Does Lean Apply to You?

Posted on by
Reply

Lean Applied to Non-Manufacturing Areas

I am assuming that most management employees have heard of Lean concepts as applied to manufacturing.  At the same time, in my experience, most outside of manufacturing will say that Lean does not apply to them. 

In nearly 40 years of professional life, I have found that some of the largest gains brought about by Lean are in the support areas of manufacturing, not in manufacturing itself.  Manufacturing cannot be Lean without its support functions also being lean.  Lean principles applied to IT, HR, Sales, Engineering and Logistics have a snowball effect on manufacturing and a business as a whole.

COPQ and COW

Let me introduce you to the Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) and the Cost of Waste (COW).  They are similar in scope and evaluated in the same way.  COPQ leads to COW.  Basically, to measure either, simply ask “What would change in the facility’s financial performance if everything was done perfectly correct?”

Consider the following within the context of the cost of poor quality:

  • What would the financial result be if we never had unplanned mechanical down time?
  • What would the financial result be if we never had unplanned IT related communication down time?
  • What would the financial result be if communication between Engineering and Operations was so tight that Engineering was able to always anticipate Operational problems before they happen?
  • What of Sales and Operation never miss-communicated?
  • What if we never hired the wrong person?

Before anyone gets defensive, understand that each of the considerations mentioned above involves cross functional communication, cooperation and accountability. This brings me to the most important step in the Lean journey to reaching our potential as an organization.  The elimination of silos.

Silo

Silos divide an organization into independent operating groups with their own goals and objectives, that may or may not be in alignment with other operating groups.  Silos sub-optimize an organization by creating competing objectives, poor interdepartmental communication, and interdepartmental conflict.

If you identify more with your department than the organization that contains the department, you are silo’ed.  Where you are meeting your own departmental target metrics, you are probably not meeting the organization’s target metrics.

Things you hear and experience from a silo’ed organization:

  • That’s not my job, or that is someone else’s job.
  • It works fine, or looks fine here. (It is never fine, by the way, if it doesn’t work fine on the production floor.)
  • You have to go door to door (department to department) to get help.
  • Lack of a sense of urgency when the customer is at risk. (a customer can also be another department)

High Performance Teams

There is a adage that you hear in highly successful businesses, “When the ship sinks, everyone gets wet, even if it isn’t their fault.”  High Performance teams have the following characteristics:

  • When things go wrong, or when the team thinks things might go wrong, everyone “runs to the fire” to see if they can help.
  • There is a sense of urgency to do better.
  • Individual and departments see their success as being intimately tied to the success of the organization as a whole.
  • It is easy to hold each other accountable, because it is about performance not personality.
  • Every individual in the organization can tell you where the organization is going and how their department and their own efforts are helping the organization be its best.

Be Your Best

Questions you need to answer to be the best you can be. 

  • What kind of organization do you want to work for, the Silo’ed organization or the High Performance Team? 
  • How well aligned are your objectives, your department’s objectives and the organizations objectives?
  • What can you do to facilitate needed change?

I know what I want and I believe that it is not that different from what you want.

Purpose: The Wake of Your Life

Posted on by
Reply

Wake Life

Purpose: The Wake of Your Life

Walter McIntyre

What is in the wake or purpose of your life. Is it littered with the pieces you broke off of people, or filled with people who are happy that you passed their way.  It is not a rhetorical question.  Your success as an individual and your ability to bring success to your business endeavors depends on the answer.

When your words and actions are out of alignment you are not authentic.  When your words and actions are not in alignment with reality you are not authentic.  Everyone can see it and you can see it yourself.  In reality no one is fooled. The real danger is that your inner circle will follow your lead into something less than authenticity. It reminds us of the story of the “Emperor and His New Clothes”.

There’s a difference between “using” people to accomplish your agenda and “working with” people to accomplish your agenda.  One leaves people distracted and disengaged.  The other leaves people motivated and loyal to both you and the mission.  Motivated and loyal people are essential to building a high performance work group.

