Big goals, big problems

The bigger the goal, the bigger the problems you will have to solve.

If it were easy, everyone would do it.

But often, a “hard” problem means that others were not willing to think in a certain way or take a certain position.

Being a great problem solver is part of achieving big goals.

Don’t have an answer? Not sure?

Remember, just because you are the leader, it doesn’t mean you have to have all the answers.  

If you are not sure, bring the question or problem to your team. Talk it through.

Crowd-source the best answer.

The advantage of disadvantages

How are your advantages disadvantages?

How can your disadvantages be advantages?

Overwhelmed?

When I felt overwhelmed in my work, it was because I had too much to do at once.  

I had too many windows open on my mental desktop.  I had expectations to get x, y, and z done, which was already a lot, and then something else unexpected came up that I had to deal with.  I was working hard, but could not get it all done.  

Sometimes it was my high expectations and manufactured deadlines that were stressing me out.  

What I learned is that I need to lower my expectations.  Get real.  Then look at all the things I had to do.  Decide which one was most important.

Delegate any of them to someone else if I could.  Decide if any of them just did not have to be done right now.  Then pick ONE thing.  

I could work on ONE thing at a time and not lose my mind.  Put all the rest off and decide to be ok with it if they do not get done.

Do one thing at a time.  When it’s time to go home, go.

What gets you overwhelmed is not how much stuff you have to do, it’s how you process it.  And that you can change.

If you want to fly with the Eagles….

We’ve heard “if you want to fly with the eagles, you can’t be scratching in the dirt with the turkeys.”

As leaders, we will only be as good as the people around us – the people on our team, especially the key people.

A leader or manager’s job is to develop people – to bring out the best in them.  

But after so long, if the person around you is not responding, not getting better, and making the same mistakes over and over again, it’s time to admit you have the wrong person.  By cutting them from your team you have the opportunity to get a fresh new person with better skills or character.  

If you select the right person to replace them, this decision alone can save countless hours of training and frustration in the future.

I have stuck with people longer than I should have.  When you remove someone from your team and others breathe a sigh of relief and say “what were you waiting for?”, you know you were too slow.

Improving the quality of the people on a team is the fastest way to improve the team.

It’s a problem to solve that will solve 1000 other problems.

Your calendar tells what your priorities are.

If you, or someone else, looked at your calendar for the last week, or the next week, what would they say is most important to you right now?

A lot of times we say certain things or people are important, but we do not spend much time on them or with them.  

We can get into a habit with our days. If something or someone doesn’t fit in a tidy slot in our schedule, it/they don’t get the time – because “hey, I leave at 5”.

People hear what you say, and believe what you DO.

Your calendar tells what your priorities are.

What are your priorities right now?

Make more sales.

Brian Tracy said something in an audio recording years ago that stuck with me. 

He said the cause of most business failures is that “sales aren’t high enough”.

Funny huh?  

True, right?

A lot of executives get caught up in meetings, issues, and activities that have nothing to do with making more sales.

More sales can fix a lot of things.

How much time do you spend on activities that will increase sales?  These activities may include innovation, understanding the competition, marketing, sales team development, sales management development, expectations and goal setting, and more.

Your calendar tells what your priorities are.

Strong people

Strong people move forward without constant validation from other people.

They believe in their dream, when nobody else does.

They believe in the unseen, the unmanifested.

They do not wait for approval or permission.

Once they learn what they need to know, they act with faith and confidence.

How strong are you?

Leaders live in an alternate universe

A leader’s experience of their own company is different than other people’s experience of their company.

You are the leader.  People talk to you better.  They smile at you.  They kiss your butt.

Some people are genuine.  Some are fake to you.  And how fake they will be depends on whether you genuinely like them, if you are authentic, and if you can mix easily with them.

When the boss walks into a room, some people act better.  You must know this.

Some people won’t like you straight away, because you are the boss and they have prejudices, fears, past experiences, or false ideas about a boss.  They may hide, look away, or pretend.

I have been a leader a long time and I have seen all kinds of behavior toward me.  I can interpret it now, and I am not much surprised or affected by it.  Often, it has more to do with them than me.  If someone comes to me, I listen. 

The worst thing I can do is bite people verbally or use my position to make them feel small.

The best thing I can do is smile, be kind, and see if I can help.

People will feel better and perform better if they like and trust their leader.

We count our numbers, but our numbers count on people.

Financials and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) are important, but they are almost always an effect of what many people are doing.

If you want the numbers to come out better, you have to go to people.

You have to ask questions and listen, you have to understand, you have to train, you have to invest, and you have to get them to work well together.  You have to lead the people well to get a better result.

We count our numbers, but our numbers count on people, and our people count on leadership.