The highly successful companies we have studied all have the same common denominators.  They are guided by a compelling vision, driven by core values, and believe and develop the potential of their most important resource, their people. 

Basically there are five prerequisites for business success.

 1) You must have a quality product or service:  People forget the price of a service or a  product if it does not meet expectations. What they do rememeber is that they are not satisfied and will not buy from you again. Quality is remembered long after the price of the item has been forgotten.

2) Proper timing in the market place:   For all of you who remember the Y2K hype, the year 2000 would not be a good time to be starting a computer hardware company.

3) Capital and the ability to manage it effectively:  For longivity start-up business ventures need to achieve sufficient ROI to repay stockholders and provide working capital to sustain business growth.

4) High performing personnel: In the words of Warren Buffet, “When you are looking for to people to hire, you look for these three qualities: integrity, intelligence and initiative.  And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. If you hire somebody without the first, you really want them dumb and lazy.

5) High performing leadership and management. This one is the foundation for the other four.  As I have worked with business owners and managers, the most common question I hear is; why don’t people just do what I want them to do?”  The problem is because the employee can’t perform up to standards they are not aware of, and perform from a script they have not been given.    Leadership must provide a vision, communicate purpose, and have a mission that resonates in the marketplace through the performance of the team.

Leadership & Management:

In a recent survey of non-managerial employees only 25% of the people said they had any pride in their work.  50% said they only put enough time and energy into their job to keep the job, and 25% admitted they could be more productive if they felt there was a reason to be.

Effective Leadership must exist throughout the organization because success is in direct proportion the quality and quantity of the service we render.  Our challenge is making sure, on a daily basis we render the highest levels of quality service, in how we manufacture, produce and market our products.  We can do this when we are customer focused and everyone understands what successful customer relationships are about.  If you want to conduct an inexpensive customer survey, conduct an audit of your internal customers, the results will parallel the opinions of your external customers.

 In many organizations we find people micro managed, under lead, and under inspired!  We don’t need to manage people. We need to manage tasks and lead people.

If your organization is experiencing high turnover and low morale, have hope, because leadership can be learned, and with practice can be perfected. The reality is you are successful as a leader only when the value of what you produce is greater than the cost of producing it. Also, you must get high levels of quality performance from other people — and that includes every member of the organization.  The challenge in today’s world is not so much in training workers, but in teaching managers to lead.   

The real purpose of management and leadership is to provide for the continuation of the organization.  Leaders who take the approach of innovation and growth recognize if the organization is to continue, it cannot continue as it is today.

 Just as we need to meet the people needs and solve the people problems of our external customer base, we must be in a position to do the same thing for our internal customers. If we are to get voluntary cooperation and effort from other people, we must create a culture where everyone feels like a winner.

Organizational Success:  Your organization can reach goals with a clear plan of action and a well-communicated vision. So the question is: What are you doing today to lay a foundation that will bring out the leadership qualities within your organization?

 The need or for high quality leadership is no less required or less prevalent than any time in the past. 

With the population changes world wide we are going to have to be proactive to beat the coming shortage of skills and talent.

For information on developing leaders in your organization call:  Achievement Unlimited, Inc.

 402-597-1447

Thoughts about Leadership

An employer recently asked me, “If people have not learned how to be responsible employees, before I hire them, is it really my responsibility to provide them with life skills training?”  He then answered his own question.  He said, “If I want to have a successful company, not only do I have to make sure the employees learn what they need to know, but I must be more effective in getting everybody on the same page.” 

 What is the difference between high performing organizations and organizations that struggle along with the same problems, day after day, year after year, until they finally hang it all up?  

As we study organizations to identify what makes the difference between a great place to work, and a place that is not so great, we find there are definite differences in the characteristics of the environments.

The difference is in the quality of leadership.

The good news is, leadership can be learned, and with practice, can be perfected.

 Let us begin by defining some words that are often overused, but not always properly understood.

 Integrity: The quality of being honest and trustworthy, a condition of being whole, and not separated into parts.

An effective leader is honest, not only when convenient, but also because it is the right way to be.  Children justify cheating in school because their parents teach them it is okay to cheat.  When adults brag about cheating on taxes they are teaching that it is okay to lie to keep from being inconvenienced. It really is not okay.  Are we modeling the behavior we want in our place of business, and in our homes? Do we practice Integrity in all of our actions?

