The Business Lesson: Leadership Makes an Organization Successful

“Proactivity is the power, freedom and ability to choose our response to whatever happens to us, based on values.” Stephen R. Covey

Based on a study of a cross section of businesses, from the mom and pop shops to Fortune 500 companies, the following was discovered.

On average, 50 to 60 percent of the workforce’s time is spent on not important-urgent activities like, interruptions, some phone calls, mail, some reports, non-productive meetings, pressing matters and many popular activities.

On average, 25 to 30 percent of the workforce’s time is spent on important-urgent activities like, immediately productive activities, problems, crises, productive meetings and deadlines.

On average, 15 percent of the workforce’s time is spent on important-not urgent activities like, prevention, seizing opportunities, preparation, planning, relationships, true re-creation and productive meetings.

On average, 2 to 3 percent of the workforce’s time is spent on not important-not urgent activities like, trivia, busywork, some mail, some phone calls, time wasters and many pleasant activities.

To be successful a business should:

• Spend 65-80 percent of their time on important-not urgent activities.
• Spend 20-25 percent of their time on important-urgent activities.
• Spend 15 percent of their time on not important-urgent activities.
• Spend less that 1 percent of their time on not important-not urgent activities.

The Business Lesson: Listen, Celebrate and Recognize

“An individual without information cannot take responsibility, an individual who is given information cannot help but take responsibility” Jon Carlzon, Riv Pyramidera

• Listen constantly, congregate, or share ideas/information, and recognize achievement.
  
• Create a non-threatening, listening environment.
  
• Encourage straight talk. Encourage input and feedback and nip criticism as soon as it starts. Facilitate training in group-problem-solving and learn to identify cause and effect.
• Celebrate. Informally and formally, the “small wins” — the times at bat, the singles, the bunts, and the runs. If we don’t celebrate the milestones, we won’t recognize the homeruns. All recognition must be genuine and heartfelt. Reward Herculean efforts and small acts of heroism. Celebrate collaboration and what you want to see more of as a manager.

The Business Lesson: A Dollar Saved is Equivalent to a Dollar Earned

1. Develop simple, visible systems that encourage participation and understanding by everyone and that support initiative taking.
2. Train and coach associates on “exactly what it means to ‘use’ your best judgment.” The absence of meaningless rules shifts the employee’s focus on innovation to what the company wishes it would be: in the pursuit of serving the customer better, rather than in pursuit of evasion of the rules.
3. Develop a practical agenda, were Managers model non-bureaucratic behavior and stop treating people with contempt.
4. Benchmark and measure what is important to the business.
   

Source: Thriving on Chaos, Handbook for a Management Revolution, Tom Peters

The Business Lesson: The Days of Billing Clients for Inefficiency are Over !

“Clients demand quality and efficiency; one cannot be obtained without the other.” Karey Shaffer

Excerpt: Thriving on Chaos, Handbook for a Management Revolution, Tom Peters

Do it Right the First Time

Doing it right the first time means acknowledging that each job, routine, and system is a hotbed of endless opportunities for improvement.

The quest for constant improvement depends on:

1. Acknowledging current failures.
2. Making lots of fast failures as we constantly experiment with new ways of doing things.

Fail Forward

To support speedy failure is not to support (or tolerate) sloppiness.
It is imperative to demand:

1. Something be learned from each failure.
2. That it be quickly followed with a new modification

Can’t Wait to Dot All the “I’s.”

The marketplace waits for no one. We can’t afford to wait until all the data is in, by then the window of opportunity is lost. We must trust instinct. The fastest way to get more answers is to test possible solutions.

The Lesson: Roots Yield Fruits

Excerpts: Executive Excellence Magazine, Dr. Steven R. Covey

Real character development begins with the humble recognition that we are not in charge, that principles ultimately govern.

The Humility of Principles

The key to quality of life is to be centered on principles. We're not in control; principles are in control. We're arrogant when we think we are in control. Yes, we may control our actions, but not the consequences of our actions. Those are controlled by principles, by natural laws.

Building character and creating quality of life is a function of aligning our beliefs and behaviors with universal principles. These principles are impersonal, external, factual, objective, and self-evident. They operate regardless of our awareness of them, or our obedience to them.

If your current lifestyle is not in alignment with these principles, then you might trade a value-based map for a principle-centered compass. When you recognize that external verities and realities ultimately govern, you might willingly subordinate your values to them and align your roles and goals, plans, and activities with them.

But doing so often takes a crisis: your company's downsizing; your job's on the line; your relationship with the boss goes sour; you lose a major account; your marriage is threatened; your financial problems peak; or you're told you have just a few months to live. In the absence of such a catalytic crisis, we tend to live in numbed complacency so busy doing good, easy, or routine things that we don't even stop to ask ourselves if we're doing what really matters. The good, then, becomes the enemy of the best.

Humility is the mother of all virtues: the humble in spirit progress and are blessed because they willingly submit to higher powers and try to live in harmony with natural laws and universal principles. Courage is the father of all virtues: we need great courage to lead our lives by correct principles and to have integrity in the moment of choice.

When we set up our own self-generated or socially validated value systems and then develop our missions and goals based on what we value, we tend to become laws unto ourselves, proud and independent. Pride hopes to impress; humility seeks to bless.

Just because we value a thing doesn't mean that having it will enhance our quality of life. No "quality movement" in government, business, or education will succeed unless based on "true north" principles. And yet we see leaders who cling to their current style based on self-selected values and bad habits even as their "ship" is sinking when they could be floating safely on the life raft of principles. Nothing sinks people faster in their careers than arrogance. Arrogance shouts, "I know best." In the uniform of arrogance, we fumble and falter pride comes and goes before the fall. But dressed in humility, we make progress. As the character Indiana Jones learned in The Last Crusade, "The penitent man will pass."

