1. Today’s Small Business Issues 

• Today’s Small Business Background 
• What’s the Survival Rate of Businesses 
• Should You Go into Business for Yourself? 
• Are You In Control? 
• Did You Start Your Business Without a Reality Check? 
• But Some Businesses Do Survive for Centuries 
• Do You Have a Millionaire’s Mind – The Foundation Stones? 
• What’s The Best Personality Genes for an Owner or Manager? 
• How To Recognise That You Have A Problem 
• What Excites You -- Survival or Growth? 
• Why Survival is a Key Priority 
• Should Survival Override Growth? 
• What’s Your Business Goal—Build a ‘Great’ Business? 

2. What Makes a ‘Great’ Business 

• What Makes a ‘Great’ Business? 
• What Do Customers Consider as a ‘Great’ Business 
• What Employees Consider as a ‘Great’ Business 
• What Owners (and You) Consider as a ‘Great’ Business 
• How the ‘Great’ Business Traits Interrelate 
• Maximise Outside Influence and External Contacts 
• Learn Fast from Your Mistakes and Successes 
• Fulfil Your and Your People’s Needs 
• Build on Your Best and Discard Your Least Good 
• Take Small Cumulative Steps 
• Build Everything in Simple Interchangeable Building Blocks 
• Gain Control – Create an Operating Manual, Work Templates and Checklists. 
• Be Prepared for a Crisis 
• The Way Ahead 

• How does Nature’s Environment Compare to that of Business? 
• How Does Nature’s Genes Compare to that of Business? 
• Nature’s Memory Bank 
• Carry the “Best Fit” Forward Generation After Generation – Build a Memory Bank. 
• Structure and Longevity Comparison Table 
• How Does Nature Adapt or Change 
• How Nature Survives a Disaster or Crisis 
• Become a Selective Breeder 
• Beware of In-breeding 
• How to Mimic Nature in Business 
• ‘Nature Builds the Best and So Can You’ Using the 4S Cycle 
• Sense – Identify New Opportunities For Improvement 
• Select – What’s Your Next Most Crucial Step 
• Small Steps – How To Implement Your Top Opportunities 
• Stabilise –Keep Consistently Free Of Problems 
• Metaphor Warning – Nature Builds the Best and So Can You 

• The Sure Way to Generate Opportunities - Seek Outside Influence 
• Use Your Staff to Create Diversity 
• Andrew Carnegie’s Great Business Secret 
• Collaborate to Win 
• Your Survival and Success is Contact Dependent 
• What’s the Best Way of Finding Opportunities 
• Why Nature is a “Luck” Process 
• All that Matters is “Marketing and Innovation” 
• What’s More Important … Opportunity or Capability? 
• So What’s an Opportunity? 
• How to Establish Trends and Threats 
• How Do I Know What is a Good Opportunity? 
• How to Find a Killer App 
• Why You Must be Problem Oriented 
• Don’t Fall in Love with Your Product, Idea or Business 
• Summary 

• Do You Have a Blame Culture? 
• Mistakes May Lead to New Opportunities or Capabilities 
• Mistakes in Business are 85% Down to the System 
• Create Harmless Mutation Pressure. 
• How to Create and Benefit From Serendipity 
• Test Everything – Find Your Mistakes Before Others Do 
• Why People Don’t Learn from Mistakes 
• Two Imperfect Small Steps are Better Than One Perfect Step. 
• Don’t Be Frightened by Failure: Keep Experimenting 
• Detecting Lapses or Deviations – Your Business Performance 
• How to Exceed Customers Expectations? 
• Enhance Your Problem Solving Capacity in Three Powerful Steps 
• Gain Insights into How Your Business Really Works– Use Simulation Software 
• How to Solve Your Problems Creatively and Innovatively 
• Use Your Imagination 
• Encourage Your Staff to List Their Ideas No Matter How Trivial 
• Summary 

• Use the Hidden Force in Our Genes 
• Make Your Employees into Business Persons 
• Boost Commitment - Get Staff Involved 
• How to Recruit Staff to Maximise Retention and Build a Great Business 
• Hewlett Packard’s Philosophy 
• How Do You Value Experience? - The Importance of Supervision 
• Invest in Training and Experience Building 
• What Type of People Should You Hire? 
• How Do Different Types of Person Interact? Who Can Manage Whom Well? 
• The Importance of Your Spouse or Partner 
• People Buy People 
• The Importance of Teamwork -- Cross Train Your Staff to React Without You 
• Create a Team Award 
• Overcoming Self Interest and Resistance to Change 
• Summary 

