Jean Fahmy

I don't often appreciate reductionist formulas where people say ' Do this and you're life will be better '. Life is so much more intricate and complicated.

However, I fell on this little formulaic reminder of corporate structure and priorities and thought it worth putting on the sticky side of my mind :

3 P = 2 P

Products + Processes + People = Profits and Phun (ok, I cheated on the last P, but it works)

Products : The right widget or service to fill the right need with the right message in the right market at the right time.

Processes : The right way of doing things to optimize revenues and expenses.

People : The right ready, willing and able people.

Equals

Profits : Not just financial, but also personal growth.

Phun : The most important part of the equation. If you're not having fun, STOP, go back to the left part of the equation and figure out what's wrong... then fix it.

Sometimes, I come across stories that inspire me to be a better person, to excel and go beyond established limits. This story is from the Bible, from the book of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah knew that to be a good leader you had to have clean hands and a pure heart. The basic quality for leadership is the same as the basic quality for success in a person's life. And that is to be true to one's belief and values.

So what made Nehemiah so special ?

Nehemiah had a sense of calling.
Nehemiah patiently waited for the right timing.
Nehemiah established reasonable and attainable goals. You know one of the reasons why leadership fails is 1) they have no goals whatsoever or 2) they establish goals that are not reasonable, measurable or attainable.
Nehemiah made prayer and recollection a priority in his life.
Nehemiah rearranged his priorities in order to accomplish his goals.
Nehemiah acted decisively when it was time for him to act.
Nehemiah took time to rest, to plan, to pray, to think.
Nehemiah became personally acquainted with his task.
Nehemiah made shrewd use of his time.
Nehemiah surrounded himself with trusted allies.
Nehemiah provided vision for the people.
Nehemiah involved a broad-based work team in the work.
Nehemiah never wavered in the face of opposition.
Nehemiah executed a plan to accomplish his goal.
Nehemiah didn't hesitate to take emergency action when emergency action was necessary.
Nehemiah was very visible and approachable.
Nehemiah managed his resources very well.
Nehemiah verbalized his dependence on other's help, and he did it again and again.
Nehemiah was not afraid to get his hands dirty.
Nehemiah took care of his people financially.
Nehemiah personally sacrificed to accomplish his goal.
Nehemiah refused to live above his people.
Nehemiah didn't hesitate to discipline inappropriate behavior.
Nehemiah had a great view of the value of his own work.
Nehemiah exuded integrity before everyone.
Nehemiah showed discernment in dealing with people.
Nehemiah didn't hesitate to attribute his success to others.
Nehemiah kept his promises.

Whether you believe in the veracity of the Good Book or not is besides the point. The example given here of someone who wisely persevered against all odds is worth a moment of reflexion.

I know. I promised there would only be 3 in this series, but only fools don't change their minds.

A reader sent me brilliant and striking parallels made from the Hierachy of Needs from Maslow to (A) corporate maturity and (B) types of individuals within a corporate structure. I just couldn't resist complementing the series with these parallels while acknowledging Celine Gravel and the Renoir Consulting company where these notions are continually developed and used. They work, I've been through each level and lived the thrill / stress / doubts / all nighters in the passing to the next one.

So here are the 5 levels of corporate maturity mapped out on Maslow's levels. I also included the types of employees per level.

LEVEL 1 : Physiological needs
Company needs to establish stable revenues and answer clients
Manages emergencies, very reactive and short term
Product is defined according to founder's idea
Initial systems and processes in place, trial and error to tweak them
Rapid production with little resources
Complete one-man-show decision making

Employees :
single tasked or inefficient multi-tasked
production focused
5% interpersonal abilities, 95% task execution

LEVEL 2 : Security needs
Company builds in parity with clientèle
Developing ideas to be proactive to maintain the flow
Product is modified according to client one-off demands
Certain critical systems are tweaked, secondary systems are still ad-hoc
Resources grow by client demand
Production is somewhat standardized
Some delegation takes place from founder on what the founder views as 'less critical' matters

Employees :
slightly more efficient multi-tasked
management by fear
Individualist profiles, little team spirit
Managers roles are created
15% interpersonal abilities, 85% task execution

LEVEL 3 : Belonging needs
Company grows by the market it is in
Ideas are out in place to be proactive towards the whole market, not just specific clients
Product is seen as an entry-point to satisfy market needs, complimentary products are envisioned
Internal processes are set with minor tweaks being brought to them
Resources are added in anticipation of market response and feel as though they are part of a global solution
Leadership is being executed by a team, with coherence still being tweaked as the founder learns to involve and 'let-go'

