The Primary Obstacle

What is the primary obstacle between you and your goal?

Get some smart people in a room and talk about it.

Write it down clearly.  Evaluate the obstacle thoroughly.

What are some ways to overcome, go around, or eliminate this obstacle?  

Write them down.  Evaluate each of them – effectiveness, investment, time, cost, and consequences….

Wouldn’t eliminating or neutralizing your primary obstacle make a huge difference?

Shouldn’t you spend lots of time on it?

WHO not HOW

Have a problem?  (All leaders do).

Rather than thinking about how YOU are going to solve this problem, think about WHO knows how to fix this problem and how they can fix it for you.

Get them on your team.  Hire them.  Ask them.  Empower them.  Hire their firm to get them to work on this project for you.  Ask them to do it on the weekends.  Whatever!

WHO not HOW.

Leverage

LEVERAGE – Using the technology, time, money, knowledge, brains, or skills of others to accomplish what you yourself could not accomplish, or accomplish so quickly.

Where do you use leverage?

Where do you need to use more leverage?

Speak the unsaid

Nothing can change until the unsaid is spoken.

That thing that no one wants to talk about. 

That thing or person that is holding you and the team back.

There is something to declare.

It’s what everyone knows and no one wants to acknowledge.

Acknowledge it.

Nothing can change or get better until the unsaid is spoken.

(P.S. and that thing could be YOU.)

Empower your way to the top

Leaders and managers -EMPOWER good people to give their best to move the team forward towards goals.

You cannot babysit your way to accountability and high performance.

Don’t abdicate or allocate work.  Delegation is nice but even that isn’t the way.

Empowerment is the highest form of leadership.

The Most Dangerous Competitor

If you were going to compete against your company, knowing what you know, what would you do to make a dent in it?

Fix that weakness.

Problem Solving

Leaders solve problems by wielding their decision-making power.  We don’t like problems and we want them to go away fast – so we want to solve problems quickly.  But too often we don’t make the right decision and have a sub-optimal solution. 

Slow down.  Problem-solving is 80% discovery and diagnostics.  Ask questions and frame the problem correctly.  

What caused the problem?  What caused that?  What caused that?  Get more information.  Look closer.  Zoom in.  Zoom out.  Go to the front line and see it yourself.  

Ask what the various solutions are and think about how permanent these decisions are, what the costs are, and what the unexpected consequences may be.  

Once you know and understand the problem, fixing it will be far easier and clear.

You can't teach what you don't know.

Who trains your people?  Your sales manager?  Your production manager?  You?

A person can never out-train their own ability and discipline to learn themselves.

You can’t teach what you don’t know really well.

Id the teacher a great learner who has done to work of learning enough to teach well?

Compound Interest on Learning and Change

If I notice an area I can improve in my business, and think about making a change or improvement that can save $200 (or $2000 or $20,000) a month, would I benefit more if I made the change now, a year from now, or ten years from now?

I take the long view.  I’m here and I am not going anywhere.  But if I see an opportunity to make things better and more efficient – I do it right away.

How about you?

"I don't want more business"

The other night Marie and I went to a restaurant near our house.  We had gone there periodically over the last 4 years.  Often they are slow.  I asked the owner how business was.  He said he was keeping his head above water, and sighed as if he was disappointed.

He was bringing a pizza out to some customers and I had heard recently that people loved the pizza.  I didn’t even know they had pizza.  I suggested he put a sign out by the road saying they had pizza.

He gave me a strange look and said  “You don’t understand. I don’t want more business.  I am 64 years old.  I’m tired.”  He went on to say that he makes no money – he just keeps things going.

Of course, I wanted to coach him, but it seemed too late.  How sad.  A guy works (nights) his whole life, takes great responsibility, and winds up depressed with nothing to show for it.  Unfortunately, this is the fate of many business owners.  

The time to learn how to do it is ASAP! As early as possible!  The next best time is NOW.  If you are going to do it, you may as well do it right.  Doing it well takes no more time than doing it poorly –  in fact it takes less time.  

I wondered if he was struggling all these years, why he didn’t do something earlier.  Sometimes it is easier to learn to deal with struggle than to learn to get better.  

Being a business owner is an inside game first and foremost. 

From the inner – the outer.