It’s all about integrity.  There are talented and smart people that have never had success in building something with real impact, past the immediate.  Success that lasts longer than the southeast corner of this month’s financial sheet requires something in addition to talent and smarts.  It requires integrity, driven by purpose.

Try these questions on for size:

Can you connect positively with others and build trust instead of seeing everyone as either a friend or foe?

Are you oriented toward reality?

Can you embrace failure as a integral part of success?

Are people/employees assets or partners on the journey to success?

Why do people follow you?

There are no absolutely right answers to these questions, but there are answers you will like better than others.  Answers that make you smile. Answers that trouble you.  This is all about self-evaluation, not judgment.

At some point, highly successful people define who they are going to be.  That is when words and deeds have a chance to come into alignment. This is purpose.  Once you have been exposed to, and embrace purpose, nothing will ever be the same for you.  Decisions become easier and better because you have a fix on true North in your life.  A journey you take along with people who are in alignment with your purpose will give you peace of mind.

Small Business Financing

Posted on by
Reply

Small Business Financing: (Which Option Is Really Best For You?)Equity, Debt, or Convertible Debt?

Written by Alex Liu

This article was originally published on UpCounsel.

https://www.upcounsel.com/business-attorneys

When considering small business financing, it’s important to understand all your available options. Otherwise, investors can easily take advantage of you and offer unfair terms. So before raising any money, learn if equity, debt or convertible debt financing makes the most sense for you to grow your business.

Equity

Raising capital through equity is a popular, if not the most popular choice, for entrepreneurs to pursue. Investors buy stock in your company, giving them a financial stake in the future success of your business.

How It Works

  1. You set a specific dollar amount for what your company is worth.
  2. Based on that valuation, investors agree to give you money in exchange for a certain percentage of your company.
  3. Investors receive compensation based on the percent of stock they own once you sell the company or go public.

Pros

  • All your cash can go toward your business rather than loan repayments.
  • Investors take on some risk and don’t have to be paid back until you’re doing well.
  • Investors often have valuable business experience.
  • Since investors have a financial stake in the success of your business, they are motivated to offer sound guidance and valuable business connections.

Cons

  • Equity financing has the highest legal bills and takes the longest time to close, making it the most complex small business financing structure, says Forbes contributor and growth consultant George Deeb.
  • Selling shares of your company makes it very difficult to get them back.
  • You will most likely lose control of part of your board to your investors.

Debt

Debt-based fundraising is the form of small business financing most small businesses end up choosing, says Fundable. It’s also the easiest to understand. Money is loaned to you with the agreement you’ll repay it over time with an established interest rate.

How It Works

  1. You borrow money with an agreement to pay it back with interest within a specific time frame.
  2. You will also have to offer your lender some form of collateral, which are liquid assets you will give up if you cannot make your loan payments.

Pros

  • You will raise capital much quicker than with equity small business financing. This is especially true of smaller cash amounts.
  • You can keep 100 percent of your company, along with 100 percent of its profits.
  • Interest payments are tax-deductible.

Cons

  • You must be completely confident you can make your loan payments in cash each month. If you don’t, lenders can make you sell your business in order to get their money back.
  • Interest payments can become one of your largest business expenses.
  • Commercial lenders will demand small business owners to personally guarantee the loan and offer personal assets as collateral, even if your company is structured as a corporation or limited liability company, according to Forbes.

Convertible Debt

A convertible debt small business financing structure is a mix of debt and equity financing. The money raised is considered a loan, but at some future date the loan can convert to equity if the lenders so choose.

How It Works

  1. You will negotiate an interest rate to pay back the loan. This will also be the interest rate for those lenders who decide not to convert any debt into stock.
  2. The details concerning how lenders can convert the debt into equity are negotiated at the time of the loan. For the most part, that means agreeing to give lenders a discount or warrant on an upcoming round of equity fundraising.
  3. You will also set the valuation cap, or maximum company valuation, at which lenders can convert debt into equity. If investors decide not trade in their loan for shares at this predetermined valuation level, they can no longer do so at a future date.

