1. Talent, People, Teams

This was the most common and arguably the number one area of concern and focus of the surveyed Leaders. After all, a Leader is dependent on great people to execute and operate. Some of the specific matters of concern in this area included the following:

• Finding competent and qualified people
• Developing skills and enhancing talents
• Establishing functioning teams that collaborate and succeed
• Creating a learning environment and organization
• Bringing together Teams including Baby Boomers, Millennials and Gen X
• Establishing and Cultivating an agile and flexible culture

2. The Leadership Agenda

This was an area that stimulated a healthy discussion and strong opinions. The main issue driving some debate was that of Leader versus Coach. One of the executives flatly stated, “It’s time to retire the term ‘Leader’ and replace it with ‘Coach’”. Not the first rime I have heard this. As a Life, Executive and Career Coach, I totally get the sentiment.

Some took exception to such a strong position. After all these are Leaders!

Personally I think great Leaders are always evolving, and looking for ways to be more effective, especially with their people and teams. And coaching, as a particular passion and focus of mine, should definitely be one of the key arrows in a Leader’s quiver. Whether they do it themselves or engage someone with great coaching skills to carry it out.

It seemed the consensus was that it’s not all or nothing. That perhaps “redefine” was a better choice of words than “retire”.

The specific matters of focus and concern in this area were:

• Traditional Leadership versus fulfilling the role of Leader Coach
• Leading in a way that will inspire both confidence and loyalty
• Creating, evolving and maintaining relationships across the entire organization

3. The Customer, Client, Guest

Great Leaders have always understood where the bread is buttered. It’s all about the client. The source of revenue and profits should be the focus of everyone in the company. As such, every one of the respondents had something to say in this area as well. Here are some of the details:

• Establishing and keeping a customer-centric culture across all areas of the organization
• Understanding and fulfilling customer and market wants and needs
• Personalizing the customer experience
• Retaining existing clients while appealing to other market segments

4. Execution, Operations, and Foundational Running of the Business

A major theme of the Leaders responding to my question was that we’d better not forget about the basics. There are may shiny objects, solutions “du jour”, and plain old fads out there that will tend to distract any Leader from the core mission. There is no substitute for basic operational blocking and tackling though. It might not be sexy and new, but operational excellence is absolutely vital.

Here are the specific details in this area.

• Ongoing Operational excellence. Getting the operational aspects of the business stable and more on autopilot versus day to day fire fighting
• Getting the basics right. Then focus on the higher order elements of the business

5. Establishing Accountability and Shared Values

Want to ensure the Team is focused on the right things, executing as planned, taking care of the customers and marching towards the finish line across the business? Especially when the Leader is not watching? Pay attention to Core Values and the Accountability agenda. These were the specific comments made in this area.

• Establishing and living company and team values
• Holding people accountable and establishing a culture of ownership and responsibility
• Teaching gratitude. It shouldn’t always be about wanting more

6. Communicating

The great Leaders I have known and worked for, including this bunch, were all great communicators. You might then wonder why this was an area that kept them awake at night. It’s because even areas that are considered strengths, when they are vital to organizational and individual success should be constantly monitored and improved. Here are the details on Communications.

• Clear, Appropriate and Transparent communications
• Having the courage to speak out when you believe in something
• Being able to confront issues clearly and effectively
• Honest, frank and effective communications within the Leadership team

7. Vision Mission and Strategy

They say a mediocre strategy executed brilliantly, beats a brilliant strategy executed poorly. That being said, these Leaders thought this was an area of concern and a cause of some sleeplessness. Getting the organization aligned and everyone rowing in the same direction was a key to success. The details they shared included these points:

• Establishing effective vision mission and strategy
• Communicating each of those clearly
• Getting buy in from the organization
• Executing against those and having the organization walk the talk

8. Managing Change

Change. Inevitable. Constant. Relentless. It’s no surprise that this would have been one aspect of today’s business environment these Leaders would have recognized as requiring attention and focus. To them it was all about risk, avoiding change for change sake and being able to Lead effectively through potential disruptions. Specifically, these were the details around change.