• Struggling with Strategy? 
• The “Blind Watchmaker” 
• No Magic Bullet or Quick Fixes 
• Why Time Dictates Your ‘Great’ Business Fate 
• Don’t Take A Fresh Start Each Time 
• Mimic Nature – Build on Your Best 
• The Importance of Being First 
• How to Select ‘Great’ Business Opportunities 
• What’s the Best Fit – Let TIME decide …Do Value Added Calculations 
• How to Improve Your Income per Hour? 
• How to Launch Your New Opportunity 
• What’s Capability? 
• What You Need to Do To Build a ‘Great’ Business 
• How ‘Great’ Business Depends on Capability 
• How to Build Your Capability 
• What Bees and Ants Can Teach Us 
• Stabilise or Control Using Negative Feedback 
• Promote Change or Adapt with Positive Feedback 
• Foraging and Making Errors to Succeed 
• Learn to Recognise Patterns and Multiple Interactions – Decision Making 
• ‘Great’ Decisions Lead to a ‘Great’ Businesses 
• Summary

• Build a Jumbo Jet 
• Built to Last 
• Nature Works in Slow, Small, Cumulative Steps 
• Beware of BHAGS 
• Brunel’s ‘Great’ Eastern BHAG 
• Small Steps Can Have Big Effects 
• Double Your Profits in Small Steps 
• Kaizen… Small Japanese Steps to Survival Advantage 
• Small Steps Versus “Big Bang” Innovation 
• Gain More Flexibility and Adaptability from Small Steps 
• What Happens if Your Staff Don’t Think Small Steps Will Work 
• Summary 

• You Must Adapt and Be in Control at the Same Time 
• Are You a Leader or a Manager? 
• How Nature Solves Paradoxes 
• Build Everything in Simple Building Blocks 
• Living Things Consist of Only Four Building Blocks 
• It’s Like a Pack of Playing Cards 
• Lessons for Business 
• How to Solve Communication Problems 
• Toyota Leads the Way 
• Toyota’s Dream 
• Rigid Recipes Don’t Stifle Creativity 
• Create an Architecture that Allows Building Blocks 
• Reuse Your Building Blocks 
• Airbus Beats Boeing with Standardisation 
• Summary 

• Are you an Expert Fire Fighter? 
• Genes are Like a Recipe 
• Is Someone Always Letting You Down? 
• Here’s your First Crucial Step 
• Churchill’s Two Leadership Secrets 
• Turn Your Staff into Stars 
• How to Create Your Operating Manual to Gain Control 
• Quicken Software Saves $10Million 
• Don’t Keep Reinventing The Wheel – Give Yourself a Productivity Boost 
• How to Make It Happen Automatically 
• How to Make Checklists your Way to Enjoyment and Profits Forever 
• How Do You Identify Your Control Issues or Sensors 
• How To Organise Your Information Systems 
• What Do You Do – When Your Staff Doesn’t Like Procedures? 
• Caution: Challenge Your Own Rules 
• Work on Your Business Not In It 
• You Need to Change From Doing It Yourself to Helping Others Do It 
• How Do You Make Time To “Work On Your Business”? 
• How to Benefit from Cloning Your Business 
• What’s Your Most Important Procedure? – Cash-Flow 
• What Do I Need To Do To Increase Sales? 
• How Do You Create a Sales Generating System 
• Monitor Your Performance 
• It’s a Never-Ending Journey 
• It’s All About Managing Risk and Gaining Control 
• The Importance of ‘How’ 
• Summary 

• Be Ready for The Unexpected 
• How Do You Build Your Cash Reserve? 
• What Can You Learn From Warren Buffet? 
• How Nature Survives a Disaster or Crisis 
• Why Create Only Two to Three Lines of Related Business 
• How Recession Proof Are You? 
• Where’s Your Business Continuity Plan 
• How to Handle Bad Press? 
• Always Keep Your Help Channels Open 
• Summary 

• Today’s Business Issues 
• What’s a ‘Great’ Business 
• What’s Your Next Most Crucial Step? 
• What’s the Two Most Powerful Secrets 
• Adapt Using the 4S Model 
• ‘Nature Builds the Best and So Can You’ Using the 4S Cycle 
• Sense – Identify New Opportunities For Improvement 
• Select – What’s Your Next Most Crucial Step 
• Small Steps – How To Implement Your Top Opportunities 
• Stabilise –Keep Consistently Free Of Problems 
• Building a ‘Great’ Small Business is a Never-Ending Journey 

• Your Potential to Control your Business 
• Your Potential to Adapt to the Environment 
• Your Potential To Handle Sudden, Large And Unexpected Events - Crisis 
• Your ‘Great Business’ Potential