Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Mary Ila Ward

  • Entrepreneurs Give Back

    Entrepreneurs Give Back

    Many entrepreneurs find a path to entrepreneurship in their efforts to accomplish two things:

    1. Find personal fulfillment and satisfaction
    2. Give back to others and the communities in which they serve

    And the reality of it is that, oftentimes, number one is fulfilled because number two is constantly being sought.   Giving back creates the end that satisfies many other means.

    We’ve featured several of these like-minded entrepreneurs over the years, and wanted to remind you of their great stories to check out as inspiration:

    Ginny Pylant- Artist- Just Give it A Whirl

    Ben Eubanks– HR Pro

    Susan Ozier- Fitness Coach

    Who inspires you to be an entrepreneur?

  • Leader, Do You Need to Hold Back?

    Leader, Do You Need to Hold Back?

    Week 11 Mileage: 35 miles

    Long Run Distance:  15 miles

     

    This week (tomorrow) we drop down to a 15-mile run for the long run. Our weekday runs also have dropped back too, with what has been a typical 9-10 mile Thursday run decreasing to seven this week.

    We’re following a training plan from Runner’s World which gives us this “easy” week before next week, which is what I like to call “peak week” – a 22 mile long run, which pushes the weekly mileage close to 50 miles, before the taper three weeks before the marathon.

    As I think about the need for this constraint on holding back this week, I’m reminded of the concept of the 20 Mile March in Jim Collin’s Great by Choice.

    In Collin’s research on how companies thrive in the midst of a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world) a key driver he finds is “fanatic discipline” described through the concept of the 20 Mile March:

    A good 20 Mile March uses performance markers that delineate a lower bound of acceptable achievement.  These create productive discomfort, much like hard physical training or rigorous mental development, and must be challenging (but not impossible) to achieve in difficult times.

    A good 20 Mile March has self-imposed constraints. This creates an upper bound for how far you’ll march when facing robust opportunity and exceptionally good conditions. These constraints should also produce discomfort in the fact of pressures and fears that you should be going faster and doing more.

    As I sit here writing, quite honestly, I want to be running. I feel like I haven’t done enough this week. I’m itching to get outside and go.

    But like Collins describes with powerful research, those people and companies who push too hard and grow too fast end up, well, getting hurt.  This leads to setbacks far greater than if they followed the plan and resisted the urge to “overdue it”, as my dad is so famous for stating.

    Discipline requires us to not only push forward towards challenge, but to hold back for the sake of longer lasting results.

     

    Where do you need to hold yourself back in order to avoid injury?

     

    You may also like:

    3 Things Leaders & Runners Need to Do to Customize Towards Optimal Performance

    You Gotta Gitcha Some Help to Lead and Run Well

    Leader, do you need a change of environment?

    Leaders, Pace Yourselves with 3 Tips from an Elite Runner to Do So

    Leaders, Do You Surprise and Delight?

     

  • 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Going Out on Your Own to Start a Business

    5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Going Out on Your Own to Start a Business

    Today’s post is a video of founder of Horizon Point Consulting, Inc., Mary Ila Ward, discussing her path to entrepreneurship.  She addresses the following five questions in the video for those considering a business start-up:

    1. Can you stick your foot in the water before jumping in full force? If not, have you planned financially to jump out on your own all at once?
    2. How are you building relationships now to foster potential success for going out on your own in the future?
    3. Is entrepreneurship right for you?  What is your motivation for doing what you are doing?
    4. Do you have a support system in place to do it?
    5. Finally and most importantly, do you have something that people want and need?  If you aren’t meeting a need you won’t be successful.

    video-miw

  • 3 Things Leaders & Runners Need to Do to Customize Towards Optimal Performance

    3 Things Leaders & Runners Need to Do to Customize Towards Optimal Performance

    Week 10 Mileage: 47 miles

    Long Run Distance:  20 miles

     

    Shalane Flanagan, who was the top American marathon finisher in Rio (6th overall),  almost didn’t make the Olympic team. The trials were in LA during a day of grueling heat, and after starting strong, things unraveled fast.

