The Power of Culture

Welcome back to Networking Our Way, the NOW Philosophy Article 2 is here!

A few weeks back I dropped Article 1 in this series of features that outlined our NOW Group, Networking philosophy and we went into 'Trust' and 'Business Freedom' in detail. For an article refresh follow the link below.

NOW Philosophy Article one is here...

For those who didn't see it, or for those who would simply like to re-engage with our full Vision, Mission and Values, they are placed just below in full. However, here's a short hand list so you can just nudge the grey matter, as I am sure you learnt them all verbatim last time out :)

? Business Freedom

? Trust

? Collaboration

? Strategic Mindset

? Agility

? Coaching and Growth Mindset

Today we will unpack Collaboration and Strategic Mindset in more detail within the context of the NOW Networking Container.

Culture as a definition - Culture is something that unites people.

Preferably with less sustained effort.......

The NOW Vision

"Providing a rich, resilient community for Lifestyle Business owners to grow within, alongside a tribe of impassioned professionals who genuinely love what they do."

VALUES - The NOW Philosophy

Our values are the driving force behind everything we do at NOW Networking. The assembly format, added value features, eye to eyes, social events - everything falls back to these principles. The following has specified how we are developing the container and will continue to do so as we evolve. We hope they make for inspiring reading:

Business Freedom: We champion the idea of business freedom, promoting a remote service and product mindset that encourages businesses to thrive nationally and beyond, fostering collaboration and resilience. But most of all facilitating a lifestyle that you design.

Trust: Trust is the cornerstone of all successful businesses, both internally and externally. We coach our members to prioritise building trust in business to business, business to client and professional to professional relationships and encourage transparent communication and connection. Reciprocity: We believe in the power of giving without expecting immediate returns. Reciprocity is the key to building strong, supportive relationships within our community. True giving encourages the reception process.

Collaboration: We encourage collaboration even in the face of competition and the trends toward convention as we understand that together, we achieve more. We encourage our members to get their niche clear and look for the gaps and overlaps with other professionals even in their industry class. We actively facilitate these relationships to bring added value to all our members. Think abundance mindset.

Strategic Mindset: We approach networking with a sharp strategic edge, leveraging the weight of our combined profiles and creating an enjoyable networking experience for all, whilst incorporating fundamental principles like efficiency and effectiveness.

Agility: We remain open to change and development, fostering an innovation mindset not only within our organisation but also among our members. We have set up our Networking systems to deliver some of the most cutting edge elements available in modern business and enveloping them into our architecture and user experience. While eyeing future evolutions, we encourage you to do the same.

Client-Centred: Putting you first is at the heart of our service. We position and support our membership to help you maximise your investment and achieve your goals. All of our IP and collateral is designed with your business success in mind, traversing territory that will seriously drive new growth.

Coaching & Growth Mindset: We provide support and coaching to help you assimilate into our network successfully. We are committed to developing mentors as an integral part of our values and strategy.

So that's our Philosophy. Today I’ll spend a little time opening up further into our first two values which are not specifically in order of priority, but ultimately are certainly outstanding in terms of their baseline import in the business setting.

Collaboration

Our approach to collaboration is essentially at its heart inspired by an abundance principle whereby we challenge our members to see industry peers as colleagues, regardless of an apparent commercial rivalry. Firstly, healthy rivalries are good things so the aim is not to judge or denigrate businesses that have pushed each other to improve. To paraphrase Simon Sinek: 'healthy rivals often improve each other's visibility in the market, because they make us all stand out (in our sectors) in the noise backdrop of the attentional landscape that defines business, while simultaneously pushing us to improve.' So a rival is a valuable, even necessary thing!

But there's a necessary cornerstone to this mindset and it just so happens it overlaps and provides context for our 'Collaboration' principle incredibly well.

Creating competitors is a motivational mechanic that works well in a finite system, within a finite game (or games).

What does this mean in simple English?

