The phrase “Jack of All Trades and Master of None” is frequently used in a pejorative sense, implying that being a “Jack” at something isn’t enough. In the old craft guilds, a ‘Jack’ was the term used to describe a journeyman, someone who had completed their apprenticeship, someone competent but still honing their craft. And a great many journeymen made a decent living performing the craft they loved without ever becoming a master.
You may have read my post on the importance of Focus – well here’s a video version 
People often ask what was behind the creation of Opportunity Matrix – this video helps explain why:
I think it was Peter Drucker who said that the major challenges facing businesses today are accelerating change, increasing complexity and ever multiplying competition. For me, those are all reasons to focus:
It’s only by concentrating on one area of expertise that you will be able to maintain enough focus to make sure that you offer people needing help in your area the best solutions, the most value, and remain the obvious choice to work with.
When talking about Wealth Dynamics, Roger Hamilton points out that successful people follow radically different paths to wealth. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett – for years the #1 and #2 richest men in the world – have completely different ways of being successful.
Gates had all his eggs in one basket, relying on innovating within Microsoft for his success. Buffett, on the other hand, grew his wealth by spreading Berkshire Hathaway’s assets amongst a number of stable businesses, and actively avoids technology stocks.
Hamilton’s conclusion, explained very well in the Wealth Dynamics concept, is that there are lots of different ways to become wealthy. And that each of us has one way that will work better for us than any of the others. So what is a direct route for me could easily be an unfulfiling short-cut for you. You may get some fleeting success, it may even come to you quicker, and if it’s taken you off your true path, the way that you, and you alone, add maximum value for others, that success is likely to be short-lived.
So are you learning from people like you – or are you trying to become someone you’re not?
Click on this link to take the Wealth Dynamics profile test and find your best path to wealth.
Life PurposeLike many of us, I’ve spent a fair chunk of the last few years looking for that elusive short-cut to wealth & success. In a conversation last week with one of my more enlightened clients,
Malcolm Tullett, it came to me in a flash: if you’re taking a short-cut, by definition you’re off the path.
I’m as keen as the next person to achieve my goals as quickly as I can, so I’m kind of opposed to anything that makes life harder. I don’t hold with the view that fulfillment comes only as a result of hard work. In fact, my whole premise is that life should be easy, if you’re on the right path. So surely taking the most direct route should be a good thing, shouldn’t it?
I believe that there’s a path we need to tread in order to get the learnings we need to be truly fulfilled. They’re probably different for each of us – after all, we each apply a different set of filters to “reality”, based on our experiences, beliefs and values. So what is a useful direct route for one person may mean missing something important for another – a short route cutting out an essential learning.
What would you say is the difference for you between taking the most direct route and taking a short-cut?
These days we are constantly harangued with the need to take action, not to just sit around wishing for good things to come to our business, LoA-style. But what about the need to plan, to analyse the opportunity, to truly understand how to get the most out of our best opportunities?
I’m just reviewing a free e-Book from business advisor Jonathan Farrington on his approach to Key Account Management. In it he quotes Chinese general Liu-Ji, writing over 600 years ago: “Action always starts with calculation. Before fighting, first assess the relative wisdom of the leadership, the relative strength of the enemy, the size of the armies, the lie of the land, and the adequacy of provisions. If you send troops out only after making these calculations, you will never fail to win”.
The trouble with analysis is that it often becomes a barrier to action, as different stakeholder groups call for research and analysis on a bewildering array of concerns. In small businesses, it can even become an excuse to avoid taking the risk of acting at all – “I’ll make my move just as soon as I’ve analysed ‘abc’ … ah, and I’d better make sure about ‘xyz’ too … oooh, come to think about it, ‘def’ might be a problem too, best wait until we’ve checked that out … and …” These are both aspects of the phenomenon known as “paralysis by analysis”. As I was copying out Liu-Ji’s list, I was thinking, “Blimey, this is going on a bit” and wondering if all these aspects really have to be analysed up-front. And yet, as Liu-Ji says, by analysing we can dramatically increase the chances of a “win”. So it seems the trick is to make sure you analyse the critical success factors, and get your understanding about the rest by ‘learning-by-doing’ – getting started and adjusting the plan as new information arrives.
The way I do opportunity analysis is to spend some time with a client really understanding what makes a good opportunity for them, then helping them to check all the opportunities being considered against those criteria, to identify the best ones, for them. I call it “Inquisitive Analysis” – because I look at the human side of things as well as just the numbers. One very important outcome of the process is an understanding of the vulnerabilities that will need to be fixed (either in the plan, or the individual!) – and whether they’re show-stoppers that need to be resolved before even starting out, or can we get going and deal with them ‘on the march’.
The right level of analysis might take a few hours of hard work, but it can save days and weeks of wasted effort later; and just as importantly, it can provide the reassurance and confidence to take that all-important first action.
Great acronym, eh? Or maybe it’s a recipe for disaster – certainly that’s what a lot of experienced business consultants tell me as I go around speaking on Focus. They remind me that Einstein said that it’s the definition of insanity to carry on doing the same thing, and expect a different result. And of course, they’re absolutely right.
What they’re missing, is that the FOCUS acronym doesn’t say “one track”, “one path”, “one thing” – it says “one course”. Just like an aircraft travelling from London to Paris doesn’t fly, undeviating, in a straight line, or a road through the mountains may need to take the odd twist and turn, our course to success may need the occasional deviation or correction.
And in business, we can even do a few different things that all have a common theme, and still be following a single course. It’s what author & journalist Katie Ledger calls a “red thread running through everything we do”. The trick is to arrive at a course that’s not too broad, or a thread that’s not too strained. The narrower our course, and the more relaxed and natural our thread, the easier it is for people to understand how we add value. And to engage with us or refer us.
My red thread is “helping people focus on what they’re great at, and they enjoy” (essentially, my Core Process) of “Encouraging Potential”), and I’m the first to admit that it does get a bit strained at the extremities. Some of it, like my key accounts work, I’m not actively promoting any longer, because it’s stretching the thread more than I want to. And some of it only seems to be a stretch – my computer business, Cloudberry, for instance. It may seem to be a bit removed from a business advice thread – in fact, the thread runs through it in two ways. The service itself frees independent entrepreneurs from worrying about their laptop crashing, and losing data if it does. And my business partner is brilliant at dreaming up exciting and effective new ways to do that, but he’s a complete disaster when it comes to admin; I love analysis and admin, so I free him from worrying about landlords and HMRC and stuff.
The trick is to understand where you add the most value, and set your steady ‘course’ towards it.
Attitudes are not taught, they are picked up – caught – by the people around us observing what we actually do. So we have to make sure what we do is in line with what we teach.
Seth Godin has hit the nail on the head again – I do love his blog. On this post today (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/09/square-one-is-underrated.html) Seth points out that going back to square one may not be as bad as we think.
From a Busy Fool perspective, when
Meet my new assistant, Derek
Who chose your work?
Choose your Focus
It's not what you do (or the way you do it)
Nobody's Perfect
Why I don't get clients from networking events
Are you driven?
Laser focus or floodlight?
So why is Focus important to success?
Time to Grow the Business ...
Business networking from Ecademy.com – a leading Business/Social networking site, great for protopreneurs
Opportunity Matrix™ 