    Having trouble with the digestion of her fluids, she started to get chills which indicates a problem with dehydration.  Her drinks were too concentrated and she ended up having absorption problems. At mile 23, she described her experience on the Runner’s World Show Podcast,

    “Amy like (her training partner), I’m really struggling…”

    “My face was getting really, really red, and she (Amy) could tell I was starting to overheat. At that point I thought I may be missing out on my fourth Olympic team.”

    After finishing in the 3rd spot and qualifying, she underwent a sweat analysis that analyzed her particular genetics and sweat composition to see what type of fluids and nutrition she needed, customized for her, in order to run in Rio- also in hot, humid conditions- to optimize performance.  She is a heavy sweater, sweating almost three times more than her training partner did during the same test.  Amy and Shalane had different fuels in their bottles in Rio and hydrated differently because they perspire differently.

    Just like Olympic runners need different things to optimize their performance, different people need different things to maximize their performance at work through the motivational techniques their leaders deploy.  There are different strokes for different folks.

    Some employees may be motivated by public praise whereas another might want to crawl under the table if you praise them in front of the team.  Some may need an opportunity to think things through and plan things out in order to perform successfully, whereas others may maximize their performance through the adrenaline rush that comes from a fast and spur of the moment pace.

    Do you know what type of fuel each of your team members need to optimize performance? If not, here are a few things you can consider for discerning key motivators:

    1. Ask them what motivates them! Email us and we will send you a simple questionnaire that can help facilitate this discussion between you and your employees.
    2. Assess them.   There are several personality assessments out there that help us understand what motivates or drives people at the individual level and how that drive interacts with others to drive team performance. Email us and we can also set you up with one of these.
    3. Watch and listen to them. Can you see when someone’s stress level is rising?  What triggered it?  Stress masquerades as demotivation.  Too much of those triggers and you are going to burn someone out.  In contrast, when do you notice someone is energized and excited?  They probably need more of the environment, tasks or interactions that lead to that excitement to optimize motivation.

    Ask, assess, watch and listen.  This will help you customize your motivational elixir for optimal performance.

  • 8 Steps to Go Out on Your Own as an Entrepreneur

    8 Steps to Go Out on Your Own as an Entrepreneur

    Entrepreneurship is a workforce development strategy we all need to focus on and consider more.  Either at the individual or community level, entrepreneurship is a viable way to create wealth, develop professional satisfaction and, at the end of the day, help more people.

    I find that more and more people are considering going out on their own for their next career strategy.  In fact, many people are referring now to the “Free Agent Nation” or the “1099 economy” with over one-fifth of the population working on a 1099 instead of W-2.   In addition, more and more companies and educational entities are focusing on how to become more entrepreneurial in their thinking, structures and curriculum. And on a personal level, what people seem to ask me about the most, outside of general HR questions, is how to go out on their own.

    I offer this guide below that a colleague and I developed for a conference this summer to help any aspiring entrepreneur get started.  In addition to this guide, I’ll be delving deeper into the ideas surrounding entrepreneurship for the next several posts.  We’ll have some guest bloggers in this series as well as some things to mix it up a bit including video content.

    Have you thought about starting your own business?  If so, what do you want to do and how can we help you succeed in doing it? If you have taken the leap out on your own, what do you wish you knew before you did and/or what advice do you have for others in doing so?

    entrepreneurship

    Resources:

    Starting a Business by Constance Jenkins Pritchard

    Plan – Business Planning & Financial Statements Template Gallery

    Build – Social Capital How-To: 5 Steps to Build the #1 Competency You Should be Developing

    Grow – Get a Leadership Development Game Plan 

    Care – 6 Tips to Help You Unplug for Your Vacation