Pros

  • Transaction costs are low and the process moves quickly.
  • If you don’t want to set a company valuation, which involves a lot of uncertainty and risks for new startups, a convertible debt structure for small business financing makes a lot sense, says Covestor CEO Asheesh Advani.
  • Using convertible debt protects investors from dilution in future financing rounds.

Cons

  • Investors are uneasy giving money without knowing the exact share of a company they will own, and you might have to offer steep discounts on equity in order to get them to agree to the terms.
  • You may be forced to set a valuation before you are ready in order to avoid unaffordable loan repayment expenses.

In the end, it’s best you make your final choice, best on which specific option, works best for you, not just now, but in the immediate future as well.

About Our Author Alex Liu

Alex began his career as a scientific legal consultant and then as a journalist researching and reporting on health policy and health sciences. At UpCounsel, he enjoys researching and analyzing data to help businesses make informed decisions. In his free time, Alex is working on a documentary.

Reduce Churn by Keeping in Touch With Your Customers

Posted on by
Reply

Reduce Churn by Keeping in Touch With Your Customers

 


Churn rate is one of the best indicators of a business’s health. Also called attrition and cancellation rate, it is the percentage of clients who have discontinued and canceled a product within a time period.

In a perfect world, your company would have zero percent churn–but customers canceling is a fact of doing business. However, there are ways to reduce this.
In this post, we’ll look at some ways to retain customers better and reduce customer churn overall. These are pointers you can use to reevaluate your overall business strategy and review your customer playbook for sales, support, and marketing teams.
Be proactive

Many companies make the mistake of only communicating with their existing customers where there’s already a complaint (the customer reached out!) or when they want to upsell. Although this sounds atrocious, it’s a bad practice that’s very common across many businesses.

Sure, some customers don’t like to be “bothered” by companies and just want to be left alone enjoying the product. However, the only reason a customer would be annoyed by a company reaching out is when it involves one of those reasons above–a problem or an upsell.

Steady communication with your existing customers is important to retain them. This is not about a token hello. This is about letting them know that you’re taking care of them and that you are easy to reach out to in case they have a concern.

The other side of the coin is the valuable feedback that you’ll get from these customers–feedback that will ultimately help you improve your operations.

Make use of call notes

Call notes are very important. Make use of them so you can reach out to customers with context. This is why having a CTI–like for example, an Avaya integration with SugarCRM–in place is essential to a customer-centric operation that effectively reduces customer churn.

Integrating CRMs with phone systems allow your agents to log all customer information and conversation details easily so you’ll have access to them when you proactively reach out to your customers.

When you make that call or write that email, reference their account details, previous conversations, anything that can help personalize the call so they don’t feel like they’re just part of a routine roundup from a tall CSV file.

Ask clients for feedback

Make an effort to ask customers for feedback about the service they’re receiving and the product they are using.

Ensuring customers are getting what they are paying for (and more!) is key to keeping your client base growing and not the other way around.

Here are some ways to do this:

Social Media

Many companies provide customer support via social media but it’s almost always a reactive effort. Why don’t you schedule regular call outs for feedback on your company’s social profiles?

This is a moderately risky move if you are not confident with your performance as a provider because social media can make or break a brand. However, it’s one of the most visible channels for communication so strategize how to incorporate asking for feedback in your social media plans.

Existing customer segment in your email list

Any effective email marketing plan involves engagement with existing users. Make sure to segment your email list (i.e. move closed accounts to their own segment) so you can create tailored emails. Segmenting email lists this way allows your team to ask clients directly without having to do it manually.

Do this sparingly as this approach can get spammy really fast.

Feedback capture tools on your website

The company website is your front door. Most clients will come to your website first when they have a concern, whether it’s to talk to someone on live chat or just check out your help desk.

An underutilized approach is putting feedback bars or even surveys on your website to capture precious customer insights.

