Behaviors that get rewarded get repeated.

Behaviors that get rewarded get repeated.

Behaviors that get punished are avoided.

Management is getting people to do some things, and avoid others.

How can you tweak your incentives, environment, recognition, and rewards to get your team to do the right thing?

Love is a management tool

This is from Michael Singer –

“When you love yourself you will love others.  And to the depth and extent to which you can love yourself, only to that depth and extent will you be able to love others.

So it becomes evident that the surest way to improve our relations with other people is to first improve our relations with ourself.”

Hire carefully

Most business leaders spend 1% of their time hiring and 99% of their time managing their hiring mistakes.

Hire more carefully.  The trick is to know what kind of person you need in the position (skills, attitude, culture fit) and what kind of person you are hiring, and make a good match.  

So it’s about KNOWING the person you are hiring before you hire them.  Spend lots of time finding the right people.  Talk to a LOT of people.  Be patient.  Screen them out.  Narrow it down.  Spend more and more time with the final candidates.  Interview as many times as you can.  Most people can fake it for an interview or two, but the more you talk to them the more you discover who they really are.

Research the final candidates carefully.  Call their references.  Look them up online.  Take them to a meal.  Ask lots of questions.  If you don’t feel it’s right, don’t hire them.  Don’t settle.  

Does this take more time?  NO!  It saves time.

Hire carefully.

Day-tight compartments

Focus on the present.

Depression is obsession with the past.

Anxiety is obsession with the future.

Optimal performance is obsession with the present.

What do they perceive BEFORE they buy?

In a free market, people will trade their money with you for what you have in a voluntary exchange if they feel that their life will be better by doing so based on their perception at the time.

What are you communicating to your prospects and how, before they are asked to make that decision?

Who do you need on your team?

Who do you need on your team who is not on your team now?

Who do you want to be around you in 2023?

It may be someone you will hire, or maybe someone you need advice and guidance from.  You can hang around them, take them to lunch, ask for their help, or help them first in exchange for a bit of their advice.

Who?

Break it down.

Now you have your goal for the year.  It may take a year, or more, or maybe a lot less.  That depends on you.

Break it down.  What must be done?  What are all the steps and actions that need to be completed.

Now put them in order.  What is first?  Second?

DO NOT FORGET – You, the leader, do not have to DO all these things.  YOU simply have to see they get done.  Use your team.  Other people are leverage and can get you there faster.  They want to help.  Communicate, empower, and let them help!

Who will do what?

You don’t have to plan every action in order for the year.  It won’t work out that way anyway.  Get a rough framework and deadlines for the year or months, and a tighter plan for the next 60 days, and a really tight plan for the next three weeks.

Then take action.  Action produces information.  You will learn what works, and what needs adjusting, and what does not work.  Adjust your plan as you learn.  Keep your eyes on the goal and the why.

Go!

Make a plan

Yesterday I asked you to be very clear on what you wanted in 2023.

Now make a plan.  Who will be involved and have to do something different?

How will you and your team cause the results to come out the way you want them?

What methods could be used?  Who will you turn to, to learn more about how to get it done?

Who has done it before?

Who is missing from your team?

What are the incentives?  

What’s in it for the customer?

How will you communicate it?  

What training is needed for the team?  Ongoing support, meetings, scoreboards, recognition?

Map the plan – chart it, organize it, simplify it.  

In the end, it must be fairly simple, but clear and doable.  

Get to work.

Happy New Year!….What now?

Happy New Year! 

What now?

You say what now.  You’re in charge.

What are you going to cause to happen this year? 

What is your WHY?  How strong is it?

Zoom out.  What could be done?  What are the options?  Dream – think – and dial in and a clear goal by eliminating other options.

You will never outperform your thinking.

Create it in your mind first.

Be clear.  If you are not clear to yourself, and cannot speak it, you can never be clear to your team.

With privilege comes duty

You are the leader.  You have privileges.  You don’t have to play by all the rules your team does.

But with that position comes responsibility and a higher duty.

If you do not meet it, you will not be the leader for long (or your followers will leave you).