Can I forget everything

I know up until now

. . . right now?

This is the question we must ask ourselves, and answer, if we are to thrive in leadership roles with our businesses and the communities we serve and that support us.

It is not a suggestion to wipe out memory banks or get a lobotomy, or set off toward early senility. It means: Can you let go of what you know long enough to shed some new light on the issue or person or group involved?

Can you let go of all the preconceived notions you have about someone or some group (or idea), give the benefit of doubt, put aside your beliefs, suspend your biases and prejudices, be truly non-judgemental, and see and hear the next three individuals or groups you encounter (or the next three times you examine the idea on the table) as if it were the very first time you ever met?

                                                           

Can you forget, in other words, everything you know about her/him/they/it from past experience?

Why? Because you’ll see that person or group or concept in a revealing new light and he/she/they will see you with a fresh outlook too! That happening alone will prompt new levels of receptivity and innovative thinking. 

When you can put the mental and emotional baggage of the past aside, and look at some one or some group with new eyes, you are in effect removing barricades to productivity. By initiating this way of thinking, you help others (and yourself) to rise to the occasion of dealing most effectively with the task at hand.

Every decision to pursue an intense focus on the present moment is typically met with resistance from those parts of your brain that seek to drive past and future issues to the foreground. Trying to disregard past associations, relationships, experiences, or what you know or think you know about the individual(s) you are meeting or conferencing or communicating with can be exhausting.

If you choose for it to be exhausting.

When you decide, for example, that it can really be simple and invigorating and worth it to turn around an historically difficult partner, customer, client, investor, key employee, or whomever, your odds are substantially increased when you can wipe the slate clean.

By responding only to what is communicated –and not to prior conclusions, reputations, beliefs and behaviors you have attached to the source– you establish a new ground for new possibilities to surface. Great leaders do this routinely. You can too. It may take a few tries, but three times on the runway will serve you well as preparation for takeoff. Have a nice flight!

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“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Why is it so hard to just

  shut up and do what’s right? 

An awful lot of nonsense gets carried over into the business world from society and the media. But I guess that’s to be expected. After all, business is simply a mirror reflection of society’s needs and wants. And the media makes a living by attracting attention with lies and sensationalism that “play off of” society’s needs and wants.

Lies and sensationalism attract attention and create interest. That, in turn, sells newspapers and magazines and draws TV and radio audiences. Media lies and sensationalism boost Internet website visits.

The higher the numbers get, the bigger the demand created for businesses (especially big businesses with multi-million-dollar advertising and marketing budgets) to purchase message time and space. The more message time and space purchased, the more media is incited to lie and sensationalize. A vicious circle.

Bottom line?

There’s a lot of noise out there!

What I find particularly disconcerting is what appears to me to be a growing pervasiveness of leadership reliance on chatter instead of on listening.

The American public has (hopefully) had a two-year-long lesson in the societal strangulation that occurs when you make a great orator –with less than minor league leadership skills and experience– into a national leader who clearly does not know how to listen.

Not listening is by itself an unforgivable offense for any leader. Openly espousing a socialist (Marxist, some even say) agenda that literally flies in the face of America’s Constitution adds fuel to the leadership fire.

One compounds the other by pulling the rug out from under small business’s ability to reverse direction of our ever-plunging economy. It is small business, and only  small business, that can create new jobs. Small business doesn’t fit a socialist agenda. Connect the dots. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And so, we are now also seeing a long trail of energetic young entrepreneurs moving into business leadership posts. But they have nothing much to guide them except the seats of their pants and the role model they naively swept into the White House.

The ugly thought alone of a nation of outspoken, brash young business “leaders” preoccupied with presenting instead of listening is frightening to say the least. Pep rally speeches can get people excited, but they don’t get the job done. 

And as disheartening as it is for me to even use this blog as a place to address concerns like this, I can’t help but think that America has brought herself to her knees . . . and that now is the time for every leader of every business entity to 1) get up, 2) stand tall, and 3) listen carefully to what others are saying:

customers, partners, employees, investors, referrers, lenders, suppliers, vendors, service providers, advisors, geographic and industrial and professional communities served.

We cannot just “hear” them.

We must actively “listen” to them.

We might even learn something

about not only doing what

works…but about doing

w h a t ‘ s    r i g h t !   

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“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Do You Hate

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“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

You flaunt it or you bury it.

  It’s a primary differential in determining business success.

Consider for a moment that government and corporate employees have little if any of it. Mothers, entrepreneurs, great athletes, great sales-people, and most detectives –on the other hand– are loaded with it!

Instinct, says Webster, is a natural or inherent aptitude, impulse or capacity . . . a tendency to make a complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason.

If you own or run a business, you’ve got it!

“Good heavens, man!” most town, county, state, and federal employees, and most low-tech, no-tech, and medium-tech corporate suits would exclaim, when challenged to get to the point without analyzing stuff to death.

You’ve either got it, or you’d better get it!

We are rapidly becoming a global business community that’s triggered and managed by instinct. This proclamation is –particularly for those in white shirts and ties or pantsuits and heels (or perhaps both on alternate days?)– probably a source of indigestion, even irritable bowel syndrome because it threatens their programmed response to every situation, to study it endlessly.

The great oil spill wrought such havoc with both the federal government and the corporate giants involved that they all chose to gasp and cover their faces with their hands, while peeking between fingers, only to settle (after WEEKS passed) to send people to the scene and “to STUDY it!” What was that comment from a couple of paragraphs back? “Good heavens, man!”

Whatever happened to taking action? Oh, right, that’s an entrepreneurial instinct, and entrepreneurs are, after all, a reckless bunch charging from one risk to another. Well, those who are entrepreneurs know this couldn’t be farther from the truth. We also know that today’s economic crisis would never have happened if entrepreneurial instincts had been unleashed to address the issues at hand.

Anyway, the oil spill and economic catastrophy are only symptomatic examples. The point is that you got into business and kept it going through thick and thin because you made decisions based on instinct instead of analytical studies. Well, guess what? The way out of the darkness is to resurrect that quality you’ve hidden away in fear. Take it back out and run with it. Make things happen!

What’s the worst case scenario? How reasonable is the risk? What will it take to jump start your ideas? Your people? Your customers? Your suppliers? Your investors and lenders? Your referrers? 

Why are you wasting time over-thinking when you can be taking step-at-a-time, trial-and-error action the same way you used to a few years back?

It doesn’t have to cost money you

don’t have to test and try ideas.

Cash is short? So what? It’s always short. Do you want to be still sitting there wallowing in worry a year from now just because you don’t have barrels of cash to work with? Seize the day? Seize the moment!

You have your mind. You have your experience. You have your skills and knowledge. And hopefully, you’re smart enough to step up to the plate and pray for a fastball right down the middle. (Praying will help you avoid the curves and spitballs!).

You have your instinct. Use it more. 

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www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!