In pride, we often sow one thing and expect to reap another. Many of our paradigms and the processes and habits that grow out of them never produce the results we expect because they are based on illusions, advertising slogans, program-of-the-month training, and personality-based success strategies. Quality of life can't grow out of illusion.

With the humility that comes from being principle-centered, we can better learn from the past, have hope for the future, and act with confidence, not arrogance, in the present. Arrogance is the lack of self-awareness; blindness; an illusion; a false form of self-confidence; and a false sense that we're somehow above the laws of life. Real confidence is anchored in a quiet assurance that if we act based on principles, we will produce quality-of-life results. It's confidence born of character and competence. Our security is not based on our possessions, positions, credentials, or on comparisons with others; rather, it flows from our own integrity to "true north" principles.

The Lesson: Learn from Nature

Canadian Geese

Scientists have studied this question "Why do Canadian geese fly in a V-formation when they migrate?"

The conclusion: Flying in the V-formation is easier on the birds than flying alone. The first bird must fly against the full strength of the wind, but each succeeding bird in the formation has less air resistance to push against. Since the birds take turns being the leader (and having the hardest flight), they can fly longer distances without getting tired. The geese also honk to encourage each other to keep going.

Another interesting insight: When a goose gets sick or wounded and has to land, two other geese land with it. They stay with the injured bird until it dies or gains enough strength to fly again. Then they catch up with their flock.

Source: Harvey O. Bennett

Redwood and the Tan Oak

The north coast of California is home to the world’s tallest trees. A walk through a virgin old-growth redwood forest can be one of the most awe-inspiring experiences you’ll ever have. These trees sometimes live to be over 2,000 years old and can reach heights of 300 feet and more. The tallest redwood tree ever recorded was 367 feet in height. The gigantic redwoods dwarf their other softwood and hardwood neighbors, thus becoming “the Mount Everest of all living things.”

The coastal redwoods are truly lords of their realm. They reign over associated trees because of their overwhelming height and majestic beauty. However, there is another feature of these towering giants that is truly remarkable and somewhat unknown to most of us. Even though they grow up to heights of 300 feet and can weigh more than one million pounds, these trees have a very shallow root system. Their roots only go down three to six feet but can spread out several hundred feet. As these roots extend out, they intertwine with their sibling redwoods and other trees as well. This intertwining of roots creates a webbing effect. Most engineers would tell you with a shallow root system it would be impossible to keep the redwoods intact and protected against strong winds and floods. However, the interconnecting root systems are the secret of their strength and teach us a great lesson.

First, let’s acknowledge that these magnificent giants simply could not make it alone. Without being connected to other family members and helpful neighbors, they would not survive.

One of the other abundant species under the redwood canopy is a little-known hardwood tree called Lithocarpus densiflorus. It is also called tan oak. The tan oak fits into the same general family as the true oaks but is a little different. There are several billion board feet of this species growing amongst the popular redwoods, and it has many fine qualities, but it’s almost completely overlooked and unused.

The mind-set: We’re doing just fine with the old standbys; why change?

Source: Richard H. Winkel

Riptides Kill Some People

Riptides kill hundreds of swimmers on ocean coasts each year. As the riptide takes the swimmer further away from the shore, the swimmer panics and tries to swim as fast as they can to shore, only to discover that they are farther away then when they started. In the panic, the swimmer becomes fatigued and eventually drowns.

A swimmer can survive a riptide, if they know what to do. As the riptide takes a swimmer out to sea, the swimmer must fight the natural instinct to swim the shortest distance to shore, against the strong ocean current. They must instead, remain calm and ride out the riptide. As soon as they feel the current has weakened they must then swim parallel to the shore until they can break free of the pull of the current. With the current resistance gone, the swimmer can then swim safely back to shore.

The Lesson: The Big Rocks

One day an expert in time management was speaking to group of business students and to drive a point, used an illustration those students will never forget. As he stood in front of the group of high-powered overachievers he said, “Okay, time for a quiz”.

Then he pulled out a one-gallon, wide mouthed Mason jar and set it on the table in front of him. Then he produced a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.

When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?” Everyone in the class said, “Yes”. Then he said, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel.

Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the space between the big rocks. Then he asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?”

By this time the class was on to him. “Probably not,” one of them answered. “Good” he replied. He reached under the table brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand into the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?” “No”, the class shouted.

Once again he answered, “Good.” Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked at the class and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

One eager beaver raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if your try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!” “No”, the speaker replied, “That’s not the point.”

The truth this illustration teaches us is, if you don’t put in the big rocks first, you’ll never get them in at all. What are the “big rocks” in your life (work)? Doing things that you love…Your loved ones…Your dreams…Your health…A worthy cause…Teaching or mentoring others…What ever they are, remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you’ll never get them in at all.

If you sweat the little stuff (the gravel, the sand) then you’ll fill your life (work) with those little things that you worry about that really don’t matter, and you’ll never really have the real quality time you need to spend on the big important stuff (the big rocks).

Source: Author unknown

The Lesson: Freedom is Change

“Wanting is the urge for the next moment to contain what this moments does not.” Steven Levine

Excerpt: A Gradual Awakening, Steven Levine

The more we see how the mind wants, the more we see how wanting obscures the present. To realize that there is nothing to hold onto that can offer lasting satisfaction shows us there is nowhere to go and nothing to have and nothing to be — and that’s freedom.

…To see that things can be a certain way without needing to be acted on or judged or even pushed aside. They can simply be observed.

…We want and we want and we want…and nothing can permanently satisfy us because not only does the thing we want change, but our wants change too. Everything is changing all the time.