Your Big Speech

Pretend you have an audience of hundreds or thousands (of employees, customers, associates) and had to inspire them. 

What would you say?  Really…

Eliminate the Irritants

When people do business with you, what are the little things that bug them?  Find out.

Unnecessary steps?  Waiting on the phone?  Forms?  Approvals?  Wasted hours, minutes or seconds?

Eliminate the irritants.

Dollars per employee

We can measure a lot of interesting things.  How many dollars in sales does your company have per employee?

Measure that each month.

Make people feel good about themselves

If you make people feel stupid or embarrassed, they will go away.

If you make them feel good about themselves, they will stay.

How do you make people feel?  Have you noticed?

Consider you may be wrong

Great leaders didn’t get that way by deciding early on that they knew everything.  While exercising their judgment and tapping their wisdom, they are always looking for ways they could be wrong – information they don’t have, emotion that got in the way (theirs or others), hidden agendas, and reconciliation with higher values. 

When you look for ways you could be wrong, there’s less chance you will be.

Get both sides of the story

When a dispute or crisis pops up, we tend to hear one side and act on it.  Good leaders hear both sides and understand that both stories are usually valid – from their points of view.

Leaders must avoid being an instrument for one side or the other – which is surprisingly easy to do without even knowing it.

Get ALL the information.  Sometimes, just getting the parties in a room and asking questions and listening is all you have to do.  If not, you may have to declare a recess and get more information or think about it to make the right decision.

Remember to be happy

The key to happiness is largely the decision to be happy now.  We can get so wrapped up in what we are trying to accomplish, that we come to think that we will only be happy when we get it.  This is a trap – because real achievers are in perpetual pursuit.

Don’t confuse “happiness” with “satisfaction” or long-term achievement.

Decide to be happy – now.

Discipline and Determination

Success is not the result of being more gifted than others.  Most often it’s because someone was not willing to accept anything other than success.  They stayed doggedly disciplined and persisted until they got what they were after.

How disciplined and determined are you?

"Effortless Accomplishment"

Today, take all your internal self-talk out of your work and tasks.  Just do it – the things you have been putting off, and the most important things.

Don’t mentally labor over the tasks like you do – do them with mental ease and indifference to their scale and gravity. 

When you stop fighting IT, IT stops fighting you.

Opportunity for the Confident

Change is scary for some, but it’s opportunity for the confident.  Confidence comes from competence.  Competence comes from preparation.

Prepare for change – and be confident.