The IFP Notes Instructions, Part 2 of 3 [21 pages]

Aji Notes (Volumes 1-4) and Aji Reflection Questions

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Meeting Instructions

If you are leading a new Aji IFP and are new to learning Aji,

… complete one or two assignments for each Aji IFP Meeting.

#1 – One assignment from The Introduction to Aji Course or The Aji Starter’s Course

#2 – One distinction from Aji Notes, Volumes 1-4

* You can skip distinctions from Aji Notes when you first begin The Introduction to Aji Course or The Aji Starter’s Course.

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Ethics of Power

1. Always start your meeting “on time”.

“Ethics of Power” are ways of acting in IR#4’s competitive situations that increase competitive capabilities and advantages, productivity, value and incomes.

There are more than 50 listed in the book Aji, An IR#4 Business Philosophy.

Being on time is a “dominant strategy” in IR#4.

It isn’t easy to do.

A “dominant strategy” is the best course of action in a competitive situation, regardless of any action taken by a competitor.

In IR#3, dominant strategies included working hard, getting the job done (task orientation) and relying on common sense.

In IR#4, the dominant strategy is to execute a competitive, fundamental strategy throughout the day (strategic orientation)

… to produce steady streams of OPNS that are fresh, new, highly valued and scarce relative to demand

… that are aimed at fulfilling ultimate financial objectives by age 60.

Starting Aji IFP Meetings on time, every time, isn’t easy to do.

It requires learning and practicing “competitive capabilities” such as designing and holding intentions when stressed, ambition, strong moods, planning, execution, managing people, emotional strength and discipline.

It is a competitive capability used to produce monopolies and auctions businesspeople use to increase their value and incomes.

A group that lacks the skills needed to be on time, or that tolerates people being late, usually isn’t clear about what Part #1 of The Strategy means to their spouse and children.

Each Aji IFP Meeting is an opportunity to practice being prepared and ready to work “on time”, every time. (It’s much more difficult than popular culture assumes.)

When people are late, allow them to recommit for a short period of time so they can build their skills. If it becomes clear they cannot do it, excuse them from the group until they are able to perform to Aji Standards.

Businesspeople who are unable to coordinate their thoughts and actions to be on time to Aji IFP Meetings, or who are unable to complete preparation requests, lack the skills needed to help anyone learn Aji and thwart people’s intentions.

2. Establish each participant’s “ultimate financial intentions” to learn Aji.

Businesspeople have different financial and familial aspirations, capabilities to think and act in the marketplace, hold different roles and work in different competitive situations.

They have different aspirations, ambitions and intentions to produce outcomes in the future.

Their “ultimate financial intentions”, which are how much they intend to have saved and invested by age 60, will be different.

Fundamentally, businesspeople always intend to have enough money to afford food, housing, medical care and transportation for 25+ years of old age with their spouse.

Generally speaking, three groups of businesspeople learn Aji:

1. Businesspeople who are not able to earn and save enough money to avoid running out of it with their spouse during 25+ years of old age… and intend to fix their situation

2. Businesspeople who are already rich and intend to become richer

3. Employees who work for business organizations that use Aji

Depending upon businesspeople’s ambitions and capabilities, they learn Aji with different orientations, intentions and skills.

Here are 5 different orientations to learning Aji:

#1 – Executive Aji

Grow their career and businesses to fulfill their Financial Ambitions

Intend to earn a living, become rich or richer

Complete The Aji Starter’s Course

Use Aji easily, enjoyably and definitively

Participate in Aji IFPs

Lead Aji IFPs

Are fluent designing fresh, new offers, practices, narratives and strategies (OPNS)

Have superior identities of trustworthiness, value, authority, leadership and dignity (TVAL&D)

Are able to build IR#4 Networks of Capabilities

Are able to hold highly compensated leadership roles and build strategic business organizations

#2 – Full Aji

Grow their career and businesses to fulfill their Financial Ambitions

Intend to earn a living, become rich or richer

Complete The Aji Starter’s Course (may also have completed The Introduction to Aji Course)