Personal calls and emails

When you close deals, it must a practice to create recurring tasks in their record on your CRM through your CTI integration so you can send personal check-ins with your customers to see how they’re using your product, what their concerns are, and what areas you can improve upon. Whether you’re using a SugarCRM Avaya integration or one of the hundreds of other CRM-Phone combos, getting a solution that allows you to streamline tasks is key to exploiting this avenue for feedback.

For all these approaches, be direct and make it easy for customers to provide their thoughts either. Ask short questions, and give answering options when possible. Be sure to acknowledge their feedback! Call back when possible.

Reducing customer churn is all about ensuring customer success. Use your tools to be in constant contact with your customers.

Ensure that your sales, support, and marketing teams are geared towards championing the success of your customers. Not only does this help you reduce customer churn, it also helps you convert customers to product evangelists!

Sean Pinegar

What Are the Important Customer Success Metrics

Posted on by
Reply

What to Measure

Ask anyone in sales or customer support regarding important customer success metrics, and almost always, churn is mentioned. Churn is short for ‘churn rate’ and refers to the percentage rate of customer loss or customer defection. And while this is an indicative customer metrics that we should all monitor, it is incomplete.

Guy Nirpaz, co-founder and CEO of Totango, says: “Churn is very important, but this is the outcome…. Churn, renewal, upsell, these are all the outcomes. In order to impact the outcome, [you need] to look at the leading indicators.”

So, when it comes to important customer success metrics, where should you look? We broke it down to two categories for you: customer health score and the other conventionally important customer success metrics.

Customer Success Metrics: Customer Health Score

Your customer health score reflects the key attributes of a successful customer. Score high; and you likely have a highly engaged and happy customer base. Low scores indicate that there are aspects of your product/ service and operations which need tweaking.



Customer health score tops our list because it brings relationships into metrics. We’re still looking at numbers here, of course. Yet, we also get a good idea of how involved customers are with you and your products.

  • Are they exploring your product’s different features?
  • Do they engage with you through your website, support channels and social media channels?
  • Do they regularly login and use your service?
  • Are they active customers with updated billing histories?
  • Are they positive about you when asked via survey?
  • Would they recommend you to their friends? (Also referred to as Net Promoter Score or NPS)

The weights of these attributes differ per industry/ per business. For instance, there are businesses where the NPS is more important than the level of user interaction or feature usage. Another common example is having a high volume of support tickets which, in some cases, isn’t really a bad thing. It is up to you to assess your operations and your customer engagements to get to the impact of these attributes to your true customer health score.

The end goal is to be able to identify crucial segments of your customer base: those who are likely to churn and those who can be approached with up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. You can then take action in response to these possibilities/ opportunities.

Other Important Customer Success Metrics

It is still important to keep your eye on a few more customer success metrics that have conventionally been regarded as important.

Customer Lifetime Value
Customer lifetime value (or LTV), defined simply, refers to the revenue earned from a customer over a period of time. Keep in mind that this is actually a complex concept. You also have to consider the cost of acquiring a new customer, churn rate and value of up-sells, cross-sells and referrals to get to your real LTV.

It’s been found that LTV can predict success for subscription-based businesses. According to research conducted by Shopify’s RJMetrics, the top 25% of these companies have revenues of more than $600 thousand per month. They get 3.5 times more new clients, and are able to retain these clients for at least a few months. In these few months, 20% of their monthly revenues would come from repeat business. Trends point to the ability of these top 25% companies to retain these clients for around three years, increasing the value of their LTV.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)
We mentioned the Net Promoter Score (NPS) earlier, under Customer Health Score. We are adding it here again because it pays to look at this customer success metric separately. Your NPS refers to the likelihood of your customers referring you to their friends. It not only gives you an idea on your referral, up-sell and cross-sell opportunities – or lack of. It also gives you deep insight on how happy or unhappy your customers truly are.

Take it from the man who started an entertainment empire with a mouse, Walt Disney: “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.”

Because, the reality is that your unhappy customers may not end up churning. But, will they help you bring in new clients? Are they willing to buy again from you? Probably not.