• Innovating while avoiding chaos and disruption
• Avoiding paving the cow path and reinventing the wheel
• Identifying and managing the risks of change

9. Technology

Last but not least. The “T” word. About half of the Leaders I polled come from the Tech world. No surprise that Technology should cause some serious thought and consideration on their part. But even those Leaders who self-admittedly are not especially technology savvy mentioned this area as an important one. They were wanting to define the role and qualify the impact that Technology should play in their business. Here are the specifics.

• Rethinking what the business should be through the use of technology
• Understanding the impact of technology on the industry and specific business model

I am confident, knowing these Leaders all too well, they don’t suffer from insomnia. They are not actually losing sleep over these areas of their business. These areas are merely the list of items they keep in front of them and on their radar. Important areas to focus on as well as to ensure their people and organizations do as well.

While “important” issues come and go based on the needs of the business and ever evolving industry trends and world events, this list resonates as a set of truly important aspects that all successful Leaders should have top of mind.

Using a methodical approach, you can determine who to listen to and who has a voice you can value. And you can find these voices in places you will be quite familiar with and have easy access to.

Once you understand and begin to implement these practices, it will be easier to avoid the hard shoves of bad advice, and difficult for a good storyteller with bad to gently nudge you off course.

Even then, you might find yourself in the middle of a situation where you followed some bad advice. Remember, even things that turn out wrong have value. And so do useless people. The value lies in the lessons these people and their bad advice teach us.

In the end, we can all be best served when we can find voices of value and pay attention to those voices. And tune all the others out.

As Jim Rohn once said:

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

Choose who you “spend time with” wisely…

I define Wildly Successful as realizing the vision I created for myself. Living the dream I created for my future. Not that you would care about my dream, my WHY, but it is the following. In this very specific and purposeful order:

• Be the best human being I can be. Husband, father, grandfather. An inspiration, mentor, guide and positive role model to my family
• An Effective Life, Recovery and Career Coach — helping others achieve their dreams
• A Successful author — publishing popular and helpful books
• A Renowned and in-demand speaker
• A Popular blogger (I’m NOT primarily a blogger. My blogging is a means to an end)

Means to an End is an important concept and distinction. Many people confuse this. They lose sight of the End, and become fully engrossed and invested in the Means. Blindly so.

Let’s not forget that a Means is something you do in order to achieve an End goal

You can define Wildly Successful any way you want. However you define it, I believe all of this is going to apply to you. It’s going to make you more successful, fulfilled, able to cope, and to wake up every morning knowingyou are making a huge difference in this world, in your own way.

Let’s explore.

Amplification

This isn’t about Time Management. I intensely dislike that phrase. I abhortime management courses, blogs, eBooks, and everything else associated with it. I’ve taken my share of them. Some voluntary, some forced.

OK, OK, so I did get some good stuff out of most of the time management courses I took, or HAD to take. I just chafe at having to read and complete exercises and assignments for the same stuff umpteen times.

Again, it’s not about time management. It is about focusing and prioritizing. Bet you saw THAT one coming!

A few thoughts:

Priorities

• When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority
• With too many priorities, you get spread too thin. Quality suffers

There is no honor in being an inch deep and 10 miles wide. It’s actually quite insane…

• Things take forever to get done when you have too many priorities — the cost of Time Slicing and the fallacy of Multi Tasking
• Nothing gets pushed over the goal line and into the end zone

All the “priorities” get stalled on the 20 yard line

• You are never truly GREAT at most things you do. Good at best, mediocreand poor at worst. Why? There’s not enough time to get GREAT at anything!

