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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.

This is a double “hat tip”. First to fellow EOS Implementer, Ken Ritterspach, who commented in his recent newsletter about comments made at our EOS Quarterly Collaborative Event (QCE) by another EOSImplementer. Second to that implementer, Dan Wallace,  who, in turn, was sharing a quote from a speech by Suzy Welch:

I had the good fortune recently of taking a river cruise in Germany. We began on the Moselle River. We ended on the Rhine, to which the Moselle is a tributary. As you sail your way from Trier to Koblenz you are surrounded by wine vineyards on the hillsides of the river. Great riesling wines come from these vineyards—particularly well known are those from the Alsace region.

How do you define the SMART acronym? Wikipedia lists several possibilities for defining the acronym. I saw this one 5 years ago: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-phased. People often agree on the first three and differ a bit more on “R” and “T.” I like to use Realistic and Timely, but the gist is the same.

Patrick Lencioni is one of EOS’s favorite authors—just see our recommended reading list which contains four of his books. He also writes terrific articles. One great one recently is his point of view about The Jerk Factor. The gist of the article is that there is a difference between being a Jerk and being a jerk. Jerks with a capital J are obnoxious people that no one wants to associate with over time.