More Great Success Advice from Top CEO’s
One of the most important things I’ve learned during my long career in organizational life and as an independent management and leadership development consultant:
Higher-ups have a keen appreciation for people who can GET STUFF DONE!
My advice to any aspiring leader is simple: Be a producer! Make a decision right now that you will be a person who makes things happen. In my experience, there is a lot more talking than doing in organizations today—lots of rhetoric but not much action.
There is a crying need in organizations everywhere for leaders who are willing to think and act outside of their administrative comfort zones and get real results. One executive recommends, “Don’t talk about how good you are. Prove it with action, over and over. Remember WACADAD—Words are cheap and deeds are dear.”
Add Measurable Value to Your Organization
Before Stuart R. Levine launched his international consulting company, he served as CEO of Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc. In his excellent (and very practical) book, The Six Fundamentals of Success, he advises his readers to add value to their organization by focusing on “important things.” He defines that term and then lists examples:
Important things help companies make money in seven ways:
- Getting new customers
- Keeping existing customers
- Delivering great value
- Improving quality
- Reducing costs without compromising value
- Managing risk
- Advancing the business strategy
Take Charge of Your Success
Jeffrey Fox—author of the book, How to Become CEO—has an insightful chapter in the book entitled, “Don’t Expect the Personnel Department to Plan Your Career.” He underscores that your success is your responsibility—to plan, work out, and achieve.
In my very first blog post, I emphasized the need to take control of your own success by mapping out how to best add value to the organization that hired you. It includes directions in how to identify what I call your “Critical Path” to achieving that “added value.” The post also includes a link to a planning form you can download and use to think strategically about this concept of adding value. It’s free, and you can find the content with the following link:
Most Challenges and Problems Require New Thinking
One of the things I discovered early on is how easy it is to get stuck in our thinking and doing. It’s human nature—to stay in a comfort zone, even if the familiar no longer becomes productive. It’s why companies pay such exorbitant executive salaries. It is a rare leader who has the ability to think differently and act differently in a situation that has aged into obsolescence. But there is an important caveat:
Creativity, alone, is insufficient for success.
Ted Leavitt of Harvard Business School puts it this way: “Creativity without implementation is irresponsibility.”
This is the simple truth: Ideas without execution are worthless.
Now, here is another reality: Very few things work perfectly the first time. So be willing to evaluate and revise everything you do! Most ideas need tinkering and fiddling to become workable and really effective. Here’s a case in point: The Doritos taco shell became a huge success for Taco Bell. But it took A LOT of tinkering to make it workable—hours and hours in the cooking lab to translate the taste and seasonings into a usable product that really worked.
Here’s what Jeffrey Fox advises:
Nurture the good idea. Spend a little, not a lot. Don’t risk big money in the embryonic stage. Get feedback. Tinker with the concept. Tailor it to better fill the needs of the target audience. Most importantly, try something. Try this, try that. Don’t talk, don’t have meetings, don’t write memos. Do something… Then tinker some more, tailor it a bit, and try again. If it’s a bad idea, you’ll know it. Drop it. If it’s a good idea, you’ll now be able to sell it…
And when you end up with a good thing—pour the coals to it! Support it with resources, energy, and focus so that it will succeed at its highest potential.
Up Close and Personal
Some of my own greatest success came as a result of this kind of “tinkering.” Most of my jobs required me to “turn around” the area I was hired to oversee. This would often require me to do a post-mortem to find out what the problems were—in the first place—and then create a solution that would succeed in a measurable way. In the process of doing this (a number of times, actually!) I experienced something that really blew my mind:
ME AND MY TEAM WERE CONSTANTLY LEARNING NEW THINGS WE NEVER EXPECTED OR ANTICIPATED.
That’s the way it is with “tinkering.” While you are trying to accomplish “A” you unexpectedly learn “B.” And it’s often the “B” reality that enables a leader and their team to “break through” and succeed! It’s what made my turnaround work so interesting, engaging, and motivating!
If you need help to move your team and your ideas forward, we can help! Call us and find out how we can bring you training and coaching resources that will help you and your team think, work, and succeed with creativity and high performance!
Until next time… Yours for better leaders and better organizations,
Dr. Jim Dyke – “The Boss Doctor” ™ helping you to BE a better boss and to HAVE a better boss!