If the key metrics for success are measured as:

• Static (not dynamic)
• Resource Limited (zero sum, less than enough to go round)
• Terminable (time bound)

Data, where everything is a battle for the now without any necessary sense of the battle for the 'then'.

How does this relate to our collaboration approach?

Business at its best is an infinite game, and as such it is far better to see a rival and collaborator within our business sector than only competitors (people we want to beat and smash into oblivion.) To remove one of our best motivations in the form of a worthy rival could be a foolish, and a naive approach in the infinite game of business. What's more, when times get real tough and business feels like we are playing battleships and our nearby parallel companies are being sunk left, right centre and any other degree you can measure, our rivals can become surprising and powerful allies with unforeseen opportunities attached.

When the game shrinks, players will often band together to face the greater foe. In these times your conduct to that point, as you navigated the inevitable perilous vectors presented in a business journey, will count.

It could be the difference......

So at NOW we urge our people to take this 'game theory' a step further to find 1-2 industry collaborators that could position them more resiliently in their market place. This infinite game approach is a good lens to apply as you read on and understand our Strategic Mindset philosophy.

Strategic Mindset

It is so easy to throw around the word strategy in business, and it can seem like a buzzy go-to that loads itself into thought as 'Management Speak' far too easily. However, Strategic Mindset for us is a principle of leadership we must set our minds to, to continue to provide an:

• Effective
• Relevant
• Valuable

Customer experience and service.

We specifically use the phrase mindset to indicate this is more than a reactive or 'intervalised' methodology. That is to say that, our filters are tuned strategically to ensure any decision making in regard to our Networking ecosystem is supported by our Vision, Mission and Values while still holding a capacity to be agile to the context (the market).

What does this mean in practice (and why do we then also encourage our business owners to do the very same)?

It means that each step we take is focused towards a long term commitment to our 'Just Cause' we focus on the distant horizon. Yes, you may note, I am drawing from Mr Sinek's business philosophy once again, but hey there's a reason Simon had one of the most watched Ted talks of all time! Speaking again to the infinite game of business craft, an aspect of which is understanding that people stick with you because of how they feel in your care.

Therefore an example of our strategy at the highest possible context is thus:

1. Layout a blue print for a culture that resonates with us and you
2. Stay true to that culture
3. Grow with that, as the soil that fertilises any seed thats planted in our landscape

Simples!

So for us, applying our Strategy to the mind as the proper map to view the emerging territory is why this sits high up in our system of values.

Historical note

The term “strategy” is derived indirectly from the Classic and Byzantine (330 A.D.) Greek “strategos,” which means “general.” While the term is credited to the Greeks, no Greek ever used the word. The Greek equivalent for the modern word “strategy” would have been “strategike episteme” or (general’s knowledge) “strategon sophia” (general’s wisdom)

Outro

So there you have it readers. I hope today's article has held your attention and got you thinking about networking. Perhaps it's also got you musing on the foundations we are crafting in the hope to create something sturdy and useful here in Aotearoa? Maybe even exciting.......

The above is not an end to end investigation into the NOW Ecosystems evolving philosophy, but hopefully it gives you a decent insight so you can check for resonance, so to speak. If that IS the case and you found reading this engaging or felt a pang of inspiration when walking through our Cultural philosophy feel free to send me a direct message to ask about NOW Group.

We meet every week on a Wednesday. Our Prime group is centred around Auckland currently and our Excelerate group is South Island focused, with Christchurch acting as the fulcrum thanks to majority membership in the area. All our assemblies are conducted online over zoom, so you can most certainly get there. 7:30am (Prime) and 12:30pm (Excelerate) start times respectively.

We are looking to add new richness to NZ’s networking landscape and maybe even stretch our value system into Australia (at least). So come and support us and your business goals with a group of approachable, integrous and determined individuals. Stop going it alone and stretch your marketing team by 30+ people before the end of the month. ????

**For more info on NOW Group right away, check out our visitor guide on my LinkedIn featured section

#Networking #Business #Freedom #Mindset #community