Employees :
customer service focused jobs
interdepartmental teamwork
supervisors, facilitators, management are put in place
management by relationships
less Individualist profiles, more team spirit
50% interpersonal abilities, 50% task execution

LEVEL 4 : Esteem needs
Company becomes a market leader
Recognition is there for work done to accomplish market needs
Future versions of the product now anticipate the market needs (and sometimes can even create those needs)
Internal processes are all 'in-sync' and have been optimized for top-line and bottom-line growth
Resources are lining up to be a part of the success story, supply passes the demand for HR
The leadership team have pride in accomplishments and have the constant challenge to keep the success going
Strategies for sustained growth become more diversified : new products, new markets, acquisitions, decentralization, recentralization
Corporate vision becomes challenged

Employees :
client and strategy focused
collective thinking, based on client services
like-minded individuals with similar value systems
team is king
85% interpersonal abilities, 15% task execution

LEVEL 5 : Realization needs
Company becomes a social heritage, a legacy to society, to its clients, to its employees
Recognition for social change and positive outcomes of the innovation becomes prevalent
Thriving internal culture with strategic alignment
Growth strategies have been successful and the challenged vision is now clear to all stakeholders
Strategic decision making revolves around how profits will be used to better the lives of those around the company
Succession planning becomes a priority for the founder(s)

Employees :
CXOs, VPs manage with creativity, unity and innovation
inventors, creatives thinkers, trainers are sought after
95% interpersonal abilities, 5% task execution

So where are you in this process ? Where do you want to be ? What kind of challenges do you thrive on ? What kind of leader are you ? What kind of employees do you need now ? and what kind should you look out for ?

This is the path awaiting you. Don't forget to have fun ;)

Value chains. You've studied them, heard about them and most probably been involved as an actor in many of them. In my 11 years of entrepreneurship and corporate value-making experience, I have learnt that mastery of the value chain is key.

Influenced from too many books and sources to count, here is my conception of the Product Value Chain - going from idea to satisfied costumers, from the product life cycle angle.

1. Planning value chain
          o Investments
          o Market research
          o Product research

2. Supplier value chain
          o Raw material
                + Creation
                + Transformation
          o Inbound logistics
                + Brokers
                + Dealers

3. Organization value chain
          o Creation / invention
          o Tech transfer
          o Product hardening
          o Transformation
          o Product development

4. Channel value chain
          o Marketing
          o Sales
                + Brokers
                + Resellers
                + Distributors
                + Retail
                + Direct
                + References
                + Partners
                + Final client
          o Outbound logistics
                + Brokers
                + Distributors
                + Direct

5. Customer value chain
          o Customer service
          o Product return logistics

Audit your company to see where the holes are between the idea and the happy customer. Master this process and you become a value - creation expert.

One of the subjects I deal with daily is the increasing chasm between the baby-boomer generation and the students entering the workforce today. Much ink has been spilled on the subject and no clear solution has been brought forth. The debate goes far beyond the older generation saying 'they want everything without working for it' and the younger one saying 'they are doing things the old inefficient way'.

Listening to the other side is a crucial step to mutual understanding is the realization of what your company will inevitably look like in the very near future. Both sides can gain from youth's tech knowledge and previous generations' experiences.

The following video was created by the (brilliant) teacher and the 200 students in ANTH 200 : Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. It began as a brainstorming exercise, thinking about how students learn, what they need to learn for their future, and how our current educational system fits in.

The conclusions drawn are applied to the school system (that I also teach in) but most importantly, it should be clearly explained to future bosses and HR personnel. This is tomorrow's workforce, these students are your biggest assets and your ultimate threat.

This is the last post in the series on Maslow's pyramid and how it affects the corporate strategists and entrepreneurs. Maslow's theories are taken again and again under different words in many business books and it always comes down to this conclusion :

Get people (friends, clients, suppliers, investors, family, etc) to the highest plateau of the pyramid and they will thank you. Get yourself to the highest plateau of self-actualization and they will love you and you will love yourself.

Maslow had it. He described self-actualization as
"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This is the need we may call self-actualization ... It refers to man's desire for fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything that one is capable of becoming ..."

