Here is a great story from Les Brown where he draws an interesting analogy.
One day, a man was walking down the street and sees a dog on a porch that was just sitting there, whimpering, whining and moaning. The man was curious as to why he was whimpering, so he went and knocked on the door and a guy came out and said, “Yes, how may I help you?” He said, “Sir, is this your dog?”
A few months ago I published a blog post entitled Too Small To Make a Difference? The point of the article is that everyone in a business matters—from the owner to the newest “front line” hire. I further suggested that entrepreneurs work hard to engage everyone in the EOS process, including the use of Rocks, Level 10 Meetings, and Scorecards throughout the organization.
When my clients are struggling with that concept, I’ve found that a painstaking approach to clearly and simply defining these tools really helps. Because try as we might, entrepreneurial leaders and managers often over-complicate things.
In my 30-plus years as an entrepreneur, I’ve faced some pretty tough situations in business. We all do.
The hardest thing I’ve ever done is to counsel someone facing what seemed like an impossible crisis. Like the time one of my clients lost millions of dollars in one year and had several none-too-happy bankers considering calling their loans. Or the client who realized that a long-time partnership was not going to work out and they were faced with a messy business divorce. Or the client who was betrayed by a trusted employee who departed with a significant customer, instantly putting the future of the business and his family’s financial security in jeopardy.
As your company grows, everything gets more complex. Keeping everyone in the loop used to be simple, and as more and more people are added to your team, it can become very cumbersome to keep everyone in the loop. Processes, systems and communications that seemed to at one time happen automatically, don’t occur so easily anymore.
Then it begins to snowball. Workarounds and additional steps get added. Bandages are put in place to cover up the loose ends. Longer hours and working harder become the norm “just to catch up.” At this point it becomes tough to even see what the real issue is.
Sound familiar?
What’s in a preposition? Maybe everything when it comes to running your company. What I am talking about is the difference between BY and WITH.
Every successful company has a simple road map for their future. Among the mandatory items on that roadmap are: the company’s core values, the core focus of the company, its long-term vision, its marketing strategy for accomplishing that vision, its medium-term vision, its vision for the next year, the objectives it will work on for the next quarter, and a compilation of the opportunities and obstacles it doesn’t currently have the resources to handle. There may be other items on your company’s road map, but these are the basics.
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