Churn Rate
Churn is still an important metric to track. However, don’t just settle for the number. It does not benefit you to only know how many people leave your fold. When you consider your churn rate, make sure to also look at “red flag” indicators, such as total number of logins, length of sessions, and time spent on individual tasks. Crucial indicators differ per industry/ per business. So, assess your business operations to pinpoint your “red flags.”

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Your CAC is the sum of several customer metrics, such as research and development costs, manufacturing costs and marketing costs, divided by your total number of new customers.

Is your customer acquisition cost higher than your LTV? If yes, then your business is in trouble; and you need to look at lowering your CAC and improving your customer retention rate.

Customer Success Potential
Over time, through customer metrics and your notes, you can gather enough data for accurate customer segmentation. Here, you can see which are best-fit and bad-fit customers. Bad-fit customers are those who are likely to have trouble with your product or service. They might take longer doing common tasks. They also engage your customer support often. This segment is likely to churn and it might be best to just let them go. What should alarm you more is if you find your best-fit clients churning.

Dan Sincavage

Dan is a Co-Founder of Tenfold and currently serves as the Chief Strategy Officer. Dan oversees the Tenfold sales organization, manages strategic partner relationships and works with key enterprise accounts to ensure their success with the Tenfold platform.

Net Promoter Score Defined

Posted on by
Reply

Net Promoter Score, defined.

Patrick Hogan

Patrick is a Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tenfold.

Net Promoter Score

When measuring customer satisfaction with a service, Boston-based consulting firm Bain and Company identified three major groups of people based on the scores they give to one particular question: are they, the customers, going to recommend the particular service they are using to friends and family?

Using a normal scale of 0 to 10 as the answer, a customer can fall into one of the following three designations:

  1. Promoters – These are people scoring the service either a 9 or 10. They are active promoters of the product and believe in the service they’re using.
  2. Passives – Anyone scoring the service a 7 or 8. These people are indifferent to the service or are neutral about promoting it to others.
  3. Detractors – Includes dissatisfied customers and people who are extremely critical of the service. May suggest and recommend against the company and its products.

To get what is known as the net promoter score, a number that shows the actual range of satisfaction that customers fall into, the percentage of detractors is subtracted the percentage of promoters. Because it’s a difference, if the promoters and detractors happen to be equal, the net promoter score is simply zero and the product can be seen as lacking any kind of customer-initiated promotion.

Net Promoter Score as a Competitive Benchmark

NPS lends itself quite nicely to measuring a company’s performance against the competition. By knowing where the customer satisfaction rating of a business stands against its peers, it can understand what other customers do or do not see in its own offerings.

Bottom of Form

This is not just a “magic” number either: there is hard proof that companies that take extreme care of their NPS ratings experience better compounded annual growth against those who don’t.

 

Patrick Hogan

Patrick is a Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tenfold.

 

Lean is not for us, as we really want to provide quality to our clients

Posted on by
Reply

Recently, I needed to undergo major surgery. Most staff will ask what you do professionally (probably to calm your nerves). In a haze of sedation and pain, I mostly answered “…something with Lean and Six Sigma”. It was good to hear many seemed to know what I was stammering about. A response I am sure I heard a few times was along the lines of….”Lean is not for us, we are about quality for clients”.

Now let me be clear, the care I received was exemplary, I can only bow my head in deep respect for all the staff in the hospital. The way they care about people, strengthens my faith in mankind.

Evidence of Lean was everywhere

Even on my way to surgery, lying in my bed wearing one of these gowns, which somehow always show more that you want and are really cold, I could see visual management, 5 S and standard work used in their protocols (just in case the confused me for my twin brother). Even the surgeon, just before cutting me open, mentioned stand ups.

So how is Lean not about Quality

After waking up, and the fog lifted, I could not get rid of this paradox, so many lean measures working, but Lean seen as something separate from quality (thus customers).  I decided to see whether the people caring for me could tell me more….?

Most staff I asked, confirmed that their problem with lean is that it interfered with the quality they wished to offer their clients (read patients).

