A "Bold Vigorous Assault"

What cause are you committed to that is not going great?

Many such battles have been won with a “bold vigorous assault”.

Is it time to really go for it?

Get better by teaching

When you teach, you realize all the things you don’t know, can’t explain well, and missing pieces in your presentation or argument come to your attention.

Teaching forces you to clarity.  The more you teach, the better you get – and fast!

Who should you be training so YOU get better?

Say the obvious

“We need to have happy customers above all else.”

“We must have perfect quality.”

“We must listen to our customers, especially if they complain.”

“We must not waste materials because it will be harder to make a profit.  And when we make a profit we can give out raises and invest in our facility”.

Sometimes we can think our team members know stuff because it’s obvious.  But if it was so obvious we wouldn’t need leaders.  

Speak up and say the obvious often.  What’s “the obvious” for your organization?

Avoid Rock Bottom

Some business owners are in denial until they have a near-death experience.  Things had to get really, really bad for them to admit they were the problem.

Don’t wait for that to happen.  Admit it early, and become the leader you need to be to get the results you say you want as soon as possible.

Your job in building your company

Build a team of people that can and do get the results you are looking for.

Have you done that?

Your most dangerous competitor

It’s none of your competitors.  It’s your ego.  That voice that says you know what you are doing, you don’t need to do it different, and justifies your actions.  It’s that voice that says “You’re the man”, or “I can’t” or “I’m afraid to change”.  “It’s that voice that says “If I just work harder, it will all work out one day” or “Nobody can do this job as well as I can”.  

Your world will not get better until you do.

Are you better than you were last year?  (For the answer ask, “Am I getting better results?”)

The Fight in the Dog

When a business fails, often the owner is not defeated, he just gave up before he transformed himself into the kind of thinker that could succeed in that business.

If you’re not going to improve yourself, giving up is a good option.  

But if you want to win, you’ll have to fight – yourself.

Why don't we improve?

Many business leaders are always learning something new and different – reading, listening to audio; and they learn ideas they know will help them.  Yet, few change.  Why?

I think part of it is that we don’t want to let go of who we are now.  You can’t be the new improved person and the old person at the same time.  You have to let go.  Stop doing things you’ve always done and thinking and acting the way you always have.  

You can’t be two people at once.  Have the courage to let the old you die, so the new you can emerge.

Feel, Felt, Found

A way of answering an objection; for example – “I don’t like that you only have one color”.

“I understand how you feel.  Other people have felt the same way.  But what they found is when we had several colors everyone chose the same color anyway because it matches everything, and it’s timeless – it never goes out of style.”

Try it.  “I understand how you feel. Other people have felt the same way.  But when they really looked closely at it what they found was…”

Hire people that are better than you?

You’ve heard this before, and it applies to skills.  You must hire people that are better than you in a given skill.  Where I think many leaders get frustrated is in hiring people of better character than themselves.

It’s very difficult to do, because who wants to work for someone of a lower character than they are?  They look around your place, see your other employees, see how far you have come in so many years, and hear you talk.  If they don’t think you are the kind of person that will make them feel safe in their career and all that depends on it, they won’t want to work for you.  You’ll have to settle for people who just want any job.

To get better people, be a better person yourself.