The Leader's Weakness

All people have strengths and weaknesses, and leaders are no exception. A leader must KNOW what his/her weaknesses are so they can avoid their weaknesses from becoming problems in their career and organization.

A leader who doesn’t understand their weaknesses can be a weak leader.

You can hire around your weaknesses, and defer to other experts in areas you are not good in.

What are your personal weaknesses?

In ten years…

Ten years is a lot of time; you can do a lot in ten years.  In ten years, how old will you be?  

What do you want to have accomplished in ten years?  Where do you want to be?  What do you want to have?

Five years is half of ten.  Where do you have to be in five years?  Where do you need to be in two years?

What do you have to do this year, to get there?  What do you have to do today?

Great Idea Factory

Many people have ideas – which to them, with their (limited) experience, make sense.  But ideas are made better when they meet, rub against each other, and even collide.

When my idea meets your idea, or just your brain, it gets fused or polished into something more valuable. Ideas must interact with each other to evolve into greater forms and value.  This means that people must interact, share what they are trying to accomplish or improve, and what their ideas are for doing it.

Do you have that kind of interaction inside your organization?

The Power of Unreasonable Goals

If you give your team a reasonable amount of time to accomplish a reasonable goal, you will make reasonable progress.  But your competition is doing that, and you are just keeping up.

What if you gave your team an unreasonable stretch goal? What if you gave them an unreasonably short time to do it in? Instead of saying the goal is 10% improvement, what if it was 3x improvement?

Some employees will mentally check out.  But some will stick it out; and sometimes, you will get the unreasonable progress accomplished.  Even if you don’t, you are likely to get a lot farther by trying for exponential improvement rather than incremental progress.

Don’t just let crazy things come out of your mouth casually, lest you lose credibility.  Be fully committed yourself, and get behind the team 100%.

What do you need to improve exponentially?

Jump on unhappy customers – FAST!

Unhappy customers can sit at their computer and in 10 minutes, make your life miserable for years.

Social media, BBB complaints, Dept of Consumer Protection – your record can be indellibly altered for the worse in minutes – and prospects will see this stuff forever; and may never tell you why they did not hire you.

You’re going to have to make customers happy anyway – why wait until they are really upset?  At any hint – jump on it!  Once they go to their keyboard, it’s too late, the damage is done.

Tell your people and empower them to act.

Pay your bills right away

When I get a bill, I pay it the next day.  When my company gets one, I instruct my accounting department to pay it right away.  I couldn’t do this in the beginning, but I do now. Why?

1) Suppliers treat you better when they know you pay in a few days.

2) You can take advantage of any discounts offered for early payment.

3) You don’t make any more money by paying later.  You are going to have to pay it anyway.

4) It’s good for your credit rating.

5) It’s not fair for the owner of a business to take ANY money, if he doesn’t pay his suppliers as agreed.

6) When a slow time comes, you are much better positioned to weather the drought.

7) If you are heading for trouble, you know it early and can make adjustments.

8) You don’t have to duck phone calls or anyone in the supermarket.

9) It feels good.

Sales Drive Everything

I know.  The difference between a sales klutz and a pro is so vast, that it will make or break your company.

First you need a culture of sales excellence – right from the top.  Then you need to hire and develop (train) some real committed people onto your sales team.  Then you need to support them in every way and set an expectation of high performance.  

Mess this one up and you’re toast.

How’s the sales culture at your company?

Business Goals

You’ve gotta have them.  If you go to work without goals, you are just going through the motions – again – another day – just like the last.  

You can go backwards, or forward, but you can’t stay here.  If you do the same as you always have, your competitors are getting better and you will do worse.  And without forward motion, your team will stagnate and you won’t get the best out of them.

So HOW are you going to make this year better than last year?  What are your goals?

Write them down, and go to work on at least one everyday.

The "Ownership Job" and the "Leadership Job"

If you are the owner, you may be the leader, but not necessarily.  The ownership job and the leadership job can be different.

Ownership Job – Choosing leaders, legal issues, capital allocation, positioning the company in the marketplace, financial feedback, facility, goals, guiding leaders.

Leadership Job – Building the team, communicating (goals) to the team, incentivizing the team, ensuring training, supporting the team, empowering others, culture, monthly strategy/daily tactics.

Which job are you doing?  Both? 

"I earned it"

When you are working hard and long and different, but haven’t accomplished great things yet, you may look around you and see most others coasting merrily along and ask yourself, “Is this worth it?”.

Remember these words by James Allen – “He who would accomplish little, must sacrifice little.  But he who seeks to accomplish much, must sacrifice much”.

One day you’ll look back and say to yourself, “I earned it”.