Use Aji easily, enjoyably and definitively

Participate in Aji IFPs

Lead Aji IFPs

Are not yet fluent designing OPNS

Are building superior identities of TVAL&D

Are able, or working on, building IR#4 Networks of Capabilities

Are able, or working on, holding highly compensated leadership roles and building strategic business organizations

#3 – Aji Light

Complete The Introduction to Aji Course

Do not complete The Aji Starter’s Course

Learn Aji at work in the organization’s Aji IFP

Learn The Strategy

Focus on executing Parts #5 – #9 of The Aji Source Fundamental Strategy

#5 – They design OPNS to help their employer

#6 – They are “tactical support” (fix situations) and help build and support their employer’s Networks of Capabilities

#7 – They increase their employer’s autonomies

#8 – They help their employer produce highly valued accomplishments

#9 – They are part of their employer’s identities of superior TVAL&D

#4 – Tactical Aji

They are part of their employer’s Network of Tactical Support.

They become familiar with Aji through:

The Introduction to Aji Course

Aji Competitive Distinctions

Aji Notes

Aji, An IR#4 Business Philosophy

… but do not build competency with it.

They execute Parts #7 – #9 of The Strategy (see #3 above).

They lack ambition and drift through their careers.

#5 – Cultural Aji

They are familiar with The Strategy and are willing to fulfill “strategic” requests to fulfill their employer’s strategic intentions.

3. Check on everyone’s mood.

“Moods” are ungrounded narratives about future possibilities that are accompanied by body sensations.

Moods are very powerful. They predetermine what human beings can and will think about or act to accomplish.

When people are in “good moods”, they anticipate a good future.

When businesspeople are in “casual moods” about their commitments, value, income or saving,

… they are not serious or thoughtful about them

… or the consequences they will trigger for their family in the future if they do not earn and save “enough”.

When businesspeople are ambitious, they are serious about fulfilling their intentions to produce situations in the future that enable them to live a good life.

Aji IFP Meetings work when businesspeople are:

1. Ambitious

2. Serious

3. Dignified

4. Thoughtful

5. Tactical

6. Strategic

7. Competitive

* See Good and Bad Moods in the Aji Notes.

It’s important for participants to always observe their moods so they come into existence, become aware of them, and practice producing or changing their moods intentionally.

4. Make the meeting valuable.

This is the responsibility of Aji IFP Leaders, which includes:

Inviting businesspeople who are ambitious, serious and dignified

Excusing, or not inviting, businesspeople who are not serious or dignified enough to get their work done and participate thoughtfully and competitively

Making each meeting’s help to fulfill each participant’s financial, career and business intentions,

… important, useful and worthwhile.

The 3 criteria used to assess the value of Aji IFP Meetings are:

5. An Aji IFP is serious and transactional, not a club.

If you are leading an Aji IFP, own it. It’s yours. It reflects you.

Don’t mimic popular culture. Aji IFPs are not clubs for friendly, nice, wonderful and inclusive businesspeople. It’s not a democracy.

Until businesspeople have saved “enough money” for old age,

… Aji IFPs are about saving enough to afford food, housing, medical care and transportation with their spouse for 25+ years,

… and not becoming a “parent tax”, or financial burden, on their children.

It’s about businesspeople’s dignity.

No one is entitled to join your Aji IFP.

They “pay” you and everyone who attends by:

1. Coming prepared with their assignments

2. Participating ambitiously, thoughtfully, seriously, etc.

Make sure everyone who attends is clear about their financial, career and business intentions,

… and that they are coherent with Part #1 of The Strategy.

6. 6-8 participants is enough.

To build your IR#4 Networks of Capabilities (NWC, Part #6 of The Strategy) and prove your skills designing and executing OPNS, it’s important to continually invite new businesspeople to attend and join your Aji IFP.

When groups get comfortable, clubby and stop inviting people, their Aji Skills and IR#4 NWC become stale, mediocre and uncompetitive.

Some business owners, executives and managers lead much larger groups every month.

