Welcome to the Executive Business Express Network and thank you for visiting our website.

We are a non-profit organization located in Gwinnett County, Georgia.

Our mission is to serve women business owners and business executives. Specifically, members of our network focus on several objectives.

• Broaden spheres of influence
• Develop and utilize skills
• Define markets and increase members' market shares
• Collaborate with other women business owners and business executives
• Stay in touch with economic trends, and
• Enhance customer service by bringing executives and business owners together in an atmosphere of fellowship, understanding, and commitment

Small business woners typically assume a variety of job titles including chief marketing officer,chief financial officer, HR manager, and operations manager just to name a few. The following story caused me think that there may be an additional job title inherent in being the business owner.

A premier sculling coach toook his team to a race. After weeks of practice and preparation, they lost. They returned home and the coach decided they needed to practice harder. So they did.

This time the coach decided they needed their morale fifted; so he threw a party and let them have the day off. At the next race, they lost.

This cycle continued until the coach became so frustrated he decided he had lost his touch. Maybe it was time for him to retire. In desperation,hehad the boat removed from the water so he could examine it.

Once the boat was removed from the water, the problem became clear. The boat had been poorly constructed and was producing a strong drag on its forward motion. The team had been trying to win a race in a SQUARE  boat.

Small business owners and operators, like the coach easily forget that their job includes hull design and redesign. In looking for solutions to problems, it is usually easier to blame employee's work, attitudes and morale or even leadership than it is to ask fundamental questions about design of the vehicles of our work. We forget to examine the DESIGN ship.

Sales and Marketing guru Max Carey suggest that: "Your business is functioning exactly as it is designed to function" Like the coach, Carey says that we must first examine the current design of our business. While we might be tempted to start addressing employee and leadership behaviors, he states: "First,change the design of your company, then chanage your behavior."

The best athletes in the world won't win the race in a square boat. Nor will the best employees perform at their peak operating level with ourdated, ineffective procedures, policies, and systems.

You don't have to be able to build the ship, but you must be able to examine and re-examine its effectiveness as if you had designed it yourself, It is important not to not only have the ability to recognize a faulty design, but the willingness to do something about it.  Recognition of the problem is the first step, but without rebuilding the hull, the coach is still left with a square boat.

I hope that your business enjoys smooth sailing this month....

From the May 2009 publiciation of Small Business Matters, Tim Fulton Publisher