If everything is important, nothing is

"Perhaps hurting my knee has a silver lining. I stayed in-house this week and converted quite a few groups," Clarice pointed out.

In my past life, I've frequently worked with having too many top priorities to achieve the level of focus my team needs to succeed. Wanting to cover all my bases, I established a long list of disparate objectives nd spread my team's scarce time andeergy across them all. The result is almost always a lot of initiatives being done in a mediocre way and a failure to accomplish what matters most.

I came to realize this somewhat by accident: If everything is important, nothing is.

1 thing has to be most important, even if there are other worthy goals under consideration. For me, the question these days is, What is most important, right now?

 

Most important things are hardly ever urgent

"These days, I spend 15 to 16 hours working," iAngel lamented.

We may think that we spend more time together today, but do we really, or are we simply in the same place together more of the time? The world is full of people living together alone.

We all want to have great relationships, but we get distracted by all the urgent things. We rush around endlessly doing all these urgent things, and if we are not careful we will rush around doing urgent things for the rest of our lives.

The problem is, the most important things are hardly ever urgent, ie relationships, physical, emotional areas of life. And that is why we have to place them on our schedules, because if we don't we simply won't get around to them.

People developer and talent cultivator

"We were trying our best but you don't seem to appreciate and yet said we were pussyfooting around," the feedback was blunt and brutal.

That was 1 area where I failed to put myself in other people's shows and see things their way. You might say I was arrogantly naive.

On the other hand, there are are occassions when I don't pull punches just to avoid hurting other colleagues' feelings. Getting an entire group to excel is worth any number of offended peers. Maybe it is best to simply accept the fact that excellence upsets some people. It always has and always will.

My leadership role has changed from order-giver to people-developer, from authoritarian boss to talent cultivator. Nowadays, I noticed that the most effective leaders work hard at showing people how to find their own solutions, and then get out of the way.

Selling = problem solving

I went to COMEX this weekend looking for a PC. I ended up with a HP PC, Creative speakers and subwoofer, Samsung, blu ray dvd player, Samsung LED TV and Samsung soundbar. Adam was the sales person who attended to me.

Supersalespeople are extremely attentive to each client's needs and totally intent upon seeking an ideal solution to each client's unique problems. In the end, such individuals are problem solvers. They are the ones who solve problems better and more quickly than their competitors.

Learn to accept you can't change your partner

"The trouble is I am realistic and he is too ambitious and not realistic," Hy moaned.

take it from me...1 of the things I learn from long-term relationjships is that you can't really change your partner. That's like trying to stop the wind. Life is easier when you give up trying.

But here's another bit of wisdom: both men and women change over time. Some quite a lot. Although we can't force someone to change, there is a deep, slow, natural transformation that occurs with maturity and age.

Straight talk

"I put truth before peace," John made it very clear in the first 5 minutes of the meeting.

Senior executives have the least time amd least patience for people who beat around the bush. They are generally straightforward, and they expect the same in others.

I have since learned that I must be direct, honest, frank and follow a straight course. I call that straight talk.

The road will come

"my dad starts his chemo treatment on Monday," Barb's solemn SMS read

Whether we accept the journey or not, the road will come. The road always comes. The only question any of us can answer, is how we will choose to meet it.