Half the story – bad decisions

Incomplete information is the cause of most leadership failures and mistakes…

Do you get all the information before acting?

From the inner…

Your business is a manifestation of what is going on inside your head. 

From thoughts, action; from action, results.

Do some right thinking to do some right communication and right action.

People are the answer

A leader who struggles, struggles with employees. They see them as a problem.  They might be trying to discipline them all the time, get them to do “what they are supposed to”, and complain they can never find good people.

But, good leaders know that other people are not the obstacle to the organization achieving its goals; they are the answer.  Your employees are the way forward and the way out of your problems.  Leadership is what is needed to make it so.

New leader, same team – Boom!

Teams can do amazing things with the right leader.  New great leader, same team – boom!

Show up correctly with the right voice and steer their attention while caring for their success.

You have to talk about the basics

“We need to always sound friendly on the phone”. “We must have a clean parking lot, offices, and bathrooms and we all have to do our part each day”.  “We need to wear clothes that fit well and look great so people take us seriously”…

Without insulting anyone, you have to state the obvious sometimes.

Can you talk to your people about the basics without talking to them like they are idiots or children?

"Company Culture"

Your culture is a shared system of what’s meaningful.  

So what is meaningful?  It’s what your goals are, what you recognize, post, keep track of, and celebrate.

It’s how you speak and encourage people. It’s what you do not tolerate.  It’s recognizing and rewarding people for the value they bring and the results they get.  It’s the leader being a nice human being and leading by example and by direct communication, asking and ensuring that others on the team are caring and respectful while being performance-driven.

Culture comes from the top and should be supported by the entire team.

How’s yours?

The fundamentals never go out of style

Why get deep into improving small details of our customer experience or product if we can’t schedule an appointment in less than two minutes, we can’t process a payment quickly, we don’t answer the phone with a helpful positive tone of voice, our place of business is a mess, and people are gossiping and backbiting each other?

Do you have the fundamentals right?  Don’t move on until you do.

Become a practitioner

There’s lots of things to learn and many of us do.  But being a practitioner is different and rare.

In that moment of confusion, anger, or situation – are you putting what you have learned into practice?

We forget most of what we learn.  It’s what we put into practice that makes the difference.

No finish line

You can’t judge your progress on how close you are to the finish line because there isn’t one.

There are goals to achieve, but no “finish line”.

You have to learn to enjoy (causing) the daily progress.

Data and Narrative

Make decisions based on data and narrative.  Data is rooted in numbers.  Narrative is rooted in people.

Don’t gamble.

Only be analyzing data and having in-depth conversations with the right people can we group enough information to make a quality decision.