Listening to most of the staff, I noticed shared opinions. Lean is about tools that cost time (e.g. boards, protocols). It is driven by third parties, who know nothing about what really happens. It really is about cost cutting.

Summarizing, Lean was something you do because others tell you to do so and it is really not part of your daily work.

A quiet evening shift

After a few nights, you develop a rapport with some staff. During a quiet evening shift, I offered some of them my view. I asked some staff members whether their work had changed. Everyone said that medical science is developing, (my laparoscopic operation would not have not been possible a few years ago). Also, their patients were changing, growing older and multicultural. As a matter of fact their world was changing at a lightning pace.

A change of mindset

I then asked for their view on these changes. As expected most embraced it and wanted things to change.  They agreed that if their work could be made easier they would have more time to adapt to change and have more time left for quality care for patients. I told them, that is what all Lean tools try to achieve.

The penny dropped. Tools were just tools. We should use them to make life easier and spend more time to really provide quality to patients.

A simple example was walking back to a dispensing unit if my medication i.e. oxycodone was not in the cart. Retrieving it, costs time which could be spent differently. Somehow, we needed to think of a way to enable this instead on relying on memory or patient initiative. It is a shift to a lean mindset, looking for ways to make what do you easier and giving you more time to spend quality time to your patients.

The next day

One staff member came up to me and said, aren’t you the lean guy (as I had lost 7 pounds, my answer was a double yes). She said, I have an idea about changing the activities on the handover between night and morning shift, it saves at least 30 minutes, but I just do it and nobody else. I said mention it during the next meeting. But what do I call it, she said? Well, just show them that it enables you to spend more time with patients.

Leaving and going home

Do you know the sense of relief, of knowing you can sleep in your own bed and not hear 3 other people snoring? In that mood, I was in my wheelchair, when the staff member I mentioned said, thank you for your clarification on lean (my response was, I should be the one grateful for their excellent care). She ended with, I have few more ideas!

Lean; a Mindset

At home I, could not suppress I smile, I really hope at least this one person sees lean as a state of mind, always looking for ways to improve and thus care for your patients. We cannot change the world but let’s start with one person at a time.

 

Michel C. Doppert

Master Black Belt Lean Six Sigma

The Lean Six Sigma Company UK

The Importance of Listening Skills for Managers

Posted on by
Reply

The Importance of Listening Skills for Managers, by Jackie Edwards

Listening. Today, around 40% of employees do not feel valued or appreciated, and around 70% would be willing to accept an offer for another job or are actively looking. This issue stems from a difficulty in communication within the workplace which, as a manager, it is important to address.

While it is widely recognized that managers must be excellent leaders and problem solvers, a very important and often underlooked managing skill is also listening. This skill can make you a better and more effective manager; employees will strive hard to do their best for a manager who actively listens to them, leading to a more productive and motivated team. Here are our tips to help managers improve their listening skills.

1) Focus on Your Employees (and Avoid Electronic Distractions)

When an employee is trying to have a conversation with a manager, all electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets or computers are distractions. A manager may not realize this, but checking their emails during a conversation does not come off as respectful to the employee trying to convey a specific message. The speaker will probably feel unimportant and underappreciated and the manager might miss out on important information. Ditch the electronic devices to avoid distractions and focus your attention on the speaker. 

2) Be Patient!

Even if you are dying to jump in and express your point of view, allow the person who is speaking to you to finish. It’s probably hard for the speaker to come in and start the conversation in the first place, and they may feel devalued if interrupted continuously. Listen quietly and express your views after the speaker has finished. 

Furthermore, research has shown that managers that respond too quickly to statements made during meetings and discussions usually miss the point of what their employees are trying to say. When your employees have finished talking, repeat the key points back to them to make sure you’ve understood their message correctly and to reinforce it yourself. 

3) Be an Active Listener!

Don’t focus only on the words that your employee is using; nonverbal cues can convey essential information if one knows how to read them. Look out for changes in intonation, volume, pace and flow and keep an eye on facial expressions and body language. All of these can be quite informative and reveal a lot. 