So what are the characteristics of these people ? What must an entrepreneur / corporate strategist think about when developing the corporate services they offer ? How can look to help others and myself acquire these characteristics.

The best list I found was in Wikipedia's post on the Hierarchy of Needs. So I am blatantly copying the interesting part of the entry here. I know it's not part of the Blogging Rulebook, but I suspect you won't make the effort to click on the link and find the interesting text.  So here it is (and again, I am ripping this from Wikipedia.)

1. Clearer perception of reality.
Self-actualizing people perceive reality more effectively than others and are more comfortable with it. They have an accurate perception of what exists rather than a distortion of perception by one's needs, and possess an ability to be objective about their own strengths, possibilities and limitations. They judge experiences, people and things correctly and efficiently, and have an unusual ability to detect the spurious, the fake, and the dishonest. They are not afraid of the unknown and can tolerate the doubt, uncertainty, and tentativeness accompanying the perception of the new and unfamiliar.

2. Acceptance of self, others, and nature.
Self-actualizing persons are not ashamed or guilty about their human nature, with its shortcoming, imperfections, frailties, and weaknesses. They can accept their own human shortcomings, without condemnation. Nor are they critical of these aspects of other people. They respect and esteem themselves and others. Moreover, they are honest, open, genuine, without pose or facade. They are not, however, self-satisfied but are concerned about discrepancies between what is and what might be or should be in themselves, others, and society.

3. Spontaneity.
Self-actualizing people are relatively spontaneous in their behavior, and far more spontaneous than that in their inner life, thoughts and impulses. Self-actualizing persons are not hampered by convention, but they do not flout it. They are not conformists, but neither are they anti-conformist for the sake of being so. They might act conventionally, but they seldom allow convention to keep them from doing anything they consider important or basic. They are not externally motivated or even goal-directed; rather their motivation is the internal one of growth and development, the actualization of themselves and their potentialities.

4. Problem-centering.
Self-actualizing people have a problem-solving orientation towards life instead of an orientation centered on self. They are interested in solving problems; this often includes the problems of others. Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives. They commonly have a mission in life, some problem outside themselves that enlists much of their energies. In general this mission is unselfish and is involved with the philosophical and the ethical.

5. Detachment and the need for solitude.
Self-actualizing people enjoy solitude and privacy. It is often possible for them to remain above the battle, unruffled and undisturbed by that which upsets others. They may even appear to be asocial. It is perhaps, related to an abiding sense of security and self-sufficiency.

6. Autonomy, independent of culture and environment.
 Self-actualizing persons are not dependent for their main satisfactions on other people or culture or means-to-ends, or in general, on extrinsic satisfactions. Rather they are dependent for their own development and continued growth upon their own potentialities and latent resources. The meaning of their life is self-decision, self-governing and being an active, responsible, self-disciplined deciding person rather than a pawn or a person helplessly ruled by others.

7. Continued freshness of appreciation.
Self-actualizing people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again the basic pleasures of life. They experience awe, pleasure, and wonder in their everyday world, such as nature, children, music and sexual experience. They approach these basic experiences with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy.

8. The mystic experience, the oceanic feeling.
Self-actualizing people commonly have mystic or `peak' experiences or times of intense emotions in which they transcend self. During a peak experience, they experience feelings of ecstasy, awe, and wonder with feelings of limitless horizons opening up, feelings of unlimited power and at the same time feelings of being more helpless than ever before. The experience ends with the conviction that something extremely important and valuable has happened so that the person is to some extent transformed and strengthened by the experience that has a carry-over into everyday life.

9. Oneness with humanity.
Self-actualizing people have deep feelings of identification, sympathy and affection for other people, and a deep feeling of empathy and compassion for human beings in general. This feeling is, in a sense, unconditional in that it exists along with the recognition of the existence in others of negative qualities that may provoke occasional anger, impatience, and disgust.

10. Deep interpersonal relations.
Self-actualizing people have deeper and more profound inter-personal relationships than most adults, but not necessarily deeper than children. They are capable of more closeness, greater love, more perfect identification, more erasing of ego boundaries than other people would consider possible. One consequence is that self-actualized people have especially deep ties with rather few individuals and their circle of friends is small. They tend to be kind or at least patient to almost everyone, yet they do speak realistically and harshly of those whom they feel deserve it — especially the hypocritical, pretentious, pompous, or the self-inflated individual.

