What Have You Got On Today?

Every day begins with a clean slate. You wake up, and your mind is alert and open to the new possibilities that the day brings forth.

Sure, you have your scheduled meetings, appointments and everyday tasks to accomplish, but in many ways, a new day brings the opportunity to achieve something beyond these that can make a profound difference in your business.

Make that telephone call that will result in a big difference to the performance of your business and deliver a great outcome. Implement the idea that crossed your mind that will build a high leverage solution. Talk to that person who comes with a different perspective to yours and make the connections between their insights and your own business. Read that article or book that will generate new thinking from an unfamiliar source of knowledge.

Vigilance in attending to these matters will ensure that every single day of your life you will find yourself translating these elements into positive and profitable outcomes, and transforming your life and your business.

Staying Centered

Being centered in your own mind is critical in business.

Knowing what you stand for, your values, your vision and what you are endeavoring to achieve keep you focused on the important things that need to be attended to in your business.

In the midst of being tossed about by the emotional upheaval and the ups and downs of your company’s operational activities, you must stay attuned to these foundational elements.

It is essential. It ensures that your thinking is both ‘big picture’ and mindful of the day-to-day tasks that must be accomplished.

Anticipating what to do and seeing what needs to be done emerge out of this center.

Pay careful attention to staying centered, and do not allow yourself to be sidetracked by the daily business ‘weather conditions,’ which are often unfavourable. Out of this center come the signposts for the actions that need to be undertaken to fulfil your business objectives.

What Is The Next Big Thing In Your Business?

The way to move forward in terms of business development is by tackling the next big thing.

Let’s assume the following: we have the meaning of our business well articulated; we know our strategic direction; we have a well-understood business plan in place; we have an extensive organizational development program humming along; and we have an established policy framework, underpinned by a clear set of standards.

Procedures, processes and measures have been implemented and are in place for operating the business, so what is the next big thing?

How do we take our business to the next level of excellence?

The pursuit of excellence in business is about asking this question all the time and at every opportunity, no matter the stage we are at in our organizational life.

This question only arises out of a developmental mindset. This question, as posed, is based on the belief that the culture and character of our business is a living reality that is reflected and acted upon so that we deliver continually higher levels of service to customers. So, what is the next big thing?

Often It’s The One-Liners That Make A Big Difference

Someone said to me this week, ‘Peter, I really appreciated what you had to say in that presentation you gave today , however, you know the thing that really made a big impact for me was an off- the-cuff, throw away comment you made.’

How often is this the case? A small snippet of advice, or a remark gleaned from a story told by someone, may be the very thing that makes all the difference in our lives and in the life of our business.

Some of the best business advice I have ever received comes in this form.

No matter how many training programs we enrol in or formal courses we might undertake, it is the one-liner often that strikes us.

I remember in high school my football coach yelling at me and asking:

‘Peter, when does it start to matter?’

That simple question is one that I have never forgotten.

Leadership Styles in Business

I came across an interesting and informative website this week that is pertinent to understanding the strengths and implications of the various styles of leadership that have been identified in the literature. It is well worth the visit, if you want to explore this subject at greater depth.

What I discerned from visiting the site is that there are seven leadership styles. They are:

• Situational Leadership
• Participative Leadership
• Servant Leadership
• Charismatic Leadership
• Quiet Leadership
• Transactional Leadership
• Transformational Leadership

Understanding your own predominant style is very helpful in managing the risks inherent in that particular style within your business.

For instance, if you think your predominant style is Transformational Leadership, you will tend to focus on the vision of the business, selling that vision to employees, finding the way forward to actualizing the said vision and leading the way with enthusiasm. Being aware that this is your particular style, two key implications to consider might be:

• What if that vision is askew and/or inaccurate?
• What if your enthusiasm and positivism as a leader are wearing out your ‘followers’?

Coaching Employees

One of the great pleasures I have in business is conducting coaching sessions with employees. Young, emerging leaders in our business report being both inspired by and benefiting from the insights and ideas that are generated in these formal conversations. They are scheduled every six weeks across the year.

Having set times to conduct regular sessions like these achieves several objectives:

• It enables me to ask questions about their particular concerns at a point in time and informs me about the things that are affecting them in our business.
• It impels me to prepare a presentation for the next session that is on point. Undertaking this exercise sharpens my own thinking about the nature and direction of the business in and around the concerns that are raised.
• It builds strong communication channels and trust between us.
• It creates a culture of shared learning and appreciation of the people we have in our business.
• It builds commitment and motivation, for both the employer and the employee.
• It disciplines me to ensure that I am up to speed on the business subjects that are of interest to them and important for our business.

Sharing our vision of the future for our business and addressing particular issues of concern with others enable us all to get to know each other better and exposes us to different thinking.

Coaching employees is a great opportunity for raising the level of conversation in business and creating new possibilities for growth and renewal.

Customers Always Drive Us To Do Better

Information that customers give to us is invaluable in our business because it helps us raise the bar. We must always be listening to what customers have to say.

My customers constantly surprise me. They often fill in the gaps in my own thinking and by so doing, help me find new ways to improve my own performance.

Customers do this unconsciously and constantly, by asking me questions and through having unique ways of viewing the products I have on offer. They see new applications that I had not even considered. They help me discover new markets. They constantly demand that I deepen my knowledge about the nature of my own business and my products. Customers’ insights are integral to achieving service and product improvements and pursuing high performance and excellence in everything I say and do.

Business – The Primary Project

Business is a series of important projects that needs to be accomplished. The primary project we have as business owners is to be working on our own capabilities. We do this by constantly learning something new about ourselves, in relation to the people around us, and knowing what is going on in our business.

Commitment to building our own skills and capabilities is critical in leading our business to high performance. This commitment requires diligent attention and hard work. It also requires a daily, honest appraisal of our own performance in the business. We should be hard on ourselves in this respect. We can then address our shortcomings and celebrate our strengths and the things that we have done well and feel good about them.

The second most important project involves talking to others in our business about our insights and knowledge and rewarding them appropriately for their contributions.

Attracting and Enthusing New Talent

In attracting new talent to your business, it is critical to create a business that is known for providing prospective employees with a demonstrable commitment to their development. Furthermore, it is critical to align the developmental objectives of individual employees with the strategic developmental objectives of your business.

A young job interviewee asked me this week, ‘Peter, do you have a Mission, Vision and Values statement in your company?” Then she asked me, ‘How do you demonstrate these statements in your business?’ She followed up these two incisive questions with, ‘How will working with you help me advance my career?’

The clever young people coming into your business today are looking for more than a paycheck. You must of course pay them well, commensurate with their skills and abilities and in line with the demands of the job, but prospective employees today want more than just that.

They have a strong drive to learn. They have a sense of wanting to belong to something that is worthwhile and meaningful, and having their voices heard. They are looking for flexibility and the chance to be creative. They want substance, because they are focused on developing and building themselves as a brand. To that end, your business is a step along the way for them.

If you provide a work culture that is committed to developing them, you will benefit immensely from the time that they spend with you. If not, they will be moving on to work with another business that will provide them the opportunities that they are seeking.

Striving for Business Excellence

In business, we cannot create or build that which has not first been created or built in us. This creation in business is not only an individual activity that we engage in. We must work with others and this requires building relationships of trust and openness and engaging in frank and honest dialogue.

We need others around us who do not just agree with us but who will evoke and push us to strive for excellence. People who care enough to ask the hard questions and challenge our own thinking and behavior. Sometimes they trigger defensiveness in us, but in the end, the questions they raise drive us toward better solutions and higher performance.

By having such people around us, we continue to grow, create opportunities and build better businesses, with highly successful results.