Unfinished Business

I've been blogging about sustained action and sustainable motivation over the last week and some more ideas have developed over this weekend.

I was talking with my friend Richard Francis, whose early stage online letting agent and landlord services' portal is starting to show real momentum. This is because Richard is one of the best exponents of doing stuff I know - he is a master of sustained action. He tellingly said:

"I was thinking over New Year about how I am going to orientate myself into 2010. Now that we have our broad strategy proven, I am going to worry less about that. What I am going to do is to fill in as many little bits of the big picture as I can - but that's not a process that has any end.

"When I look around me I see that so many people think they are working towards an end point and they slow down and then they can get complacent, or never achieve any significant scale, or get swallowed by a new competitor. For me it's now about incremental and permanent growth in everything that I do."

And I know exactly what he is talking about. For major corporations there is the Japanese term Kaizen, which means continuous improvement - "continuous" implying permanent and not just movement to a pre-determined end point. Not, for that matter,many big corporations don't become inert and then inevitably fall into reverse and ultimately fail through lack of development - look, for instance, at the likes of Woolworths in the UK in recent times.

But I like this idea of permanent value-add - Unfinished Business - as applied to start-ups and early stage growth operations.

As I proceed day by day with this mentality in place, I feel some major motivational advantages. By concentrating on constant achievement it take away the sense of enormity about the project you intend to deliver - and that lack of stress in fact releases and increases creative energy.

It also removes any fear of complacency, of either settling for what you have or just seeking to coast towards some final fixed point (with an attitude of working just towards such a fixed point, you will in fact both never get there and, even if you should, neither will it ever be enough!)

This attitude was reinforced yesterday when I had lunch with the inspirational U.S. sociology professor Robert McRuer. I share his interest in reducing injustive in this world (outside organisational consultancy I am involved in some very exciting social enterprise projects) and his attitude that vigilence, passion, input and action always are necessary. I asked him where he saw as his own vision of an end point and he replied, his expression one of rejection of the very basis of the question, "The struggle goes on, always!"

I like that kind of attitude.

It's committing yourself to your own Unfinished Business. And about continuing to build it every day in every was - always!

- Author Malcolm Evans is a partner in corporate culture research and development specialist The Cultureship Practice.

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