“If you do not expect it, you will not find the unexpected, for it is hard to find and difficult.”
~Heraclitus
“That’s the way we’ve always done it” is the most over-used excuse to either staying stuck or achieving mediocre results. If your organization is chugging along with average results, it’s time to make some bold moves. Price Pritchett, an international specialist on change management, wrote a booklet entitled You2 which provides a high-velocity formula for multiplying your personal effectiveness in quantum leaps. He said that quantum leaps require paradoxical behavior or actions that on the surface seem bizarre and certainly contradict common sense.
It’s always fascinating learning about a person’s path to their current destination and this is certainly true with Sahar Askalan. She’s atypical in many ways; beginning with being the only female Omani lawyer in the country who runs her own law firm and is licensed to practice law both here and in the UK. Having left Oman at the age of 16; she lived abroad for 16 years. This experience has proven to be one of her greatest assets because she now has a deep insight how of westerners think and she easily balances between both mentalities.
As an illustration, with a smile she said “Shareholder agreements in UK are 150 pages while they’re only 5 pages in Oman. The Omanis wouldn’t trust someone that has to have such a big agreement or the person giving it to them. Westerners will benefit from understanding how it works here if they want to be successful.” She compared the population of London where she worked to the whole of this country, stating that the laws are still developing here.
Dr. W. Edwards Deming was a statistician who used his expertise to improve the quality of war materials during World War II. After the war, he was invited by Japanese industrial leaders and engineers to help them transform their manufacturing processes enabling them to create innovative, quality products. When they asked how long it would take to change Japan’s image of producing cheap, shoddy products; Deming responded by saying they could it in 5 years if they strictly followed his instructions. Although they didn’t believe him, they were too ashamed to voice their concerns. However, they followed his instructions to the letter and successfully achieved their goal in just 4 years. The Japanese subsequently awarded the famed Deming Prize to organizations that applied and achieved stringent quality-performance criteria.
If you’ve read my book, you know that I am a firm believer that a person must be able to lead themselves before they can properly lead another individual, a team or an organization. Further, I believe the following 17 principles of personal achievement by Napoleon Hill are a great and solid foundation for anyone who wants to improve their leadership skills.
1) Develop a Definiteness of Purpose: Success and process towards achieving your goals in life begin with knowing where you are going. The starting point of all human achievement is the development of a definite major purpose. Without a definite major purpose, you are as helpless as a ship without a compass.
2) Establish a Mastermind Alliance: A mastermind alliance consists of two or more minds working actively together in perfect harmony toward a common definite objective. No individual has ever achieved success without the help and cooperation of others. A group of brains coordinated in a spirit of harmony will provide more thought energy than a single brain, just as a group of electric batteries will provide more energy than a single battery. Continue reading →
“Worry affects the circulation, the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system, and profoundly affects health.”
~Charles W. Mayo
It is well known that stress is the number one killer in the world. A little research will show that doctors point to stress as the primary cause of most diseases. In an earlier article, I said that our happiness is a mindset; in other words, it’s an inside job. It’s based on our attitudes, reactions and responses.
Stress is brought on by having too much to do, trying to do too many things at once, with short timeframes; all while giving up our freedom and control to cell phones, emails and whoever comes in with the next urgent demand. Continue reading →
“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”
~Kenneth Blanchard
Your difference between interest and commitment will show up in the difference between success and mediocrity in all areas of your life. Put a little in; get a little out. Put a lot in; get a lot out. Examine your results in the major areas of your life:
Career/Financial
Ethical/Spiritual
Family
Friends/Community
Health (Physical & Emotional)
Mental/Education Continue reading →
“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.”
~Earl Nightingale
When I look at the big picture of organizations and what it is they want to accomplish, I work to find what each person is thinking, feeling, expecting, and experiencing. Lastly, we move back out to the corporate way of thinking, feeling, expecting, and experiencing. We literally change the company from the inside out and ending up with the desired organization. Continue reading →
One solid trait of successful entrepreneurship is the ability to sell. It’s imperative to uncover critical market knowledge as quickly as possible and the best way to do that is to test the market with the product you want to sell. If it does well in your test, you keep selling it; if it doesn’t, you stop selling it and try something else. It sounds simple but way too many companies get this wrong.
When starting and growing a small business, you must develop a pragmatic, action-oriented mentality. Instead of spending time and money refining ideas that may or may not be good, it’s far more effective to develop a prototype quickly and see if the market will buy it. Continue reading →
In the last article, I mentioned that we are living in exciting times with a myriad of changes. New leaders are continually emerging and asking me what they can do to adapt to their new roles. Below are 10 more tips in this two part series to help leaders focus.
1. Prove Yourself
So often you will find people like having a title more than doing the work required to keep it. Your CV and credentials might be impressive, but they’ll only win respect for so long. Start by learning what your people do; understand the people, responsibilities, systems, and schedules that drive their day. Don’t hide in your office; jump into the trenches, roll up your sleeves and get stuck in. Show you can step in and do their job if need be. Prove that you can get things done by achieving some victories in areas where things are stuck. Continue reading →
One of the most frequently asked questions that I receive from leaders is: “How can I manage time?” Time management is an absolute myth. We are all given the exact same amount of time everyday and it’s up to us to do what we can with it. The key is to manage our activities—that’s the only way we can outperform our past results. Here are 11 tips to improve your productivity on a daily basis.
Productivity Tip 1: 10 Minute Chunks.
If there’s stuff on your to-do list you’re just not getting to, this will help:
Set a timer for just 10 minutes
Focus for these 10 minutes on one project. When the timer goes off, stop and congratulate yourself.
Do this daily and you’ll quickly made head-way on all sorts of things that had been piling up. Continue reading →
