The Mechanics of Business
… Why IS an Engineer writing about Business?!
One of my previous posts posited plainly that Business was a System made up of interconnected components. The Book will go into detail explaining why that is so. For now, just take it as an axiom – a given – for our discussion.
So, if Business is a system, then it has mechanisms, cause-and-effect relationships within the interworkings or components of the system. Thus we can speak about the Mechanics of Business: study and examine it from that basis, learn something, hypothesize, test and experiment, and jump-start our way towards success through understanding.
Mechanics is:
The science concerned with the motion of bodies under the influence of forces. A fundamental goal is to understand and predict the motion of objects based on the forces acting upon them.
The machinery or working parts of something.
The method or process of doing something, including its practical details and operations.
Mechanics presumes direct cause-and-effect relationships between components of a thing which are somehow integrated together and have predictable behavior.
Ok, that tells us something and we can work with that concept.
I’m a systems software engineer.
In layman’s terms, that means my superpower is systems.
☛ Systems Engineers Just Think Differently ☚
Because I think differently, I can give you a perspective on business which will give you a head start, an advantage over others. In layman’s terms, I can open up the poker machine for you, show you how it works, what settings you can change, and how you can play it more effectively for your success.
A millennial might call that “hacking the system” … I call it “using your smarts to gain an advantage.”
Bias
I am quite biased when it comes to systems. The following list, albeit long, is important to understand because Systems Engineers Think Differently.
I seek to uncover systems, discern their operation, abstract them, simplify them, improve them, and use them to better advantage than originally envisioned.
I look for cause-and-effect relationships amongst integrated components, physical or abstract.
I troubleshoot issues from a systematic standpoint.
I prefer to design virtual machines (VM) for solving an entire class of problems. A specific problem (within that class) can thus be handled when the VM is given a Table of Parameters for the specific problem.
Systems reduce bugs, errors, and calamities.
I discover commonality, make it as universal as possible, and then make a process out of it so that others can gain the same advantage even if they do not fully understand the underworkings of the system.
I attempt to maximize the Software Engineer’s application of Physics’ The Principle of Least Action, which is known as: Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY). Which I jokingly call: Maximum Laziness. Which I could restate as: Find out how something works and use it. My various Quick & Dirty Techniques for Business maximize this principle.
I see that well-designed systems yield structure, APIs, protocols, foolproofing, security, and a minimal set of services for 80% of the needs (aka use cases) it will encounter.
The end result of this mindset, when applied to business, was that I could peel back the bewildering mind-numbing aspects of business and see how the clockworks function. I could see the inter-relatedness of the components. And I could apply seemingly unrelated concepts (such as QC Quality Control principles to the Sales Prospecting Process) to gain an advantage, even in difficult economic times.
Main Thrust of The Book
(more on this later; for now just a statement of my premise!)
Business – as a system – operates and progresses in a five-dimensional space
These dimensions are:
The normal spatial 3 dimensions of our world (x-y-z planes)
Time
Conceptual → Material dimension (of manifestation)
Principally, I see this last dimension in these terms:
Vision → Strategy → Plan → Startup action → Operations
Perhaps the following illustration1 will help:
I see this as just a visualization of E=mc2. The more that something becomes manifest in the real-world, the more energy required to assemble it as matter (mass, the “m” in the equation).
A Vision is a conceptual fragment — a gossamer or wisp of an idea — of something. It has minimal energy of activation.
A Strategy takes the idea further. It wraps more complex energy around how the idea could marshal real-world resources to conceivably achieve successful manifestation of the idea. It’s a way-plan for how to use resources to achieve a goal.
A Business Plan is the real-world implementation blueprint for how to manifest the vision according to the strategy.
The Startup is the actions, energy, and resources which are constructed and pulled together for manifesting the plan in the real-world by following the Business Plan Blueprints.
At the level of Operations, the vision has become an on-going systems, dynamically functioning in the real-world: generating revenue, satisfying customers, producing products or services. This manifestation has the highest level of both complexity, energy, resources, and material things in the real-world.
The Book, its companion Quick & Dirty Workbook, our training, and our coaching will contain the Tools, Know-how, Techniques, Mindset, and Practical Application Methods required for Newbiepreneurs™ to manifest their Business Ideas.
Your Wilderness Pathfinder
You need a coach — a pathfinder — to help you find your way in the wilderness of business. Someone who understands the Mechanics of Business and can help guide your way to success. Click the subscribe button to get all the latest posts and ideas. Become a paid subscriber to Pay It Forward.
clip art citations:
lightbulb: color clipart PNG Designed By Supartayasa from https://pngtree.com/freepng/vector-bulb-idea-clipart-design-in-yellow-and-gray-color_8705066.html?sol=downref&id=bef
overlook: Mascha Tace, https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/man-standing-on-cliff-overlooking-road-1388338640
blueprint: Vasco, https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/structural-imagery-x01-gm157281064-469912
house construction: Irina Cheremisinova, https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/roofing-construction-flat-vector-illustration-gm1171946250-324879006
assembly line: Lena_Datsiuk, https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/technology-and-packing-concept-in-flat-style-industrial-machine-vector-illustration-gm1091751808-292903822