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| | The **The Business Consortium** Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Organization Tuesday: Organizing Change | Views: 411 | | Jan 20, 2009 7:45 pm | | Organization Tuesday: Organizing Change | # | 
Julie Bestry | | I'd like to do something a little different with today's post.
It's kind of a think piece on organizing your business
thoughts, and I hope you'll think along with me. But first, a
preamble.
With recognition that not all of the members of The Business Consortium
reside in the United States, and with firm reliance on the fact that
the readers of this network are not uniform in their political beliefs,
it's almost an iffy proposition to even mention politics and
transitions of power. But I respect that all of you can
divine the difference between mentioning the weather and taking a
position on it. And thus I hope all of you will respect that
I'm just saying "look, there's a fluffy cloud".
That said, I'd like to point you in the direction of my professional
blog post for today, Transferring
Power...And Paper: The First Day at a New Desk.
(No, I'm not trying to boost hits. Consider the
post as bonus organizing information.) I'll wait.
Done? OK, good. Now, you may be wondering why I'd
point a network made up primarily of solo-preneurs and independent
professionals to a post on inheriting
the papers, desk and office of the prior occupant of the job.
That post was prompted by the thought of what it's like to
take over from someone else, especially someone with a completely
different approach. In politics, it's a rarity. We
may keep a president and his party around for two terms, but the last
time we had a U.S. president who succeeded someone of the same party, not
counting one who was filling out the term of a deceased or displaced
president, was George H.W. Bush in 1988, but before him, it
was Herbert Hoover succeeding Calvin Coolidge. As a
nation, we tend to switch out the occupants of the positions
in power. We, as voters, like to mix things up and keep it
fresh.
Well, when I wrote my blog post, prompted by the thought of what it
must be like to deal with the change of circumstance in replacing
someone else, I was transfixed by another thought. Perhaps
it's easier
to accomplish great goals and aspire to stellar achievements when all
is new and fresh and you're throwing off the suppositions of the last
leaders or the last occupants.
How difficult must it be to get enthusiastic and motivated to make
changes at the start of a second
term of office? Because isn't that what we face every day in
our businesses? Don't we struggle to motivate ourselves?
Don't we get caught up in obligations without considering
whether those tasks and responsibilities still suit our business plans?
Our life plans?
Last week, also in my professional blog, I wrote about A
Different Kind of Bankruptcy, and talked about the concept of
email bankruptcy and extended the notion to jettisoning other
"debts" we can't reasonably repay, especially our reading
debts. Think about your backlog, or debt, of
professional journals, newsletters, podcast, blogs...Do you decry any
possibility of catching up? (I've had clients tell me they
sometimes wished their computers would crash so they'd have an excuse
not to catch up.)
When you're new in a job, expectations of others, and the expectations
you have of yourself, are not so firmly entrenched. You can
make changes and be flexible. But the longer you stay in any
position (career title-wise), the more fixed you are in every position
(of opinion, attitude and policy). But what if you DECIDED
NOT TO BE? What if you:
- Create a zero-based
budget for your business and your personal life? No
line-item expense is presumed and all can be up for debate!
- Write a
zero-based business plan--ignoring the old one, entirely,
with the possibility of achieving new goals, possibly different,
possibly in opposition, of the old ones)?
- Write a fresh
business plan--not only including taking advantage of new
marketing options, but getting rid of the old ones that you've done
forever because everyone has come to expect you to do them?
What would it mean if you could let
go of "debts" that you don't really owe, if only you could
choose to absolve
yourself of them?
I'm not saying it wouldn't be a challenge. Earlier this week,
a woman who has had a successful newsletter for over a decade (someone
some of you know from Ryze), posted a tweet on Twitter that she was
ceasing publication of her ezine. It no longer fit
her marketing needs, and she decided to focus on new priorities.
She had others reply in opposition; perhaps a few had a
vested interest in her newsletter, but more had a vested interest in
things...all things...staying the same. One internet
marketing expert (who didn't know her, didn't know her newsletter, and
didn't know that she, too, was an internet marketing expert), presumed
to tell her that she shouldn't cease her newsletter because he could
"fix" it. To him, such a total change was inconceivable, and
he had to believe there was something wrong with her newsletter, or her
way of thinking, if she wanted to eliminate it. To her
credit, she stood her ground, took minimal umbrage, and made the
decision that worked best for her company.
The same people who don't support you if you want to start a business
or close a business, get married or end a relationship, may
fail to support a change in revenue model or elimination of a marketing
tool. But it's your job, it's your department, it's your
company. Whether this is your second "term in office" or your
twentieth, I encourage you to consider purging the thoughts, tasks,
attitudes and aspects of your professional life that no longer suit
you.
Organizing isn't solely about putting things away. You've
heard me say before that everything should have a home, but not
everything has to live with you. Our world is ever-changing;
our U.S. Constitution is a living document. We must
have faith and the courage of our convictions to change things for the
better. What change would make your business, your life, your
world...better?
--
Julie Bestry, Certified Professional Organizer®
Best Results Organizing
"Don't apologize. Organize!"
organize@juliebestry.com
Visit http://www.juliebestry.com to sign up for Best Results For Busy
People: Organizing Your Modern World,
a newsletter
to help you save time and money, reduce stress and increase
your productivity
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