“The road that leads to success is usually paved with a ton of mistakes, so get over it and on with it. If you don’t like leading, you can always follow.”
The Tao of Warren Buffet – by Mary Buffett and David Clark
Be Authentic
“The more authentic you become, the more genuine in your expression, particularly regarding personal experiences and even self-doubts, the more people can relate to your expression and the safer it makes them feel to express themselves. That expression in turn feeds back on the other person’s spirit, and genuine creative empathy takes place, producing new insights and learnings and a sense of excitement and adventure that keeps the process going.”
Stephen R. Covey – Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People (March 9th)
Questions Compell Us
“Questions compel us to think, but answers tell us whether to act. The trick isn’t so much finding the right investment, but knowing when you have found the right answer to the right question.”
– Peter Lynch in his book “One Up on Wall Street”
A-Player Does Not Mean Perfect Player
It took me a long time to have this realization. Even my A-Players needed room to learn and to grow, to “mess up” and recover from it. A-Players vs. Perfect Player: perfect does not exist, try to understand that mistakes and other vices sometimes happen. Be ready to coach, council & train an A-Player who makes mistakes from time-to-time.
The Buck Stops with the CEO
“By not taking the blame they are essentially saying that the buck doesn’t stop here. If it doesn’t stop with the CEO, then he must not really be our leader, right? If he isn’t our leader, then why don’t we go out and get ourselves someone who can lead or run our business? It is our business, isn’t it? We are the owners, right? Warren has never forgotten that Berekshire’s shareholders own the business that he runs. That is why he is always forthcoming not only about the good news, but also the bad.”
The Tao of Warren Buffet – by Mary Buffett and David Clark
5,000 % Difference
“The difference between people who exercise initiative and those who don’t is literally the difference between night and day. I’m not talking about a 25 to 50 percent difference in effectiveness; I’m talking about a 5,000-plus percent difference, particularly if they are smart, aware and sensitive to others.”
– Stephen R. Covey Daily Calendar for Highly Effective People (March 23rd)
Stare at the Beast
Stare at the Beast – and stare him down. We all have demons and we have them all the time, every day. The key is to recognize them, and acknowledge they exist. Ignoring them or wishing they did not exist does not change in any way the fact that they exist and are hacking away at our conscious and unconscious minds. Beasts that we try to ignore and hope they go away consume huge amounts of our thinking and down time, and influence how we react to what the world presents us.
Be About More than Money
“I have found organizations whose only thrust is economic – to make money. They usually don’t publicize that purpose. They sometimes even publicize something else. But in their hearts, their only desire is to make money. Whenever I find this, I also find a great deal of negative synergy in the culture, generating such things as interdepartmental rivalries, defensive and protective communication, politicking, and masterminding. We can’t effectively thrive without making money, but that’s not sufficient reason for organizational existence. We can’t live without eating, but we don’t live to eat.” – Stephen R. Covey Daily Calendar for Highly Effective People (March 24th)
The Purpose of this Site
I created this site to help fill a gap I believe exists between business leadership theory and the execution, or implementation of theory on day-to-day basis. I have observed and personally experienced the gap between a great seminar, class or book and the “What do I do with this information?” on Monday morning.
This site is intended for the small business owner or CEO. I want to provide the benefit of my experience and my lessons learned from over 20 years of creating, running and growing a small business in the United States. I do not wish to represent myself as being everything to everyone. I do not have the answers to every question, nor do I have all the ideas.
Much of what you will read here comes not from my intellectual brilliance, but from my scars. If my lessons learned can help you prevent learning them yourself then I will consider this site a great success.
I searched for mentorship & coaching for years. I hired CEO Coaches, leadership coaches and life coaches. I have read, and continue to read a lot of books. I also read a lot of blogs and listen to a lot of TED Talks. I have joined and participated in local, regional, national and even international business leadership and life improvement organizations. I participated in deep, immersive experiences that took 12-18 hours a day for 4-7 days at a time. I found a lot of good, a lot of bad and a lot of self-serving recommendations. I found a lot of big, generic theories that got me and everyone else around me excited. I found a lot of great events, ideas and materials. I saw a lot of people get addicted to events, entertainment and excitement. And then I went back home, back to the office and struggled with converting those theories, concepts and events into a specific action item at 8 AM on Monday morning. I found a gap between all the excitement and all the theory and Monday morning in the real world.
I found books written by former US Presidents and the CEOs of successful and large corporations to be entertaining and interesting. I also found them discussing the use of resource pools and access to the kind of money that I had no chance of reaching. They were great reads, but taught me little about the day-to-day leadership of my company.
I was looking for basic answers. How was I doing as a leader? How could I do better? What should I change and how should I prioritize my changes? How do I improve profitability? How do I improve employee retention? How do I stop the revolving door at the top positions of my organization? Was I behaving in a manner that forced my leaders out the door?
I have spoken to small business owners and CEOs since my experience and believe that many small business leaders struggle with a search for basic help and advice. What has worked? What hasn’t?
The Personality Ethic
“The glitter of the Personality Ethic is that there is a quick and easy way to achieve quality of life – personal effectiveness and rich, deep relationships with other people – without going through the natural process of work and growth that makes it possible.
It’s symbol without substance. It’s the “get rich quick” scheme promising “wealth without work.” And it might even appear to succeed – but the schemer remains.
And trying to get high quality results with its techniques and quick fixes is just about as effective as trying to get someplace in Chicago using a map of Detroit.”
– Stephen R. Covey Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People, March 18th