Q: For much of the past year (2005), you’ve been consumed with development of something you call “Enterprise Clinics”. For the benefit of our listeners, what IS an Enterprise Clinic and why is it so important?

Just as people may seem reasonably well today but may not have the physical condition for the rigors of a long and active life, so too companies that are profitable in the short term may not have what it takes to perform well year after year as evidenced by seemingly successful companies that ultimately fail, such as Enron, WorldCom, and others. But who is taking care of those unhealthy SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises)? Hence the concept of the Enterprise Clinic (EC). Why is it important? Well, according to SBA, 50% of all companies fail within the 1st year, and about 95% of them die within 5 years.

Like a medical clinic, EC helps enterprises maintain their health. Start-ups, small enterprises, or even units of large enterprises will have regular and periodic visits to the EC for check ups; at the EC they would receieve the equivalent of seasonal medicines such as flu shots and treatment for occasionally illnesses. But unlike most pediatric clinics, EC will address an enterprise’s total health—physical, mental, and emotional/spiritual—not just physical health. In other words, an EC will fulfill many roles for its “patients.” For instance, the EC might initially provide a board of directors to make sure that a company is guided by moral values and that it does not make fatal mistakes, a technology guru to provide a young company with the basic technology needed to manage its business, and strategic consultants to help create a roadmap for future.

Q: In addition to the obvious “external” needs these Clinics can provide (such as how to get startup capital and how to deal with government regulations), there are certainly many “internal” development issues that you want to nurture within these fledgling organizations. What sort of capacity-building are you attempting to do within these companies, and what processes do you use to bring this about?

In order to help an enterprise maintain its health in the long run, EC first helps them to set up a framework, namely “do the right thing, do things right, and change.” To do the right thing, an enterprise must develop a culture of trust, a strategy to encourage the management of a portfolio of initiatives covering different time frames—short, medium, and long, with a roadmap for each. To do things right, an enterprise need to track its progress. For instance, it needs set up the metrics for monitoring not only its performance but its overall health and rules for governance. Finally, to adapt to the ever changing market place, leadership must be established at all levels of the organization. In summary, capacity building includes culture (which includes vision), leadership, strategy for varying time frames, excellence, and governance.

Q: As a separate question (perhaps), I’m curious about the need to shift “will” in your small business owners, as they move from (again, perhaps) being more supported by the government to having to stand on their own two feet. Yes, you can provide support, but this is about changing energies and mind-set. What are your thoughts on this part of the challenge for the new companies, and how do you go about this?

You are absolutely right about the need to shift “will.” One of the first things we do with members of the EC is to help them to break the self-limiting assumptions about themselves. Once such assumptions are broken, an enterprise is “freer” to dream and select its right path with purpose. As such, it gains “meaning” for its people.

Q: How did this idea come about, and, in particular, your role in making this happen?

In writing my book I discovered that great enterprises are sustained by their belief systems, which help them maintain a sense of purpose and forward progress in the face of the most difficult challenges. In each enterprise, such a belief system is the basis of the organizational culture and helps the enterprise continually renew itself. The belief system keeps people proactive because they are empowered to act moment-to-moment. In contrast, most of enterprises are reactive in nature, lacking the energy and initiative to move forward. They are focused on the bottom line, but pay little attention to the future. As such, they lack the good habits necessary to keep them healthy. This is how EC concept came about—created out of the need for an external guiding influence that continually monitors the health of the entire enterprise and assists in the development of a powerful cultural belief system.

Q: You clearly bring a combination of both a mastery of Western disciplines as well as an “Eastern” philosophical approach to business, which you have written about most recently in your book, The Art of Business. How does that help inform how you are going about the “birthing” of the Enterprise Clinics themselves?

The Art of Business is really a validation of my curiosity about whether the concepts in the classic book The Art of War are being used by top business leaders in the Western world. My hypothesis was that wisdom transcends culture and time. To my pleasant surprise, my findings actually validated my assumptions that the five fundamental strategies of Sun Tzu—possibility, timing, leverage, mastery, and leadership, are the core of success for the great companies that I have studied. These five strategies help those great companies stay balanced between short term performance and long term health. In constrast, most of SMEs are primarily focused on short term results at the expense of their long term health. The EC concept comes from these revelations.

Q: One of the many ways I know you think of this is as a complete system, interconnecting the government, the public, and the private sectors in the countries you are supporting. How do you balance the many needs and “pulls” from each of these sectors as you are bringing the Enterprise Clinic program to reality? And are there some especially challenging priority conflicts that you have to balance?

One thing that I’ve learned from great enterprises is that while they have big dreams they also execute with small steps toward the dreams. The same is true of my EC concept. I am looking at the different needs of the SMEs as the requirements for my design, and I would like to try a few things with different enterprises before launching it. It may eventually become a government directed program, but at this time, it is still in the experimentation stage.

Q: Along similar lines as the last question, I would guess you have some “capacity-building” (as well as some “expectation-setting”) for the government part of your “system”, in much the same way that you obviously have that for the small business owners and their teams. What are you learning about what’s required here (for the “government” partners) and how are you addressing these issues?

I believe that EC is probably a very efficient way of regional economic development. The healthier the SMEs are, the better the economy in that region. Government organizations can help by setting up policies or incentives to encourage SMEs to participate in such programs, but the program should provide enough value for the SMEs that they want to join.

Q: This sounds like a valuable service enterprise to business startups all over the world, and yet you’ve said you plan to do this only for third world countries. Why is that?

Again, taking small steps. There are so many more SMEs in the emerging economies that need help than in the developed nations. Then there is also the fact that they are more amenable to change in terms of their mind set because they face competition from all over and yet the water is rising at the same time as the opportunities.

Q: What is your own personal AIM in all this? (I’m guessing something connected to injecting spirituality in business may come out in this.)

One of the quickest way to raise the level of consciousness in these countries is to help their small businesses become aware that compassion and trust are the hallmarks of good business.