Success

You have to know where you’re going. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never know if you’ve arrived.

Without a purpose, there is no way to measure your success.  This applies to everything you set out to accomplish. You must have a firm picture of the What, When, and the How:

  • A project at work – What is the end goal? When is it scheduled to be completed? How many resources do you need?
  • A vacation trip – What is the destination? When is your vacation time? How are you going to get there?
  • Your dream house – What neighborhood do you want to live in?  When do you want to move? How will you pay for it?
  • Your goal to lose weight – What is your desired weight? When do you want to reach your desired weight? How will you achieve your goal (stop what, or start what, or both)?

Dwight Eisenhower said, ‘We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.’

Can you share some examples of goals that you have achieved by knowing the What, When, and How?

Do you want to have the best team working for you? Good leaders look at people’s strength and make use of it, while great leaders look at people’s potential and make the best of it.

A leader’s job is to see where others can go and open the right doors for them to pass through.  A leader’s job is to focus on what is there – strengths – and remove the focus from weakness – that which is not there.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

Michelangelo said, “A great statue already exists inside a block of stone. The sculptor’s role is to uncover it.”

If you want the best team, you have to intentionally focus your leadership efforts on unleashing the greatness inside of everyone you influence.

Do you remember who recognized greatness in you?  Who told you that you could be anything you set your mind to? Was it a parent, grandparent, teacher, coach, pastor, boss?

Whenever Possible Follow the Road More Traveled

“Keep on the outlook for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are currently working on.”

I was surprised when I first read this quote from Thomas Edison. Yes the same Thomas Edison that is the holder of 1,093 United States patents and the inventor of the phonograph and the incandescent light bulb among many other inventions.  Leaders are many times told to blaze their own trail; which is sometimes the right answer, but sometimes not.

In my many years of business I discovered that most people are genuinely convinced that their situations are so unique and so difficult that no one has faced quite the same circumstances before, let alone found a way to solve them.  In some way I think it is a bit of pride in the human condition that makes people want a difficult solution for their difficult problems.  But it doesn’t need to be difficult.  Often, eighty percent of a problem has been solved before, the other twenty percent is taking the initiative to accept the solution given to you and implement it.

Sometimes, we don’t need a better mousetrap; we just need to understand how to use the ones that are already out there.

Do The Right Thing

When I was in the fifth grade my school decided to experiment with different styles of teaching.  My class was selected to receive cardboard boxes to store their books instead of desks.  Since we didn’t have desks, we could sit anywhere in the room we wanted.  This was all pretty fun until about halfway through the year, when everyone’s boxes began to wear out.  The tops fell off and there were tears in the sides.  This experiment was not going well at all.

One day our teacher announced that the students would have to pay to replace their boxes since they didn’t last.  Looking back, this wasn’t an extraordinary cost, but still, I didn’t attend a rich school.  Many of the kids in my class said they didn’t have extra money to support this type of cost.  The fact of the matter was we didn’t have a say in adopting this new teaching style, so we shouldn’t have to pay for new boxes.

Before I finish my story of the fifth grade boxes, let me tell you about Edmund Burke, one of the many historical leaders I studied while living in Virginia.  For more information on that topic see my blog from last week https://denisgmclaughlin.com/2012/09/13/filling-your-tool-belt/.

Burke was a member of the British Parliament before and during the American Revolution.   Known for his staunch support for the British Parliament, he nonetheless sided with the American colonies on the right of fair representation on taxation.  When the stamp act and then the tea act were passed causing the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, Burke saw that someone needed to take action to avert what were soon to be larger issues.  In April 1774, he gave a speech to Parliament in which he argued that Britain should maintain peace and end these unfair taxes.  Burke said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

As a leader, you are responsible for your team and must take action when negative situations arise within it.  Furthermore, like Burke, who sided with a potential foe because of his principles, a true leader will take action to guard the rights of anyone who is in harm’s way.

Now back to fifth grade.  I can proudly tell you I did do something.  I talked to the principal and explained that this experiment had not worked and the additional cost to the students in my class was not fair.  The principal ended the experiment and brought the desks back into the room.

I would like to finish this blog telling you that I have been heroic and successful in every situation like the fifth grade box story; but that wouldn’t be true.  I do stand up for the rights of others, but just like Burke’s speech didn’t avert the Revolutionary War, my actions haven’t always proven successful.  But that doesn’t keep me from doing something; don’t let it stop you either.

What does success look like?

Not long ago I attended a conference focused on envisioning success.  We talked about the common language used today to refer to changing your circumstances. “Out of the Box” is a phrase often used to describe the thought process that needs to change before your circumstances can change. If you picture yourself inside a box desiring to be outside of the box, there are two ways to accomplish your goal.

The first way has a low probability of success, but is the most chosen method; I call this, “All by myself.”  In it, you push yourself to just try harder doing what you have always done in an effort to bring about change.  This is much like a fly on the inside of a house that flies faster to bang harder against the window in an attempt to break through to the other side.  When your efforts are not successful, you and others around you start to believe that you must have not tried hard enough.  So the cycle continues with everyone banging their head against the window even harder the next time.

The second, more successful, method is called “Read the Directions.”  The one major hurdle to this method can be identified if you once again picture yourself inside the box – the directions on how to open the box are printed on the outside.  Therefore for this method to work, you will need to ask someone who is already on the outside of the box to read the directions to you.  Here is where the envisioning part comes in.  Now that you know the directions for getting out of the box, you envision yourself following those directions to success.

I first followed the “Read the Directions” method when I was in my twenty’s and sought to bring my golf game to a more successful level.  I studied the great Jack Nicklaus and wrote down one quote that really changed the way I played the game.  He said, “I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. First I see the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I see the ball going there; its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behavior on landing. Then there is a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality.”

In leadership, long term success will come when you learn the way of success from those already on the outside of the box and envision yourself achieving that same success.

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

My wife and I both grew up in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area. When we met as adults we shared stories of attending Cleveland Indians baseball games.  Not stories about the low attendance games at the old stadium by Lake Erie like the ones in the movie Major League; but stories about the sell-out crowds at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) during the 1990’s.  Some thought the new stadium brought the crowds; it probably did for a while.  But what kept the crowds coming were the team and their sustained success of five straight years in the playoffs and two World Series appearances.

How did the Jacob brothers accomplish this?  They invested in building a great team with established veterans like Orel Hershiser and Dennis Martinez at the mound.  They developed exciting young hitters like Albert Belle, Jim Thome, and Manny Ramierz.  The Jacob brothers were successful because their team was successful.  Like the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams, “If you build it he will come,” they invested in building a great team and the fans came.

The path to becoming a successful leader is the same as the story of the 1990’s Cleveland Indians.  Long term success in whatever you do requires that you invest in building your team.  If you surround yourself with established leaders while developing the next generation of leaders, success will come.

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