Kevin Stilley

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Planning – select quotes

Form your plans with deliberations, but execute them with vigor.
~ Bias of Priene

Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you ready or not, to put this plan into action.
— Napolean Hill

The key is not to prioritize what is on the schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
~ Stephen Covey

Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.
~ Napolean Hill

The majority of men meet with failure because (they don’t create) new plans to take the place of those that fail.
~ Napoleon Hill

The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.
~ Lee Iacocca

Dig the well before you are thirsty.
~ Chinese Proverb

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Warren Buffett – select quotes

I am really no different from any of you. I may have more money than you do, but money doesn’t make the difference. Sure, I can buy the most luxurious handmade suit, but I put it on and it just looks cheap. I would rather have a cheeseburger from Dairy Queen than a hundred-dollar meal. If there is any difference between you and me, it may simply be that I get up every day and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day. If you want to learn anything from me, this is the best advice I can give you.
~ Warren Buffett addressing students at the University of Nebraska, as quoted in Now, Discover Your Strengths.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours, and you’ll drift in that direction.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

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J. Willard Marriott – Select Quotes

It’s the little things that make the big things possible. Only close attention to the fine details of any operation makes the operation first class.

I’ve felt that dissatisfaction is the basis of progress. When we become satisfied in business, we become obsolete.

You’ve got to make your employees happy. If the employees are happy, they are going to make the customers happy.

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The Power of Simplicity

simplicity

We often make the mistake of assuming that navigating a complex world requires complex answers. As a result we end up with even more complexity … confusion … chaos. The absurd behavior of key players in the recent meltdown of the American economy is a macrocosm of the nonsense which results from such thinking and which is ubiquitous in today’s business and social organizations, including the Local Church.

Maybe the current crisis will provide the impetus we need to cut out the nonsense. In some ways it now seems that there is developing a cultural zeitgeist in which people are demanding more common sense in our institutions [perhaps everywhere except in politics and in our churches]. It is time to re-evaluate what we are doing and how we are doing it. It is time to cut through the nonsense and do things right.

So, I heartily recommend Jack Trout’s book The Power Of Simplicity: A Management Guide to Cutting Through the Nonsense and Doing Things Right.

Trout introduces his book to us with the following quote from John Scully, “Everything we have learned in the industrial age has tended to create more and more complication. I think that more and more people are learning that you have to simplify, not complicate. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

It that sense, Trout’s book is very sophisticated. He argues his thesis straightforwardly in clear language, short chapters and concrete action steps. This book organization is not only consistent with the premise but allowed me to conveniently imbibe bite-size portions. I read it a few minutes each day over the course of a couple of weeks.

The Power Of Simplicity is composed of twenty-three mini-chapters (206 pages) and is broken into four parts; The Basics of Simplicity, Management Issues, Leadership Issues, and People Issues. That sounds like pretty standard stuff, but do NOT expect the routine business book /self-help book mumbo jumbo. Trout is a contrarian in many ways.

– He believes mission statements add needless confusion
– He believes long-term planning is just wishful thinking
– He believes that goals sound nice but accomplish little
– He believes growth can be bad for your business

Sound intriguing? Maybe, … but Trout keeps it simple.

Tolle lege.

* * * * * *

And, here is a reading list which he shares in an appendix to the book.

The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle’s-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions, by Scott Adams

Laugh out loud funny but dead on when it comes to management fads and other nonsense.

The Practice of Management, by Peter Drucker

The Effective Executive, by Peter Drucker

Managing in a Time of Great Change, by Peter Drucker

[Drucker is] The fountainhead of common sense and sound advice. Read any one of his dozens of books and you’ll be the wiser for it. These are three of our favorites.

How to Write, Speak and Think More Effectively, by Rudolph Flesch

The late Dr. Flesch staged a lifelong battle against muddy thinking and murky writing. This is one of his most significant books, packed with examples, exercises, and checklists.

The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management Gurus, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Woodridge

Two staff editors of The Economist make sense of the management gurus and debunk a lot of loony thinking. Good sections on the prophets (Peter Drucker), the evangelists (Tom Peters), and the new age preachers (Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey).

Enterprise One to One, by Don Peppers

An overly complex but useful look at how to use technology to hang onto your customers.

Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It, by Al Ries

Our ex-partner, Al Ries, lays out the case in great detail for doing what a company does best.

Fad Surfing In The Boardroom: Managing In The Age Of Instant Answers, by Eileen Shapiro

Ms. Shapiro takes deadly aim at the fads that sweep through business like waves in the ocean. Just the “fad dictionary” is worth the price.

Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut, by David Shenk

We’re being smothered by information, and it’s dulling our minds. An intelligent look at how to cope with that glut.

Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits, by Robert Townsend

The late Robert Townsend wrote a classic about the foibles of corporations and how to avoid them.

Marketing Warfare: How to Use Military Principles to Develop Marketing Strategies, by Jack Trout and Al Ries

The bible on how to cope with competition. It will turn you into a killer.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!, by Jack Trout and al Ries

As we say, violate them at your own risk.

The New Positioning: The Latest on the World’s #1 Business Strategy, by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin

Important insights into differentiation and how to build perceptions in the ultimate battleground, the mind of your prospect.

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Developing Common Sense

Can you learn common sense? In The Power Of Simplicity: A Management Guide to Cutting Through the Nonsense and Doing Things Right Jack Trout offers the following four guidelines to facilitate thinking in simple, commonsense terms.

  1. Get your ego out of the situation. Good judgment is based on reality. The more you screen things through your ego, the farther you get from reality.
  2. You’ve got to avoid wishful thinking. We all want things to go a certain way. But how things go are often out of our control. Good common sense tends to be in tune with the way things are going.
  3. You’ve got to be better at listening. Common sense by definition is based on what others think. It’s thinking that is common to many. People who don’t have their ears to the ground lose access to important common sense.
  4. You’ve got to be a little cynical. Things are sometimes the opposite of the way they really are. That’s often the case because someone is pursuing their own agenda. Good common sense is based on the experiences of many, no the wishful thinking of some.

What guidelines would you add to this list?

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Seagull Leadership

I have been listening to a series of leadership CDs published by Willow Creek Resources. One of the CDs from his series, entitled The Leadership Summit on Developing Teams, features Ken Blanchard. His session was on “Developing People: Giving and Receiving Feedback.”

In the course of his presentation he made the following statement:

“The number one leadership style in the world is called seagull management, … most managers aren’t around until something is wrong, and then they fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everybody, and then fly out.”

The audience roared with laughter. I think there were a couple of reason why they, and I, found it to be humorous. (1) It was a great visual. There is no way to NOT see the metaphor. (2) It applies all too often.

To those of you who are manager I would ask the following question; “Have you been practicing seagull leadership?” Would we get the same answer if we asked your direct reports rather than you?

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Grace In The Workplace

I asked Peter Drucker, … “Peter, why are you a Christian?” …He says, “Ken, there’s no better deal.” I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “Who else has grace?”

The above was related by business consultant Ken Blanchard. I have been listening to a series of recordings on developing teams and Blanchard was giving a presentation on “Developing People: Giving and Receiving Feedback” when he made the above statement.

I believe that in all my years, which included a lifetime in church, a decade of training managers and a stint teaching business at the college level, that is the very first time I have ever heard anyone speak of “grace” as a leadership model. I am hoping to flesh this out a bit and thought I would throw the door open to you for suggestions. Two questions that I have are (1) what Biblical passages would relate to this premise?, and (2) what would a “grace based leadership model” look like in a secular business?

Anyone care to share your thoughts?

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