one of these entities exists) as part of collective if other units. So this could apply to an atom, cell or a human being.

Observing the unit from the outside constitutes an exterior perspective on that unit. Observing this unit from the inside is the interior perspective, and so forth. If you map these four perspectives into quadrants, you have four quadrants, or dimensions.

For example, a human being has an interior dimension that is psychological/conscious, an external physical side which is the body, a collective interior which is shaped by language and culture and then a world of things in which that person exists, like a community. Here is a link to learn a little more: (Wikipedia)

So below, is an AQAL map with the roles or hats that I wear in my life. For example I place the practice of Yoga in the upper half, because it involves really only my mind and body. If I am a teacher of yoga, then I could place that in the lower left hand corner.

Brady’s Personal AQAL Map

I have added the various roles that I play in my life on top of this map and the various practices that I am a part of that support or overlap with the corresponding quadrant on the AQAL map. Also, I have also included a ranking of how strong or solid I think I am in this role. This year, I really have two major focuses…and that is my spiritual practices and my 1099 consultant role. Ultimately I would like to be able to draw these together where my work with companies is a spiritual expression of my gifts I would like to offer to the world. I also want to quantify that the rating of 3 is a rating of where I am versus where I think I can be by my 40th birthday. I think I am only a fraction of effective as I will be a eight years from now.

My Roles
Role (Rating on a scale of 1 – 10 with level of engagement) – Description
Partner (5)-  This is the role I have with Amber. Intimacy/ Roommate/ Explorer

Family Member (6) – This is the role I have with family. Unconditional support & interest.

1099 Consultant (3)  – This is the role I play for clients. Being of service and utility.

Friend (5) – This is the role I have with those that know all or parts of me.

Citizen (6)– This is the role I serve on the planet by the very nature of participating in life.

Seeker/Yogi (4)– This is the role I engage in when I seek truth to embody and realize.

Explorer (8)- Writer/Designer/Creator/Thinker/Inventor/Researcher – This is the role I find myself
in for temporal truth to be used in the here and now….may not be valid or useful in 5 – 100 years.

Child (2) – To be in guiltless play and fun.

While I completely support this action and often tell clients to do the same, today I am reminded of a potential pitfall that may arise if attempted a bit naively.

For every model worthy company there has been a history for that company that lead up to where they are today. (You could say the same for any model worthy individual) That companies history informs them, gives them a personality that externally can not be read/seen/measured by others. In simpler terms, they went through a lot of CRAP to be where they are. The simplest thing someone could think would be, I want to be like “X” not really knowing what it took to get there or event how.

The REVERSE ENGINEER PART:

In the pursuit of being like company X, you may have forgotten that the path to be like that does not begin with modeling what they do today per say. For multiple reasons: You don’t have the expertise, connections, bandwidth, same position in the market.

So, in order to reverse engineer from the beginning, you will want start with the inquiry of:

• Where did my model company start?
• Where did they begin….and…where should I begin?
• What part of this company can I begin to take on as my ideal attribute…what is realistic?
• What are the romantic notions I am making up about this company?

At the end of the day, a model company creates a possibility for your company to embrace from head to foot, and from there to generate.

One could begin with mimicry…that may work. But at the end of the day you may be stepping over what it is really going to take, the deep stuff, to really see the real difference for picking a role model company to emulate.

What provoked this line of thought was a client. Lets say I have a client that wants to be the next Oprah. So if I am going to be the next Oprah, I should do the things that Oprah is doing now. It would be very very different to start with the intention, I want to be the next Oprah, what, specifically do I love about what she is doing and what is the next most specific and immediate action that I could take that would glacially take me in that direction. For example, the first step would not be get a TV show or work on your hollywood connections…or it could be. Potentially, your first action may be to find your unique voice that supports and inspires others. The possibility of being Oprah creates a concept for your mind to work with and a future set of actions.

Knowing the history, is the beginning of reverse engineering.

A few things to know about me….I am handy when it comes to turning a wrench or pounding a nail and love applying abstract ideas/concepts to real world scenarios.

Step 1: I saw or heard about concrete countertops. Then I did nothing for a long time. I can’t remember when

Step 2: Then I called a professional and asked what it would cost to be done in my house. $100/square foot or more! That would be a minimum of $2500 for my kitchen.

Step 3: I did my research. Learned that people make these by themselves and that there are mud kits for people to do this. I called my cousin that is in the construction business…he gave me the name Buddy Rhodes. (http://www.buddyrhodes.com/)

Step 4: I bought the intro dvd from BuddyRhodes.com on doing concrete countertops.

Step 5: Watched a ton of youtube videos on concrete countertops.

Step 6: I created a plan to do my kitchen and I took a professional to coffee. I was currently living in Boise at the time and was getting ready to move back to Salt Lake City and remodel my home…this countertop was part of the remodel. While in Boise I found a professional concrete installer and took him to coffee. He was so helpful, patient and kind and walked me through the process again and he reviewed my plans and made some suggestions.  Here is what is crucial about this conversation. While talking to him I learned where I was thinking in line with reality and where I was off. This was huge for my confidence level. This is the same thing that I did with my cousin. Somewhere inside of the conversations, I got enough insight and confidence to do this with minimal error.

Step 6: Did the work. 2 and a half days of hard work and nearly $900 bucks later….I had 25 square feet of new concrete countertops.

“A thirst for knowledge and need for information never leads to a  thinking* inquiry (original or transformative thought*) . Curiosity is always the concealed arrogance of a self consciousness that banks on a self invented rationality. The will to know does not will to abide what is worth of thought.” – Martin Heideger

With the help of Werner Erhard (see video below), I believe the above quote from Heideger is more readily accessible. I have found particular resonance with this statement for the fact that I have a thirst for knowledge, a tenacious drive for more information. This propensity for more information is a fault at times and here is why. I can see that at some point, “MORE INFORMATION” is a major distraction from real thinking. I want to qualify by what I mean by thinking. I am using the word the way Heideger uses the word. Thinking is real, honest to god thought that leaves the person thinking, altered. This type of thinking ignores the historicity stored in your brain, leap frogs culture and penetrates a new depth of the topic at hand. “Thinking” is rare and is not the gesticulation of information bits into ever complex or clever combinations. Thinking at the most profound level is a balance of information, space and seeing the formless symmetry in what lies before you.

So, I would like to leave you with a simple thought…. often times you have all the information you need. If that is true, then how and where do you go to think at a profound level. Curiosity is great and worthwhile, but at some point you have arrived with the information at hand and only need to see it clearly.