Ben Habeck

This is a pretty funny video that our Church did. It’s really funny because they’re totally poking fun at themselves! HA!

Enjoy!

I recently started doing the accounting for an amazing organization called Next Generation Mentoring! Part of the deal is that the founder of that organization has to be my mentor! It’s amazing!

So, the first thing we went through was my “Purpose Statement”. It was an amazing process to really discover who I AM, not just what I’ve done or what I do.

Here’s my purpose ::

I, Ben Habeck, exist to love and serve God and People and to EMPOWER them to become all that God has called them to be.

You’ll notice that “Empower” is the “3rd word”. 1. Love 2. Serve 3. EMPOWER This is my purpose… this is my calling! It’s amazing to live a life with purpose! In everything I do now, my goal is to Love, Serve and Empower. If I’m not doing that, then I’m not fulfilling my purpose in life.

Now, to the meat!

In business, we always come up with a mission statement or a vision statement and all these goals, etc. Most of the time, our organizations have a slightly different mission than our personal mission. What if, entrepreneurs discovered their personal purpose first, and then incorporated that into their organization’s mission? How would your organization be different if your personal purpose directly aligned with your organizations purpose? I have a feeling that most organizations start because the owner has always “done” what their organization does, they’re just sick of “working for the man”. What if you started your organization, not just because it’s what you’ve always done, but because it also directly aligns with your personal purpose in life? How would your life be different? How would your organization be different? Think of the impact you would have on your customers and employees and vendors?

I think that if we [leaders] can focus on our true calling, then the “business” [organization] itself isn’t what makes us successful. The business [organization] is just a medium to help us fulfill our purpose. We then begin judging our success by how well we’re fulfilling our true purpose and not how much money we make or how many customers we bring in the door.

I’ve been thinking a ton about “collaboration” lately. We run a mostly “virtual” office. We have the most amazing systems / processes and employees ever, but I’ve been wondering how collaboration could play into our strength of “virtualization”!

So, here are my thoughts…

1. If there isn’t someone at the top driving, organizing and facilitating the collaboration, then it goes only a short distance before it fails!

2. Vision casting is KEY! Someone at the top has to cast vision, otherwise, it could potentially be a bunch of random thoughts that point in different directions.

3. Someone has to DO SOMETHING with it! If there isn’t someone who takes all of the collaborative thoughts and monitors / develops them, then all collaboration is, is collaboration and no action!

4. It’s not for everyone! Collaboration only works well in some industries! Creative works, programming, music, etc. are perfect industries for collaboration. Accounting? Maybe not so much! Granted, there are some areas of accounting where collaboration would be amazing, but in the core function, it’s hard to implement. Use collaboration where it’s best suited!

5. Systems have to be the foundation! If you don’t have a system or process for developing your responsibilities, then collaboration is nearly useless! You have to have a starting place! Build a system [or even an idea] and then use collaboration to expound on it.

Our organization uses very clear, concise systems and processes. We call these the “Method” documents and each and every employee has one. I wrote them! Over the last 2 years, we’ve used a collaborative effort to develop these processes and they’re getting better each and every day. I think that when collaboration is used correctly, it can be a hugely powerful tool. However, if done wrong, it could potentially kill an organization!

“Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.” – Ronald Reagan

This is pretty good!

Is that booing I hear? Someone is too close to the mic, I think!