Facing business struggles, setbacks, conflicts, and hard financial times is something that business leaders and CEOs expect to experience.
I enjoy unhurried conversations where joys, hopes, dreams, and fears bubble to the surface of our often too-busy lives. As a pastor and frequent speaker on faith, work, and economics, I not only really like a bold cup of coffee but enjoy catching up with congregational members at a favorite coffee shop.
Creating a talent advantage defines much of the human capability (talent + leadership + organization + HR) agenda. HR professionals often gain credibility and have an impact when they help create a talent advantage by answering such questions as why talent matters, how to improve talent, and how to prioritize talent.
I’ve met some interesting animals on my path. A pygmy marmoset is one of the smallest monkeys in the world. If you’re lucky, you might see one in Peru. Remarkably, they can rotate their heads 180 degrees. My mother was skilled in this department!
I believe what people say. More than that, I believe the attitudes they express knowingly or unknowingly. When I enter an organization, I pay close attention to what managers say, and I have learned some of the telltale messages of managers who aren’t leading anyone anywhere. Among the worst messages are those that shut down communication. When communication is blocked, trust erodes and decisions go uninformed. After that, little else matters.
The Bible says that with God, all things are possible. But, as Christian leaders we must establish goals that are first vetted with Him. “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty” (Proverbs 21:5, ESV). So, make sure you follow the lead of the Holy Spirit in identifying the right goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics to fulfill the path that God has ordained for you (Proverbs 3:5-6) and to “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).
What are you going to say when the prospect asks, “Why should I buy from you?”
Oh, it is going to happen to you. You best be prepared for the question and you most definitely must be prepared for your answer.
Several years ago, when I was with the Zig Ziglar Corporation, the account executive, Margaret and I were conducting a phone call with a prospect in Atlanta. Margaret had interacted with the prospect a few times and I was asked to help close the training engagement.
I was privileged to contribute a chapter to the book "The Selfless Leader," available at no cost here. Rather than toot my horn as one of the contributors, I'd rather point you to the words of the editor, Scott Rodin of the Steward's Journey, who blogs here.
"Perhaps the best way I can try to define a Selfless Leader is to contrast it with its opposite. Could we say that the converse of a self-less leader is a self-more leader? Put another way, does becoming a selfless leader require us to set aside our desires to want more of our self as the focus of our leadership?
The Lean Accounting Movement introduced some groundbreaking changes in how we measure, report and plan for organizational costs…
Budgets are bad… rolling forecasts allow us to take away the cliff mentality and intend to provide a platform on which we can become nimbler.
Move away from full-absorption cost accounting and allocation of “monuments” to a model designed to measure “economic value added.”
Visual process and value-stream measurement, allowing everyone to see how an end-to-end process is performing, enabling timely response and adjustments to help both customers and productivity.
