Is it possible to long term plan in the current socio politic structure? (no spam)

[Luis Antonio]

Well, during the past few weeks I've been planning to start a business of my own with the capital I do have and with some private initiative credit. Actually, I'll be meddling with a lot of credit lines if this goes ok, (4-5, 3 oficial and 2 unoficial) and with a lot of economical, personal, religious and psychological variables, and I'll try to bring all those into a schematic, a plan, that is part of another personal plan of mine that I've been cooking for a long while, since I've moved to the farm.

Now, scared as I am, and scared as I think everyone is, about the future of the political scenario in the world, with terror, Bush, China and Japan looking at each other with angry faces, North Korea and Iran with nuclear weapons or in the aim of american interventions here in south america (one of ours friends, mr Chavez is playing Fidel Castro), how can I establish a perfect plan to get into my goals?

I see that planning it financially and making a good operational map, with good people and partners. But how can I plan it psychologically? Religiously? And Personally? I've been analyzing my close friends, and people I can trust in the last months, and making visits that worked like meetings, and I've sent mails to my whole brazilian contacts, and former people that used to provide me with services/goods for the maintenance of the school and the bank I worked for, and I guess its a possible idea now.

So this is the question: Is it possible to rely in this economical/finnancial/operational planning in the long term, and dealing with psychologic personal and religious problems in short term measures? Or there is a way to counter that, making a long term planning for these non-numerical, not exact problems?

[C Elegans]

I am probably the least knowledgable on the entire board when it comes to economics, especially business, but I'll try to answer by judging from the friends I have who have their own companies and work at an international level.

No situation is ever secure. The world is never stable. Long term planning will not give you a guarantee, but good use of local knowledge in the various geographical areas involved, will dimish the risks I think. It is also of great importance that you get yourself familiar with cultural differences. Often lack of knowledge of cultural differences will make business more difficult to handle. You will need a reliable network of people, at location. That's all I can conclude from what I know about my friends' business, but I'll ask my hubby to post in this thread since he has quite a lot of experience of international business.

[Cuchulain82]

Good golly Luis, that a whopper of a question. I think that CE gave the best answer because it is such a big question. My answer would be "No" it isn't possible, but that isn't really what you are looking for.

Maybe if you break it down a little more?

(I mean, predicting the accuracy of religious and psychological indicators... that's tough!)

[Luis Antonio]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuchulain82 (I mean, predicting the accuracy of religious and psychological indicators... that's tough!)

Exactly. While I'm pretty good at the economical analisis, I'm in need of something to differentiate this specific project. Why is that? I'll tell you.

I'm looking for some contingency plans, in the religious, psychological, and social areas. Contingency plans to, in one way or another, establish a pattern of events that brings us to the "center" of ourselves again, helping the organization as a whole.

So, of course I'm comming here to the most brilliant lab of minds on the net

Its not a matter of quantification of R P and Social factors. It is a matter of creating contingency plans. I dont know a lot in those areas, and here I expect someone to tell me something about contingencies to avoid religious conflicts (we're 5 persons, all with different beliefs) and also we have different backgrounds onthe psycologic side. We will have more people involved. I'd like to know from you SYMiers what could be done to tune them up, and to, perhaps, evaluate the stress level or the loss due to stress.

Its hard, I know, its a challenge. That's why I'm asking here. I'm banging my head on the computer screen to make the finnancial part, but that is something I'll manage - now, to manage the involved people will be the tough part.

And I've started the group. I feel responsible.

So I ask you all: How can I manage these variables? and also, if someone is also good in finnancial advising / political advising please, give me any tips you can find, or send me any resources (info) you have.

CE, I'd ask your advice on the psychological part then... Is there a way to establish a routine to keep us "in the track"? And can we measure, and if we can how can we measure the psychological stress of co-workers?

[C Elegans]

Luis, I don't understand what you are planning to do. What do you mean by "contigency plans"?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luis Antonio CE, I'd ask your advice on the psychological part then... Is there a way to establish a routine to keep us "in the track"? And can we measure, and if we can how can we measure the psychological stress of co-workers?

