What is most important and valuable today?

What is the most important thing for you to do today, that if done well by you, the leader, will have the most lasting positive effect farthest into the future?

Do that first, however long it takes.

Don't be a jerk

If you are a jerk to people, your leadership position will either be short or ineffective, with your team members either leaving or not giving their all.

Be nice.  Nice works better.

Brilliant on the Basics

Unless your team can run, pass, block and catch well, why are you working on the flea flicker or the double reverse?

Leading with Clarity

The team can never be more clear than the leader.

Are you clear about where you want your organization to do and be, and what you have to do to get there?

Leading with Purpose

If an entrepreneur is building his enterprise so that he can make as much money as possible as his primary purpose, people will know it.  They won’t be inspired, and they won’t follow for long.  Who wants to get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say “I want to make that guy as much money as possible today and I’ll bust my hump to do it”?

There must be some other mission up front, present and palpable to build and engage a team for long.

What is it at your place?

Ask what your weaknesses are.

It takes courage to ask because most people’s egos can’t take any criticism at all.  They go on for years making the same mistakes because nobody has the courage to tell them voluntarily.

Ask people you respect and that know you well – “Do you see anything in me that is holding me back?”

Editing Your Schedule

In the end, what we accomplish is about what we deside to spend our time on.  

What do you need to stop doing and say say no to, so that you can spend more time focusing on the most important things?

Engage your accounting team

Ask your accounting people to give you three suggestions to save money by the end of the week.

Let’s see what they come up with…

Eliminate Expensive Waste

One rule of economics says we should waste what is cheap to save what is valuable. In your operations, what is most valuable?  Labor?  These materials, or those materials?  Missed opportunity (leads)?  Missed phone calls?  

Of course we don’t want to waste anything, but we don’t want to spend $8 to save $4 either.  What does labor cost per minute?  Should we straigthen bent nails? (no).  Should we send one guy into the dumpster to study what we are throwing out, reclaim it, and take steps to eliminate it in the future?  Should we invest in that expensive phone system to save even more expensive phone calls (leads, sales) over the next 7 years?  Should we invest in training?

Can you look at what is most valuable and being wasted and find ways to improve?  

"Building" a business

Do you feel like your business is the same as it was last year?

“Building” a business means you are making progress in creating something better and/or bigger; different than it was last year or last month.  Something that delivers more value to customers, or delivers that value to more customers.

What are you working on today, that will make tomorrow and the days after that better?  

What are you “building?”