This morning I was reading the comic above and they mentioned the word ENNUI. I had no idea what ENNUI meant so I wrote it down on a Starbucks Napkin. It so happens that a beautiful french business student noticed that I had written down that word and the reason I was sharing this is this created a wonderful conversation. ENNUI is defined as a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement. In this conversation I shared with her how business a lot of the time is more about acting than being. And that this ENNUI can be the death of Sales or Death of the Salesman that I illustrated earlier in sub-chapter. In the movie the Death of a Salesman the father thought his son wasn’t cut out for business because he “whistle in the elevator.” In business you want to have a good balance between fitting in and standing out…or creating partnerships that help you do this. Even Steve Jobs paid outside companies to be creative because he was aware of how creativity the opposite of ENNUI can interrupt the core of your company culture. One of the reasons Starbucks is so successful is they have brand familiarity with a unique experience. The created a culture which always starts with language and then the allow each location to have a unique identity within the brand.
Why is this important?
Here is a list of 21 Tech Companies that Changed The World And Went Bankrupt and if you want launch a product you need to have a understanding of Chaos, Order and Organize-Chaos as we outlined in the Facebook Story.
Now if you have a game changing idea or business it is important to develop a balance between ENNUI and ENNUIDOM which is FREEDOM for the monotony of the day today. Join me as we ask ourselves, what is your vision? What is your role? What types of companies would like to partner and smart source with? What cultures will my idea or company culture mesh with? What are our business resources and how can this bring value to other brand? What is the one thing I can let go of right now that is standing in the way of ENNUIDOM?