Then, in between meetings, participants work together in smaller groups of 6-8 to prepare.

7. Have everyone share their ultimate financial, career and business intentions.

Make sure they know them, and are able to speak them clearly and straightforwardly.

Have them practice speaking their (1) financial, (2) career and (3) business intentions so they make sense and are meaningful.

Use DMRVP. What is each one’s description, meanings, relevance, value and purposes?

This is essential to build identities and hold leadership roles.

* With mature groups, this doesn’t need to be done every time.

8. Make sure everyone can speak The Aji Source Fundamental Strategy.

Break into pairs and discuss all 12 strategic intentions.

Then write and speak The Strategy out loud in a meeting, forwards and backwards without using notes.

Then have participants explain why and how the 12 intentions work together and build on one another, in sequence.

Then explain how to diagnose competitive weaknesses by going backwards through The Strategy.

9. Practice using The Strategy to deconstruct what competitors, employers, employees and vendors are doing to execute it.

Remember, The Strategy is fundamental.

This means everyone is trying to execute The Strategy, or trying to improve their offers and practices, and it doesn’t matter whether they know it exists or not.

As you develop your skill, you’ll create new competitive capabilities and advantages that exploit your interpretations to increase your productivity, value and incomes.

10. Have everyone discuss how they are executing The Strategy at work,

… and how they are designing OPNS that are fresh, new, highly valued and scarce relative to demand

… to increase their competitive capabilities and advantages, productivity, value and incomes.

11. Share new “domains of thought and action” that were opened when participants did their assignments.

Domains of thought and action are different collections of language and meaning such as medicine, law and engineering.

Stethoscopes and surgeries belong in medicine. Contracts and law suits exist in the law. The mechanics of materials and electricity belong in engineering.

IR#3’s business skills are a “domain of language” that includes hard work and reliance on common sense and is no longer competitive.

Aji is a completely new “domain of language” that enables businesspeople to think and act in completely new ways. The more Aji businesspeople learn, the more they increase their competitive capabilities and advantages.

How will they use modifications to their “action packages”:

Ambitions, Moods and Explanations?

Distinctions, Interpretations and Intentions?

Commitments, Practices and Outcomes?

… to execute The Strategy?

12. Have participants share new “distinctions” they learned and how they can use them tactically with OPNS and strategically to execute The Strategy?

Have everyone build their action packages.

13. Share the new “conversations” they are able to have.

… with their customers, employers, employees, colleagues and vendors, and their spouse and children.

Have everyone build their action packages.

14. Share 4-7 “negative assessments” they have about their capabilities to…

… learn, communicate, coordinate thought and action, design and produce outcomes with new OPNS

… that produce bad moods for thought and action.

Everyone has them.

The way to deal with most of them is to simply allow them to be. Sometimes businesspeople realize they need to get help to cope with them, which is very important.

15. Always “complete” your meetings.

1. Acknowledge breakdowns and corrections for the next meeting.

Was everyone on time?

Did everyone complete their work?

Did everyone participate thoughtfully, ambitiously and with dignity (integrity and value)?

2. Request assignments to be completed for the next meeting.

3. What actions from this meeting do they intend to begin tomorrow?

4. Was everyone satisfied with the meeting? Any complaints or requests?

5. Were you satisfied with the meeting and everyone’s participation?

6. Was everyone satisfied with how you prepared for and ran the meeting?

16. Aji Forums

Consider launching an “Aji Forum” in between Aji IFP Meetings.

Set the forum up on aji.com or online using any app you’d like.

Have participants in your Aji IFP post 2 responses to questions you select, or ones they choose, from The Introduction to Aji Course, Aji Competitive Distinctions, The Aji Starter’s Course, Aji Notes or Aji, an IR#4 Business Philosophy (Chapter 7).

Then have each participant respond to 2 of those responses.

This is very powerful, and participants enjoy doing this, because it is social, engaging, fast and increases everyone’s competitive capabilities and advantages quickly.

It opens all sorts of new and unexpected conversations that can continue during the next Aji IFP Meeting.

(End Part 2 of 3)