Your Vision and Your WHY

• Your vision needs to be crystal clear
• Fuzzy visions create confusion and lead to chaos — for you and anyone else involved with you — if you are a Leader, this is of utmost importance for your team. Fuzzy Leader, cloudy vision, confused and chaotic team
• WHAT you do is important and HOW you do it is also important — but WHY you do what you do — well, THAT is the key to being wildly successful

Here’s more I’ve written about the WHY if you care to read:

And if you want to read what a struggling Leader did to revitalize a struggling venture (a fictitious account loosely based on my own experiences) read this:

Important Things

Jim Rohn (my personal hero) was known to tout the 80/20 rule.

Some people don’t do well because they major in the minor things — Jim Rohn

He would say that “20 % of your effort creates 80 % of your result”. It’s about identifying the right 20 %.

Here are a few of many deadly time thieves. Things that “steal” your time.

• Little or no planning — the execution is then haphazard, seat of the pants and potentially chaotic
• Too much planning — yes, too much is TOO MUCH — eventually, you have to actually DO something!
• Poor execution of a good plan — not enough skill, or resource, or time to do right what you planned on doing
• As we’ve mentioned previously, too many priorities
• Complexity where simplicity would produce better results — over complicating the work and the environment
• Inefficiency in processes or even a lack of process
• Engaging in over-dramatization of events and circumstances — stop whining and just DO IT

My Suggestions

This worked for me. It might not for you. Other people’s suggestions on what made them successful is kind of like a doctor telling you to take the medicine she takes because it works for her. Or an Optometrist handing you his eye glasses because the prescription helps him see better.

Someone else’s solution is most probably not at all relevant or even safe for you…

And yes, I take cold showers, but that is not at all important right now…

With that important caveat in mind, this is what worked for me:

• Put together a list of the things in life that are REALLY important to you
• Include Family, Hobbies, Social, Other Personal, and your Professional Life and Career as well
• Track your hourly activities for 2 weeks — preferably 3 weeks — to develop a baseline of where you are spending time
• Then make a list of the activities you tracked and how much time you spent on them — sort them from highest amount of time to lowest
• Compare them to your list of things you said were really important to you

Match? No Match? Enlightening? Surprising? Shocking?

Either you were not really serious about the things you said were important, or, you are majoring in minor things. Which is it?

If you are a Leader, and your day and life is chaotic, haphazard andunplanned…

What the heck do you expect out of your team?

What example are you setting?

You might want to take one final step.

Use the Covey Quadrants or Eisenhower Matrix (also known as the Urgent-Important Matrix). Put all of your activities in one of the four boxes. Then blow away anything in Boxes 3 or 4. Shit can them. Now.

Remember…

Someone else’s fire is not necessarily yours!

You can Google the terms Covey Quadrants and Eisenhower Matrix for more insight and step by step instructions on how to use these.

These are much more than time management tools. They are “Major in Major Things” tools.

Just because something is old school doesn’t mean it’s not good and won’t work!

CONCLUSION

So this is where we are. We’ve come to the end of this running diatribe.

I “Began With the End In Mind” — a Stephen Covey term which is EXTREMELY relevant and impacting — to discover why we never seem to have enough time. Now, close to 1,600 words later…

WHY. MEANING. PURPOSE. FULFILLMENT. IMPORTANCE. VALUE. FOCUS.

That’s where you ought to be spending those 24 hours.

1 Mile Wide and 1 Mile Deep.

You have more than enough time. It’s just that you are spending it frivolously, carelessly, haphazardly and chaotically…

Cut that shit out!

That’s my call to action…

This is my Simple Leadership Lesson. Visit my publication Simple and Practical Leadership and follow me for more short, useful, and practical Leadership Wisdom delivered to you weekly.

The very least we can do is to show up for life and learn from it

In sports speak it’s called suiting up. Climbing out of the stands, taking the field and getting in the game.

In general it’s about being a participant in our own lives. Willingly. Actively. Positively. Effectively.

Fruitfully.

