If you're seeking or wanting to

• spend less time on the day-to-day running of your business,
• sell your business,
• improve employee morale, engagement and productivity,
• have more fun at work, in a relaxed environment,
• help employees "fire up" with creativity and enthusiasm,
• sustainably increase efficiency, turnover and profit,
    or
• simply take a holiday, free of worry about business performance and activity

then you will benefit greatly by 'systemising' your business so that it effectively runs itself.

The value of good business systems

Try this Quick Quiz, a quick litmus test  for any small business owner:

1. The Barack Obama Time-out Test
   Are you able to take "big chunks of times during the day when all you're doing is thinking"1 about your business? Can we assume President Obama has good systems, and competent people able to take care of business while he's taking 'big chunks' of time to think about climate change, and the fate the human race?
2. The Time-Away Test
   If you were unable to be contacted - no mobiles, emails, nothing! - for two to three weeks, would your business run as normal? Or would you need to be there, because you're "indispensable", micro-managing the business, having not yet systemised and delegated the day-to-day running of the business?

1. 1. '"THE MOST important thing you need to do," Barack Obama told UK conservative leader David Cameron when they met last year, "is to have big chunks of times during the day when all you're doing is thinking."' Catherine Fox, 'Creating Space', AFR Boss Magazine, Dec-Jan10, Fairfax Media Publications, Sydney, p.25.

The Art and Science of Blinking

Around 2,450 years ago the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea was perhaps the first to methodically question a simple fact of life - how do we physically move, such as when blinking an eye, running, or simply falling down?

His questions and arguments, which have become widely known as Zeno's Paradoxes, pointed to the seemingly logical impossibility of the everyday experience of physical movement.

His considerations have perplexed and troubled philosophers and scientists even since. Various assumptions that underpin our modern technologies and sciences were taken for granted. We take for granted that there is always a physical cause for every physical effect - as exemplified by scientists researching to find physical cures for disease, cancer and viruses; and to find the physical genes or brain cells responsible for thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and the experience of love, creativity and joy. 

Now, with the advances in the field of quantum physics, we know that a 2,450 year era is nearing its end .. an era in which it has been assumed that our physical brains, bodies and the entire physical universe is continuously existent. An era in which each part (atom, virus, cell, organ, person, planet) was assumed to be continuously existent and functional, with every part contributing to the running of, or dysfunction of, the machinery of life.

We stand at the edge of a grand new understanding of our universe, and ourselves. As Visa International founder Dee Hock foretells, a new era

An interesting and worthwhile interview with Sir Ken Robinson on the ABC's 7.30 Report with Kerry O'Brien.

Two parts to the interview.

Part 1 (transcript, mp4, wmv)

Sir Ken Robinson: 

"...people achieve their best when they firstly tune into their natural aptitudes - and lots of people I have interviewed aren't musicians, they're mathematicians, they're business leaders, they're teachers, they're broadcasters, you know, they've found this thing that they completely get. But the second thing is that they love it. And if you can find that - a talented and a passion - well that's to say you never work again. And it is true, I think, that our current education systems are simply not designed to help people do that. In fact an awful lot of people go through education and never discover anything they're good at at all."

[Copyright Belief Institute, Sydney 2008]

Personnel departments and consultancies almost invariably attempt to categorize and define people according to certain personality traits which are then matched to the requirements of a particular position. To some extent, definition of skills, competencies and character is important for effective placement of people. But present attempts to write more effective computer programs or questionnaires to help determine character are misguided.