Culture starts with recruiting

The idea behind good recruiting is to really know the people you are considering hiring before you hire them, and match them with the job.  People don’t change.

If you want a good culture, hire people who inherently have the qualities that will embody it.

For example, if you want a happier friendlier culture, make sure your next hire has the skills you need and is also a naturally happy and friendly person.

Are you clear?

You are the leader.  Are you clear about why your organization is even here?

Are you clear about what result you are trying to get with whom?  With your team?

Are you clear about your problems?

Are you clear about your goals and strategies?

You are the thinker-in-chief.  You better be clear.  Because nobody on your team can be more clear than you are.

“It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.” – Simone Weil

Focus

The more things you do, the less successful you will be at any one of them.

You can’t please everyone and if you try, the one person who you won’t please is you.

Do less, better.

Leaders are Decisive

If I can solve ten years of problems in five years haven’t I doubled progress?

If I can get ten years of results in five years, haven’t doubled my financial results?

But what if I make decisions slowly, in say twice the amount of time as it should or could take?

What if I decided to take X course of action (try this) on June 30 instead of June 10.  (Maybe I was busy, not focused; busy doing too many lower value activities, not ready for change, had paralysis of analysis, was AFRAID to make the wrong decision…)

And what if I delayed most decisions like that over a career?

Making good decisions in a timely manner is the job of the leader.

“The best decision is the right decision.  The second best decision is the wrong decision.  The worst decision is no decision.” -Winston Churchill

Who inspires you?

Great people make you feel you can become great too.

Who is that for you?

Who is your reference group?

We raise or lower our performance to match our reference group.

Do your current associations match your vision of where you want to be?

Who do you need to meet/associate with?

The work and play of the Master

When you are in your zone, doing what you were made to do and doing it your way, it doesn’t feel like work when you are working.  It’s fun for you.

The master makes no distinction between work and play.  Outsiders can not tell when he is working and when he is playing.

Here’s what Sir Issac Newton said about himself – 

“I do not know what I may appear to the world: but to myself, I seem to have been only like a little boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

I hope you can find or craft the work you don’t consider work.

Empowerment (again)

Subscriber Dan Kiniseley gave me this definition of empowerment in the comments and I love it!

“Empowerment is the leader creatively lending his power to the least powerful in the room.”

Or to anyone you want to use their talents to step up and take more responsibility or solve bigger problems.

Empowerment

I have a School of Entrepreneurship I created.  It’s a complete multi-year course for those that have their own business.  You can learn more at thesoe.com.

In it I have a lesson on empowering others.  There are four levels of having others do things –

Abdication – I don;t know what to do – you do it.

Allocation – Here’s some work to do.

Delegation – Here’s some of my work to do.

Empowerment – “I know you can do this.  I believe in you.  I want you to take continued responsibility for this outcome.  Here’s how results are measured and who to report them to and how often.  Here are the resources available to you.  Will you help me?”  “Yes” ……”OK.”……”You are in charge of this.”

Empowerment is not only way better than allocation or delegation, but it creates more leaders and frees you up to move on to other more important things. 

We all have people who can do more if we only empower them to do so.

Certainty is the Enemy of Growth

The other day I was riding my Fliteboard (electric surfboard) on the lake and I realized I hadn’t crashed much.  I knew if I hadn’t crashed I was playing it too safe and wasn’t getting better.  So I tried tighter turns.  Then I tried to foil while laying on the board – could you even do that?  I tried…and flipped my eyelids inside out with water when I crashed face first.  Now I know.

In your personal life or in business, if you only try things that are a sure thing, you will be quite normal, and not innovate.

Swing the bat.  Try to find what works.  You will find a lot of what doesn’t – and that’s ok because you will stop doing those things.  What you will find, sooner or later, are things that work really well – and those things you will stick with for a long time and they will more than makeup for your mistakes.

Don’t bet the whole company on wild ideas unless you’re going down.  But try things you don’t know will work.  Learn fast.  Adjust.  Keep trying.