Think Like An Entrepreneur: Continuing Education and Reinvention

What I love best about being an entrepreneur is that I control the training budget, and can pay for any training I feel will increase my value to my clients and give me a great ROI.  


When I was in the corporate world, even in management, training was one of the first things that were cut to reduce expenses and I felt that, rather than invest in keeping employee's skills updated, corporations were willing to simply replace them when new skills were needed. 

So, even if you are an employee, in this case it pays to think of yourself as an entrepreneur.  Be willing to invest in yourself, and keep your skills relevant.  

Don't let your career stagnate.   Look for opportunities to reinvent what you do.

Praveen's Strategic Simplicity® Framework

My Strategic Simplicity® framework helps leaders dramatically drive business growth and improvement.


Here are the components:

1. Change Simplicity -  This refers to thinking about a transformation / project as a TV series as opposed to a movie. We should break change into phases, or “micro projects,” that can be implemented iteratively. “Rinse and Repeat,” as the wisdom of the shampoo bottle tells us. This way, we can easily adjust to changing marketplace relevance.

2. Market Simplicity - This is about stating the “Why” of the project as succinctly and clearly as we can, so everyone understands what results we want. It is also about prioritizing, clarifying, and triaging business requirements, so that we focus on only implementing change that is strategic to the business. Transformations and projects are successful when the outcomes are relevant, stated simply, and clearly worded. Many problems occur not because of technical issues, but because of communication issues.

3. Decision Simplicity - Having to make decisions based on ambiguity and/or having too many options results in paralysis by analysis. We need to narrow choices and filter information in a way that allows apple-to-apple comparisons. All through the project—from strategy through implementation– we need to be able to synthesize information to make timely, informative decisions.

4. User Simplicity  - Most companies are aware of the need for positive user experiences for their customers, but they neglect their “internal customers” (employees). Many technology companies have employees straining to be productive on internal systems with clunky interfaces that they would never sell to their customers. Timely implementation success depends on teams being able to work effectively, without having to deal with unessential road blocks.

Quoted in Fox Business Article from 2011

I found the link to this article on Fox Business, that I contributed to, from 7 years ago:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2011/07/19/5-smart-money-lessons-from-reality-tv.html

My Chicago Business Journal Columns

I have now written 16 monthly columns for the Chicago Business Journal, going back to the fall of 2016:


https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/bio/37222/Praveen+Puri?page=1

My January, 2018 "Chicago Business Journal" Column: 4 Ways Legalized Marijuana could Disrupt Chicago's Business Landscape

Here is the link to my column:

https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2018/01/22/4-ways-legalized-marijuana-could-disrupt-chicago.html

Examples of Work Simplification

The Wall Street Journal recently had an excerpt from a new book called "Good at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More" by management professor Morten Hansen.

Hansen's work overlaps my own work as a consultant specializing in Strategic Simplicity® and business simplification.

He discussed how most office super stars don't work longer hours than their co-workers—in fact, it's the opposite.  They focus on, and prioritize, a smaller number of tasks, which they excel at.

If their manager tries to pile more tasks on them, they don't meekly accept them.  Instead, they ask their manager what they should prioritize on.

Hansen gives some examples of how simplicity and focus can help an organization:

1. A manager at a Maersk terminal focused his attention on one activity—how crews moved containers on and off ships.  He ended up noticing that the drivers would unload a container, drive it from the pier to the container lot, then would drive back empty.  The process would then repeat with another container.

Instead, he asked the drivers that, before driving back from the lot, they find an outbound container destined for a nearby ship and drive back with it to the pier.  They ended up adopting a motto "Never drive empty", and their productivity increased substantially.

2. A business analyst at an insurance company noticed that one type of product was growing in popularity, but the online application process for this particular product was buried under several layers of menus.  She asked the software people to change the process for this product to allow it to be filled out with only a few clicks.

My "Stock Trading Riches" Portfolio After 13 Years

It's now been 13 years since I've invested my portfolio according to the system in my book Stock Trading Riches.

In 2017, My "Stock Trading Riches" account beat the S&P 500 again (26% vs. 21.83%).

Here is the cumulative 13-year return (Source for S&P500 returns):

Year, Me, S&P 500  

2005, 13%, 4.91%  

2006, 14%, 15.79%  

2007, 22%, 5.49%  

2008, (40%), (37%)  

2009, 44%, 26.46%  

2010, 22%, 15.06%  

2011, (5%), 2.11%  

2012, 13.3%, 16%  

2013, 23%, 32.39%  

2014, 13%, 13.69%  

2015, 1.49%, 1.38%  

2016, 20.88%, 11.96%  

2017, 26%, 21.83% 

My portfolio had a cumulative 13 year return of +281% vs. +187% for the S&P 500.  
That translates into a 13 year average annual return of 10.84% vs. 8.45%