We usually think of outsmarting the competition.  Beat them to the punch with new ideas and new technologies.

However, have you considered the dangers of outsmarting yourself?

As a business leader, you’re often faced with difficult decisions…on a daily basis.  The common reaction is to make a new “policy” to handle it in the future.  Then, you don’t have to handle it.  Your team will.

Or will they?

Eventually you’ve become so smart that in order to pass along your knowledge (your rules on company behavior), your manual is too big for any one to comprehend.

Your culture will begin to collapse under its own weight.  New comers won’t understand it.  Many will disregard the manual, and others will simply hate it.

People crave freedom.  At times, that freedom makes us do stupid things.  A business leader should let the stupid happen.

Don’t create a rule to control a once in a lifetime event.  It makes things too complex.  Too big.  And eventually you’ll lose control.

Here is a somewhat lengthy essay on complex societies’ eventual downfall.  It is applied very appropriately to business growth.

I recently set up a Yahoo account so I could use Flickr.com. I didn’t really need to set up one, but wanted to favorite a photo of a hobby of mine. Seems simple, right?

Wrong. Took me about 20 minutes just to set up an account. First, I had to figure out why when I clicked on “Sign in” (just to check if I had already created an account before), I went straight to Yahoo. Now, I knew Flickr had been bought by Yahoo, but how many other people know that? That’s not common knowledge, and most don’t care.

Now, it didn’t go to the Yahoo log in screen, either. It went to their home page. How does that make sense? Alright, so I’m writing it off as a link error. Looks like they’re about to introduce a new home page design, so you’re forgiven for the error.

Not so fast. I go back to Flickr and now notice they have a “Sign up” button. “Awesome!” I think….that should be easier. Unfortunately, that takes me back to Yahoo, but at least I’m on their sign in page.

I can click from here to sign up to Yahoo. They’re so nice that they’re giving me an email address. Wait! I don’t want another email address. No matter, they’re giving me one anyway, and I have to pick a Yahoo ID for the email.

They have a nifty feature that checks each field to make sure it’s accurately entered as you go along. I’m thinking this is great because I won’t have to worry about entering something wrong, and then having to reenter passwords and the like when the page reloads (most of you know exactly what I’m talking about). Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.

I don’t notice anything that says my birthdate is required, so I only select the month and move on. Later, when clicking the submit button, it says my full birthday is required. I don’t think that’s really relevant, but enter it because I’ve already committed a lot of time to this effort. Remember, all I want to do is get a Flickr account.

It takes a couple of minutes to pick an ID. I’m thinking that’s the ID that’ll be on everything. I was wrong again…it’s just my Yahoo ID and email…and again, that’s something I don’t want.

I’m getting down to the “Captcha” block…the jumble of weird looking letters that most major companies use to prevent spammers from getting email addresses through robot programs. I’m not dumb, and have only ever had one time I needed to refresh the letter jumble because I couldn’t read it. Here, I have to refresh it three times before I could read the letters. On top of that, when I clicked the refresh button, nothing happened. It finally refreshed after waiting about 15 seconds, and clicking it 10 times.

By this time, I’m royally frustrated. What should have been at most a 5 minute process (most of which would be picking a nice user ID I’ll remember) is four times longer.

But, wait! It’s not over. I’ve got my Yahoo ID. I go back to Flickr. I have to pick yet another ID to be my Flickr ID. That’s fine, though, since I could choose my usual ID whereas I couldn’t in Yahoo.

A part of good business is removing obstacles to people becoming customers. It’s smart, too. Why frustrate your customers when it’s unnecessary? They’ll go somewhere else.

Google is the best example of things integrating seamlessly. On almost any of their separate programs, whether it’s Gmail, google.com, or YouTube, it’s easy to sign up. Once you’re in on most sites, you have that single ID to use across all of them. In fact, it’s so seamless, if you check the box to stay logged in, you can go to a new Google site, like Google Voice, and you’re already signed in.

That’s how you please customers. Remove barriers. Keep it simple. Yahoo: you’re doomed to mediocrity until you learn this.

Now I’m going to go play with my new Yahoo email account. Uhm…no I’m not.

So, that makes this a “me, too” blog.  I don’t like “me, too” blogs, since someone else was there first.  Plus, I’m finding that I don’t really want to research detailed stuff like 529 plans when I have no kids.

Wow…that’s actually tough to say since I’ve spent hours thinking about and writing articles already.  But, it is true.  I like thinking about ideas and concepts.  New and creative things catch my eye.  And, I love good business.

I listened to a podcast yesterday that really hit home.  It suggested your blog should be about something you’re really passionate about.

If that’s true, it made me think…what am I really passionate about?  What makes me grin like a school girl? (No offense to girls of school age who grin excessively.)

Yes, I am passionate about personal finance.   But, I’m not so passionate about a lot of the research behind it.  And, I really mean, that I don’t want to be the one doing the research, though I don’t mind reading about the findings. I just find I am rehashing old, but proven material.

One of the things I really enjoyed doing in college was thinking on ideas.  And, I really loved the idea of putting a business together.  And, I really loved the idea of seeing a good business be successful.

I find myself grinning at places like Chick-fil-A where they have a simple menu, but have boat-loads of business.  And then there’s GE, where Jack Welch took a business that was old and holding itself up with a cane as it lumbered around…and he helped form it into a global powerhouse of high quality manufacturing and finance (and some other odds and ends).

There’s also great ideas like Guerrilla Marketing and the The 4-Hour Workweek
and Raving Fans.

I could just go on and on.

I find that I simply like personal finance.

But, I love good business.

So, for a bit, I’ll see if that fits me.  I’ll see if that is worth writing about and reading about and putting together articles for.  Yes, people write about business.  And, often they write about good businesses.  But, I have a little different mindset about it.

I’m not sure if I can put that mindset into words or not.  I’ll give it a shot and see what you think.