11. Democratic character structure.
Self-actualizing people are democratic in the deepest possible sense. They are friendly towards everyone regardless of class, education, political beliefs, race, or color. They believe it is possible to learn something from everyone. They are humble in the sense of being aware of how little they know in comparison with what could be known and what is known by others. They are ready and willing to learn from anyone. They respect everyone as a potential contributor to their knowledge, merely because everyone is a human being.

12. Ethical means towards moral ends.
Self-actualizing persons are highly ethical. They clearly distinguish between means and ends and subordinate means to ends. Their notions of right and wrong and of good and evil are often not conventional ones.

13. Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor.
Self-actualizing people have a keen, unhostile sense of humour. They don't laugh at jokes that hurt other people or are aimed at others' inferiority. They can make fun of others in general — or of themselves — especially when they are foolish or try to be big when they are small. They are inclined towards thoughtful humour that elicits a smile, is intrinsic to the situation, and spontaneous.

14. Creativity.
Self-actualizing people are highly imaginative and creative. The creativity involved here is not special-talent creativity. It is a creativity potentially inherent in everyone but usually suffocated by acculturation. It is a fresh, naive, direct way of looking at things, rather similar to the naive and universal creativity of unspoiled children.

Second in a series on the Maslow pyramid (MP), it is now important to focus one of the many consequences of the model on the entrepreneur's life : marketing and commercializing products.

It may seem disconnected at first, but Maslow's pyramid of needs has everything to do with the product you have in your head / are developing / are trying to sell.

Question : Where does your product fit in the pyramid ? What type of need are you addressing ?

The answer to those questions is your first step in determining you infamous 4 Ps in your Marketing plan. It even helps if you are part of those who believe there are really 7 Ps...

Here's how.  Knowing where your product fits will tell you :
- if your product is a commodity product (lower on the MP) or a luxury product (higher on the MP)
- if you're strategy will be one of volume (lower on the MP) or one of being very different and unique (higher on the MP)
- if you can ask for a high price or not (directly proportional to your product's position on the MP)
- who you will position and target your product to (optimal market is the group that find themselves where your product does on the pyramid)
- what the next functionalities of your products should be (do you want to move up, down or stay at your level on the MP?)

I have so many examples of products that prove the model. One that I like talking about is Starbucks coffee. Two generations ago, coffee was unknown on the general consumer market. Brilliantly marketed, coffee companies were able to make this new product a commoditized one. So much so, that not having coffee in the morning is a valid explanation to someone's bad mood or slowness of mind.

What Starbucks then did was very difficult and demanded as much brilliance in their marketing. They decided to bring the product out of the commodity market and bring it higher on the MP. Today, you don't go to Starbucks for the coffee, you go for the experience and the status getting a Starbucks coffee will get you. It is striking in major metropolitan centers to see young professionals line up around the bloc for Starbucks coffee when a neighboring local coffee shop is empty. Holding a Starbucks cup gives you esteem, confidence and a (very false) sense of achievement - everything describing level 4 of the MP.

So figure out where your product stands and where you want to take it. Use the hidden genius of Maslow or someone else will.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow made one of the biggest contributions of the century to the study of human psychology. He created and published what is commonly known as 'The Human Hierarchy of Needs'. This post will explain the hierarchy (heavily citing Wikipedia). The next posts will apply this old-but-still-relevant pyramid to our everyday lives and, especially, to entrepreneurs seeking to develop their products.

I hope, through this series, to demonstrate the hidden genius and the far-reaching consequences of this pyramid in all aspects of our lives.

Maslow postulated that needs are arranged in a hierarchy in terms of their potency. Although all needs are instinctive, some are more powerful than others. The lower the need is in the pyramid, the more powerful it is. The higher the need is in the pyramid, the weaker and more distinctly human it is. The lower, or basic, needs on the pyramid are similar to those possessed by non-human animals, but only humans possess the higher needs.

The base of the pyramid is formed by the physiological needs, including the biological requirements for food, water, air, and sleep. If some needs are not fulfilled, a human's physiological needs take the highest priority. Physiological needs can control thoughts and behaviors, and can cause people to feel sickness, pain, and discomfort.

Once the physiological needs are met, an individual can concentrate on the second level, the need for safety and security. Included here are the needs for structure, order, security, and predictability.

The third level is the need for love and belonging. Included here are the needs for friends and companions, a supportive family, identification with a group, and an intimate relationship. In the absence of these elements, many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and depression.