Now there’s a quite interesting word. FRUITFULLY. Its an adverb. The root is Fruitful — producing good or helpful results. Relating to how we should live our lives. In a way that produces fruit — Results. Good. Helpful.

What this suggests is that just showing up is the bare minimum. The very basic. The least. What this demands is that we do more than just show up. That we actively and effectively participate. Fully. To bear fruit.

How do we do that? Well, let’s explore that a bit.

What We Want

I think most of us want happiness. Joy. More specifically we want fulfillment. Happiness comes and goes. Fulfillment typically hangs around longer. It has more staying power.

Some of us want riches. Not necessarily money, although not many of us will turn it down. But wealth and riches often come dressed in many different costumes of many colors.

I’m a husband, father, grandfather and son. I’ve been blessed with the riches of family. Loving spouse, children, parents, grandchildren. I’m wealthy.

Then there are those that want to be somebody. Notoriety. Recognition.

Fame. They want to BE someone special.

Practically all of us want affection. To be cared for and loved. Nurtured.

Those are some of the things we want. And desire. Perhaps there are more things that you want. But those to me seem like the Basic 4.

Fulfillment

Riches

Fame

Love

So what do we do to get what we want?

What We Do to Get What We Want

To get what we want, are we willing to at least just show up for life? Suit up? Participate? Get in the game? Or is this more like what some of us do?

• Check out
• Go through the motions
• Sit in the stands, cold one in hand
• Mindlessly watch. Daydream. Of things that could be but aren’t
• Of things that were but aren’t
• Wish. Hope
• Gaze at stars and think about all the things we want and desire
• Unwilling to take the field

Thinking about the future. Living in the past.

Perhaps willing to do something. Anything. Maybe just unable. Paralyzed by something. Or someone. Not able to even show up.

Do we know people like that? I think we all know people like that. In fact, I bet as I have at times, we’ve all been like that at one point in our lives.

It happens. For some it might be happening right now. Hoping. Except as the famous saying goes, hoping and wishing is not a plan.

What We Should Do

Everyone is different. We all have our own situations to deal with. Complications to manage. Life to live according to our own circumstances. As the 1948 movie tells us, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City.”

But we must all address the most basic question that all of the paralysis and the sitting in the stands brings on.

How do you show up? How do you start with the very basic?

Those of you that read what I often write about on Medium know that I am into Simplicity. So I’ll keep it simple here as well. This is how we start:

Mindfulness

We must practice mindfulness. We must yank ourselves back into the present from either remembrances of the past or the daydreams of the future.

The way to live and to produce a fruitful life, and to acquire any and all of those things we listed above is to get out of the stands, get on to the field and play the game. Present. Here. Now. Mindful.

I know life’s tough. I know this is a simplistic way to look at things and that it may be a lot harder for you than for someone else. I really empathize with that. I do. But I think we need to state the way out as simply as we can.

I as much as anyone else, have been shoved, knocked and beaten into the stands. Wishing that what happened in my past had happened differently. Hoping that the future would come and deliver me from my plight.

I soon realized that it wasn’t going to work that way. If I had not come to that realization, I’d still be paralyzed. Sitting in the stands. Remembering the past. Daydreaming about the future. Mindless. Going nowhere.

Waiting for the skies to open up and for a miracle to change my life.

So, I ask you:

Where are you?

What are you?

Who are you?

And the most important question of all — WHY are you?

Stay in the stands for a little while longer (but not much longer, please!) and answer these questions.

For a free workbook to assist you in answering the WHY question, step down out of the stands, off the sideline, and get Mindful, into the game of life —

CLICK HERE

The Workbook is called Stepping Into the Present-Discovering Your WHY

Climb down out of the stands. Suit up. Play the game. Fruitfully. Here. Now. In the present. Mindful.

Mindfulness sucked at first. But for me, it was the only way out.

And for you?

This is a Simple Leadership Lesson. Visit my publication Simple and Practical Leadership and follow me for more short, useful, and practical Leadership Wisdom delivered to you weekly.

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