Productivity:  is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. You are effective as a leader when the value of what you produce is greater than the cost of producing it. High-level productivity, innovation and growth, never exist where slavery is present. Far too many managers think their employees come to work to meet the manager’s needs. Employees come to work for their reasons, not to please management. We get voluntary cooperation only when people can get their own needs met. Just as we need to meet the human needs and solve the problems of our customer’s externally, we must be in a position to do the same thing internally. 

 Leadership: The art of moving individuals and groups toward a common vision – each individual and the organization will achieve mutually fulfilling goals.

• What are ineffective leadership skills doing to your bottom line?
• Do you have a clearly communicated vision and mission for your organization? 
• How can people follow if you don’t let them know where you are going? 
• What do people say about your organization when they are not at work?

 Leader: is every one of us who has accepted a role where someone can watch us. Effective leaders have a vision, and are optimistic.

• What would it take to become the type of leader that people want to follow?
• What behavior traits do you want to improve that will increase your leadership skills?
• A well-balanced leader has goals in all areas of life, family, educational, social, career, financial, spiritual, physical and mental health. What Goals do you need to set today to be, to have and to live your best life?

 Responsibility: means the ability to choose your response to a given situation. The results we experience in our lives are the results of the choices we make.

 Success depends on your ability to take personal responsibility for the choices you make at work, at school, at home and in relationships. Daily you are faced with changes, challenges, and choices. A successful leader will not leave their future to chance. You choose success when you take action to live your life by practicing personal leadership habits. 

 Success is a Choice  — Success is a habit!

A common mistake made in sales prospecting letters is the overuse of the “I” word.

Recently I received a letter from a company introducing their offerings and was struck by how many times the word “I” was used. In three paragraphs the author used the word 19 times.

The letter was about the person’s passion, her practice, her credentials, and her accomplishments.  The author of this letter was more concerned about herself than about the benefits she was offering.  She didn’t offer me any solutions.  She didn’t identify any problems I might have that she could help with.  She just told me how great she was.    “So What?” I thought; what does this have to do with the issues I need to solve?

The 3-part formula

When sending out sales prospecting letters or proposals, think in terms of the other person’s interests.

Identify what you do, what is the result of what you do (aka the feature), what is the benefit, and what is the real value to the customer.  So think:

• Feature
• Benefit
• Value

Example: After a massage from XYZ Massage you will feel like a new person [result] because XYZ Massage has developed a technique that reduces stress [feature].  The advantage to you is that you will feel better [benefit], but the real value to you is that you will be able have more patience and be less reactive [value].

So remember, all your credentials don’t mean a thing to your prospect unless they understand what benefit they will gain from working with you.  In the end, it’s all about the prospect’s needs, not your own achievements.

It’s yet another case of new technology being used by the unscrupulous to steal from their bosses.  Many employers probably feel that they are fighting a losing battle as each new anti-theft system is met with ever increasing ingenuity by sticky fingered employees.  This battle is not inevitable.  The way to stop the ever escalating cycle is to not let it start.  How?  Businesses must identify job applicants with improper attitudes regarding theft. If these applicants are not hired, they won’t have the opportunity to construct new systems for the stealthy removal of merchandise.

Unfortunately, most hiring processes aren’t able to identify any but the most obvious thieves among us.  However, there are tools available.  The Step One Survey II is a hiring profile that identifies a job applicant’s attitude towards theft, as well as other values that are important to employers.  These surveys are affordable and indispensable to any company with employees handling merchandise or money, or who work unsupervised around valuables.  These tools not only score the applicants, but also provide interview questions to help explore any red flags they raise.  Think of the Step One Survey II as a gift for the hiring process.

Your Achievement Unlimited, Inc. representative has sample survey reports and additional information available.  Call today to protect your company from dishonest employees.

Rose Mary Hefley joins best-selling authors Stephen R. Covey, Ken Blanchard

and Jack Canfield in a new book on success!

For more information on Rose Mary Hefley and to order your copy of Speaking of Success,

contact: Rose Mary Hefley

Web: www.SuccessisaHabit.com

Email: rosemary@successisahabit.com

Phone:

It is also a must read for everyone who wants to have relationships that work.

The book is well written, practical and timely. I just wanted to cheer and say ‘right on’. It is so good to see what I have been preaching put down in print! I am recommending this to everyone one of my clients.

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