The fourth level is the esteem needs. This group of needs requires both recognition from other people that results in feelings of prestige, acceptance, and status, and self-esteem that results in feelings of adequacy, competence, and confidence. Lack of satisfaction of the esteem needs results in discouragement and feelings of inferiority.

Finally, self-actualization sits at the apex of the original pyramid. More on that last elusive level in the next post.

Over the holidays, I was teasing my 18 year old sister-in-law about how she's not a normal teenager. Think of the stereotypical spoiled 18 year old depicted in the media and Nathalie is her polar opposite.

She responded in her typical nonchalant fashion : 'Me, I'm real'. I initially laughed it off, and then it got me thinking. What is being 'real' ? The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a crucial question entrepreneurs have to answer before they begin to think of of the technology or the product they want to create. My business is the reflection of me - might as well know who that 'me' is...

It goes to the core of my being, my values, my dreams. It's what we call 'integrity'.

So how do we figure out what's important to us ? The answers are wide and varied. So I will propose a series of questions entrepreneurs need to answer in order to figure who their 'real' persona is. It is by no means complete, but it gives you a general portrait. When answering these questions, try being honest, authentic and ... ummm ... don't censor anything ;)

Your values
- Name 3 traits you would like to pass on to your kids
- Complete this sentence : Give me ... or give me death
- Complete this sentence : Life, liberty and the pursuit of ...
- Describe yourself in just one word
- Who do you admire most (living or dead) and why ?
- Your 2 biggest strengths are ...

Your environment
- Name the 2 most important people in your life and one word to describe each person
- Name the 2 qualities you look for in a life partner

Your dreams
- Name the 3 greatest moments of your life
- Name the 3 things you love to do
- Name the 3 things you would like to do before you die
- If you had to start your own country, the slogan would be 'In ... we trust'
- If you had 2 rules you would want the world to follow, they would be ...
- If you could start an organization to solve a world problem, what would the 'world problem' be ?

Your world
- If you could teach 3 things to the world about what EXCITES you about it, what would those 3 things be ?
- If you could change 3 things that ANGER you about the world, what would those 3 things be ?

Finding a good idea : X$
Starting a company and growing it based on this idea : Y $
Making a profit : Z $

Figuring out who you really are : priceless

This blog space is usually reserved for entrepreneurial posts, experiences and knowledge. But today is going to be different. It will be a reflexion on Geddo (grandpa in arab).

Geddo is 92 years young. He's lived 2 World Wars and participated with Egypt in the second one, under the English.  He has intense diabetes, is quite overweight, smoked a good part of his life, had a couple of heart-attacks, through-the-roof cholesterol and a weak liver to boot. Theta (grandma in arab) passed on over 20 years ago, so he moved to Canada from Egypt so that my parents could take care of him. So for over 20 years, he was dependent on others.

In short, he's had every valid reason to NOT be alive today. His body and his heart were broken - and that alone would have done in the best of . But his spirit, ahhh his spirit...

Many clichés could describe his spirit:
- Live and let live
- Don't worry, be happy
- Irie (Jamaican)
- Hakuna Matata (Lion King)
- Ké sera, sera
- Finding the silver lining
- Eh, whatareyagonnadoaboutit
- (insert own phrase here)

He was the epitome of selective worrying. He understood there were things we could do to change the world around us, but that there was much more we couldn't do - so why eat ourselves up over it ? He understood his limitations, accepted them, and made the best of the cards he was dealt. He always had a smile and I think he wasn't apprehensive of passing on.

I am writing this post now (and I have deliberately changed the verb tense in the last paragraph) because last week, his heart-attack put him in the emergency ward at the local hospital. He was barely able to speak and stay awake, yet he would still smile and ask me about my wife and kids. And today, I got a call from my mom that he entered a semi-comatose state. I am unsure if he will be able to hear us or not, but I do know he is at peace. He was content with what he was and what he had during his life, so my biased grandson mind tells me he must be content now.

Maybe this is a post about entrepreneurship after all. Learning to take the events of startup life (and life in general) in stride is an important take away from this man's example. Kinda brings me back to the famous Serenity Prayer (1942) and it's most popular variant:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Update: On Nov 8th 2008, he left us for a better place. He kept going a full 11 months after the posted heart-attack. I am happy to say that, while concious, he kept his positive outlook on life and will forever be an example of finding the silver lining in some very dark clouds.

R.I.P. Geddo. You deserve it.