4) Avoid Misunderstandings

We’ve talked about body language; just as you can gather information from the speaker’s body language, they can do the same by looking at you. Resist the temptation to roll your eyes, grimace or make a face. 

Ask your employee to clarify if you really don’t understand what they’re trying to say and remain focused for the whole duration of the conversation. Selective hearing leads to misunderstandings as you hear only portions of what the speaker has said and you might miss important parts of the message.

An Effective Management Strategy

Remember, listening skills enable a manager to understand intentions and feelings of their team, an essential skill for team management. Your employees will be more open, positive and motivated if they feel they are being heard and will strive to do their best for the team. 

The best managers don’t give orders; they are first of all excellent communicators, and effective communication starts with listening. 

Objectives and Agendas

Posted on by
Reply

Whose Objectives are You Pursuing, by Walter McIntyre

Every person and every organization has objectives and a purpose.  I am not speaking of the ones individuals profess or those an organization posts on their lobby wall.  It is the ones you observe in action that count.  These objectives, which are always related to an agenda, are not that hard to see and hear if you are paying attention.

I am fortunate to have been involved in leading a business turn around twice in my career.  In both cases individual agendas and objectives were subverting the business’s success.   In both cases, changing the focus of specific individuals, or removing the individuals from the business, became the turning point for business success.

You have to pay attention to what people say, and what they do, to see past the facade. To hear someone say they want to see certain business metrics improve, but their actions are about promoting themselves,  is a dead giveaway.  These folks will sub-optimize the business to accomplish their personal agendas.

It is a characteristic of highly successful individuals that they work hard to be the best at whatever they are doing.  They move up the ladder by way of out-working and out-learning everyone else.  They build a group of faithful followers who trust that the individual will give credit where credit is due and share in the benefits that success provides.  They also take ownership of failures instead of blame shifting or excuses.

If want to build a successful organization, staff it with folks that share your vision and are willing to fulfill their own objectives by way of making the vision a reality.  Avoid folks who are looking to promote themselves at the expense of others and the vision.

As for advice, I tend to avoid folks who are seeking a title or pay level.  They tend to see the business as a means to an end.  They check out as soon as they believe their agenda looks unattainable.  Even though I have held the titles of COO and CEO in my career, I never sought them.  They came as a result of working my tail off to make vision a reality and business successful.

Principles for Life

Posted on by
Reply

Principles for Life

by Walter McIntyre

I have personal operating principles that help me have a happy and fulfilled life.  I guess you would say that this helps me lead a principle centered life.  These principles, when followed, even when it is not convenient, help me move through my life with happiness and peace of mind.  I am not advocating what is morally right or wrong, only that you need to understand “your” right and wrong to have a stable map for your life to follow.

These are my principles:

Honesty:

Being honest, especially when you believe that others either will not, or cannot find out the truth, is a measure of your character.  I don’t know too many people who want to be known as really good liars.  The truth of the matter is that when you are dishonest, people know.  Typically, the first person fooled by your dishonesty is you.

On the other hand, being known as an honest person will open doors for you.  As Stephen Covey put it, to be trusted, you must first be trustworthy.  It also provides a low stress, positive feeling in your core when you know you are being honest.

I am the first person to know it when I lie and I don’t like the feeling.  I am better that that.  These are important questions for me.  What do I know about my honesty? What would the people in the wake of my life say about my honesty?  What do I want them to say?

Integrity:

Integrity is related to honesty, but runs deeper, getting into your morality, character, and sincerity.  Unfortunately, we currently live in a culture were telling half-truths (half lies) and cheating is not only accepted, it is expected.  We rationalize our behavior from a win/lose perspective.  As long as I win, it’s OK, right?  Have you ever met a person who wants to win the argument, even when they know they are wrong or misleading?

Seeing an opportunity to cheat or undermine others, but not taking advantage of it, is a characteristic of a high integrity person. Trust me, people know more about your integrity than you think.