How do you mean keep you in the track? Do you mean inf there are ways or strategies to stay focused on a task? For stress, that's easy. There are physiological stress level tests you take in saliva that measure stress hormone levels, and there are internationally used self-rating questionnaires that are very good and reliable.

[Silur]

The short answer is, as Cuchulain82 already has stated, "no, you cant". There is really no way of planning for all the ways people can fail to interact properly, regardless if it is religion, politics, smoking habits, preference of pets, etc.

The long answer is, that if these people you plan on going into business with are your friends, be sure to make out all contracts - implicit or otherwise - in paper. That way, if things go bad, you may still remain friends. It is also true if the company starts going very well. The biggest mistake I have seen people make, is to assume that all the things they agree on at the onstart will be remembered and agreed on years later. Rule number one: signed contracts. Second, when it comes to religion, a company is usually defined as an apolitical, areligious organisation unless of course if these factors are part of the business purpose. Thus, all matters not related to the company's business are considered to be peoples personal business and the company makes no effort to support or deny those activities. If it becomes a problem, all you can do is discourage the expression and promotion of ones religious, political or other personal views on company time. This is a very typical clause found in US employment contracts, and are mainly used as a pretext for dismissing someone if conflicts arise. As such it doesn't really solve the problem, merely gives you the option of removing one part of it.

[Magrus]

As far as the contracts mentioned above, that's definately a good idea. My friend is running his own business and he's afraid to put things down on contracts because he says it will scare his business partners away. I keep telling him, any of his partners unwilling to sign a business contract aren't safe partners. He doesn't want to listen and I'm just waiting on that to kill his business.

The stress and health levels, if they are your friends and your going to be the one at the middle pulling everything together then you need to make it clear you want to know about that. Impress upon them you want to know if things aren't going well with one of them, and it's stressing them out. Communication is very, very important in any sort of relationship and in business if you don't communicate your problems to other partners, they can't help you. A number of my relatives either own their own business, or manage portions of one and have for years. They spend most of their time at their jobs because they simply can't trust their employees to mention problems that arise and need to constantly check up on things to catch them before they explode into something horrible.

My uncle mentions management of a company is like being a firefighter. He doesn't have the time or resources to prevent the problems that come up, just to fix them when the get bad. The reason is, everyone hides the little problems until they get huge so he spends more time fixing them at that stage than it would have taken in the beginning. So he says instead of everyone arranging things to stop those little problems he's constantly sending people running from one place to another to put out these "fires". It prevents him from working, and whomever he needs to take away from another job to fix the problem.

I'd say you should have some sort of schedule for a business meeting with everyone. Then, on top of the one, general meeting, schedule one-on-one meetings with each partner. They may not feel comfortable sharing a specific problem with all of the other partners aware of it, but so long as you know you can choose how to deal with that and whether other's need to know. That way, you have a more clear picture of what everyone else knows collectively, and what each partner knows on his own and can sort and deal with conflicts, problems, and adjust to improve things.

You may not be able to predict what is going on all over, but you can stay on top of all the little bumps in your path with business and correct those before the put a halt to what it is you are doing at the moment a month or two down the road when that little problem has snowballed.

Another thing, allot time to analyze what it is each partner is doing, and find a way to make it more efficient. The jobs I've had, I've been at the bottom of things doing all the grunt work but I've known whats going on at the top. I've spent more time doing junk work because management is NOT aware of what goes on and is clueless as to how far derailed things have become from how they should be. Even something as simple as slapping labels on a product and moving it can become complicated if the labels aren't organized in a decent manner. What was once a simple project if not organized can go from a 5 minute job to a half hour job instead when scurrying around attempting to find the right supplies and clear off a spot to do your job. That can apply to paper work for management, shipping or anything.

I know you've mentioned a little bit of what you plan down the road to me a few nights ago, but I'm not sure what it is your planning now. Info on that may help others give you specific advice that's more relevant.

[Cuchulain82]

Luis, how about an incentive-based approach. I don't really know exactly what your needs are, but the World Band and other development organizations have found that providing incentives for people to do things works much better than forcing them to do things. If you give people options, but provide incentives for certain options, those options will generally be more popular (like buying things when the are on sale).

Does this help at all?