Life is a marathon not a short sprint.  It is more important that I finish the race well, not that I won a sprint today that cost me the race in my life.  I like the feeling of doing the right things for the right reasons.  I also want others in the wake of my life to see me as a person with integrity.

Potential:

See the potential in yourself, others and situations. This involves seeing past the obvious.  Bear in mind that this involves seeing both the potential upside and downside.  Many times, potential is evident in the contextual information surrounding people and situations.

What this really involves is taking the long view on things, instead of being short sited.  Life is an evolution not an event.  Everything and everyone is moving toward a destiny. Were we are today, no matter what we do or say, is not where we will eventually wind up.

Dignity:

Did you know that when you trample on someone’s dignity, you trample on your own at the same time?  If you have ever watched someone attack someone else’s dignity, you know what I mean.  What did you think about the aggressor?

This is the root of the bullying dilemma. The bully is actually the one with the low self-esteem and they need to tear down someone else to feel better about themselves.  Seeking a win/lose victory is hollow when a win/win victory is possible.

On the other hand, how do you feel when you preserve someone else’s dignity?  I recently witnessed an elderly lady wondering a grocery store parking lot looking for her car.  A young man came up to her and said “Are you having trouble finding your car, sweet heart”.  She replied that this was so and the young man helped her find the vehicle and gave her a hug.  I asked him if he knew her and he said that he didn’t. He also said that he had a grandmother that age and hoped that someone would help her if she were in a similar situation.  I told him I was proud of him.

Like the young man in the story above, I hope that paying it forward is a real possibility some day for me.  What would the people in the wake of your life say about your concern for the dignity of others?  What do you want them to say about you?

Connectivity:

This is the difference between being independent or interdependent.  We are better when we walk together than when we walk alone. We are meant to connect with others. Interdependent people are nearly always happier and more effective than independent people.

It is easy to connect with those who agree with us on current issues, but we must also connect with those with whom we disagree.  We are all in this together.  Look up “The Pale Blue Dot” on the internet.  This is an enlightening perspective on our collective humanity.

Purpose:

Are you driftwood, simply floating along with the currents of life?  Or, are you a person of purpose, who is moving toward something.  It is important to know where you want to go in life.  I have heard it said, and I have experienced it, that when you are exposed to purpose, nothing will be the same in your life.

Purpose also drives your approach to every criterion listed here. People with purpose are driven to compliance with their values.  When you have purpose, decisions are easier to make because you have a map to follow.

You might call this “keeping the main thing, the main thing”.  For example, if you intend to save money for your children’s education or your retirement.  If that is a purpose for you, then it makes it easier to answer the question of whether I need a new car, or just want one.  That decision can make a $30,000 – $50,000 difference in your finances over a 5-7 year period, at today’s car prices.

A purpose driven life is where effort is valued.  It is about the journey.  How to live intentionally, with purpose, requires you to know what you value and what you want to be the result of your life.  These are difficult questions to answer with honesty and certainty, which is why so many are blindly pushed and pulled along with the masses. Having no purpose of your own, allows others to use you for their purposes.

Belief:

Know what you believe in and understand why you believe it. If you cannot explain your beliefs, you may be vulnerable to drifting away from your purpose.  Try talking directly to the person in your mirror.  If that person has difficulty understanding your beliefs, or is doubtful, you have some growing to do.

Relevant questions might be: Are your religious beliefs yours or your parent’s?  Is your political party affiliation yours or what others have told you to believe?  Are your beliefs in alignment with your purpose?  What is the most important role in your life?  There is no clear right or wrong set of beliefs.  Only that your beliefs are in alignment with your purpose and what you value.

Try creating a 30 second elevator speech that tells who you are and where you are going in life.  Be honest. Remember you are the only one who will be fooled if you don’t.  Your beliefs and your embracement to them become the lubrication that helps you through difficult situations in your life.  I want my belief system to stand the test of time and trouble.  My beliefs will not evaporate like a fair-weather friend when the going gets tough.

The above is a picture of my personal philosophy.  It is my sincere hope that it defines my actions when I am measured against who I want to be.