Seven,Principles,Leading,These business, insurance Seven Principles to Leading in These Times of Upheaval

As we all know to live in this world we have to perform some activity by which we can earn money. There are many activities by which we can earn money and meet the standards to live in this society. And from one of them is franchise.  Franc Small offices have unique needs, and thatincludes document shredding. Designed with the smaller business inmind, the Dahle 20314 is a cross-cut shredder that offers Level 3security and brings you into compliance with federal regulations. The

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0in;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}Organizations that can’t deal effectivelywith change may not be around long.  Change is the game today, and it’s happeningso frequently that one change is barely complete before another one begins. How do you ensure that you remaincompetitive, structure your organization so it’s most effective and manageresources so the company’s most profitable? Lookto the Future The Internet and other technologies, whileallowing us to be in constant contact with many people, also create overloadsituations.  This can take your eye offthe ball. We need leaders to keep people focused on the 2-3 things that aremost important to them, their department, their business, or their company. Imagine you’re driving down the coastlineand on your left are rolling hills, on the right are cliffs that drop to theblue ocean below.  From this vantagepoint you can see for miles and miles. You’re enjoying the scenery with the top down on your convertible,favorite tunes are playing, the wind is on your face and through your hair, andsuddenly you come around a curve and encounter some of the thickest fog you’veever seen.   What do you do?  There are a number of reactions:  you slow down, turn on your lights, tense up,turn down the music, try to focus your eyes on what’s ahead.  Then you go around the next curve and it’sclear again.  You take a deep breath andrelax, turn off the lights, accelerate, turn up the tunes and enjoy your cruiseonce more. This illustrates the importance of vision,especially when things are moving fast. How fast can you drive in the fog without risking people’s lives?  How comfortable are you with someone elsedriving in the fog?  Are you able to gofaster when it’s foggy or clear? Obviously, when it’s clear. Constituents of all types demand thatleaders be forward-looking and have a sense of direction.  You and your leadership team need to haveclear vision with certainty of purpose and innovative ideas in which you engagepeople and keep the momentum moving forward.  First Who, ThenWhat Jim Collins, inhis years of research that led to the discovery of the five levels ofleadership, tells us that good to great companies attend to people first,strategy second.  They get the rightpeople on the bus, the wrong people off, usher the right people to the rightseats and then figure out how to drive it. When youcompromise on the quality of people on your bus, you falter.  So, how do you know if you have the rightpeople in the right seats?   1. They musthave the core values of the organization. If the values are there, you can draw upon them, if not, usher thosepeople to the door. 2. The rightperson on the bus is not someone you need to “manage”.  You may need to guide them, teach them, helpthem in their role, but not manage them. If you have to manage them into right behaviors, taking a lot of yourtime and energy, you’ve probably made a hiring mistake.  3. They have the capability in the seatthey currently hold to be potentially one of the best in their industry orfield.  They may not actually be thebest now, but they have the potential to be. 4. They understand the distinction betweenhaving a job and holding responsibility. You’ll know if they operate on the principle of personal responsibilityif they see a hole and feel the need to fill it to make things better. 5. Ask yourself if you were making thehiring decision all over again, given everything you know having worked withthe person, would you still hire him/her?   6. Be Fair to people.  If you have the right person on the bus, butin the wrong seat, it’s not the person, it’s a management issue.  Premier companies connect people’s talentsand needs to the organization’s requirements.  Leadby Example Rousing speeches or talk about promisingfutures can be inspiring and important, but constituents expect leaders to showup, pay attention and participate directly in the process of gettingextraordinary things done.  Exemplaryleaders model the way and exhibit the behavior they expect of others.  Be clear about your guiding principles togain commitment and achieve the highest standards, speak openly about what youthink and believe. Set the example through daily actions that demonstrate youare deeply committed to your beliefs and values.  Words and deeds must be consistent.  People follow the person, not the plan.  Sure, you need operational and strategicplans but elaborate acts aren’t necessary to set an example. The most powerfulexamples can be simple behaviors that go a long way to show people who you areas a leader: spend time with someone, work along side with colleagues, behighly visible during times of uncertainty or tell stories to make values comealive.  Bridgethe Gap Between Strategy and Performance Strategic plans are mechanisms to stimulatedisciplined thought. All too often though, leaders in fast growing companies hammer out theperfect strategic plan or await a paradigm shift.  You certainly must have plans, but we’removing too fast to rely on accomplishing the daunting stuff without takingincremental steps to gain commitment and momentum. Leaders understand how hard it is to geteverybody excited about a vision; they know they must show somethinghappening.  The challenge is thatsometimes the tightrope looks just too high to even take the first step. In fact, only 63% of the companiesachieve the objectives that their strategic plans promise.  Where’s the gap?   According to authors Michael C. Mankins andRichard Steele in their Harvard Business Review article, “Turning Strategy IntoPerformance”, the key issues are directly related to how well the leadershipteam communicates, creates short and long term plans, and holds themselvesaccountable to take ongoing steps to get to the stated results.  Research points out that these skills are thebiggest levers to directly impact the strategy—performance gap. The amazing thing is that leaders in most companiesknow this, and yet like most others they may lack the know-how and rigorousdiscipline to make sure these issues are addressed each and every day. In order to make things happen throughcommitment and accountability, leaders need to enable constituents to attackthe gap between strategy and performance.  Clearly devise and communicate strategy and accountabilities—who is on the hook for what?Align leaders around top initiatives and ensure collaboration occurs to achieve stated results—everyone driving for a shared set of goals and not for individual gainMeasure and monitor performance each and every month to ensure progress continues to move at desired levels—progressive, results-driven meetings without room for a lot of excuses  Plug the ProfitHoles Virtually every company is faced withmaintaining market share, cutting overhead, keeping key staff, reducingexposure and risk, investing in R&D, managing variable costs—and addingvalue to the product or service that their customers purchase. Are you as a leader focused onprofitability as a project of choice?  Businesses spend money needlessly because theythink they should or need to spend. There are some not so obvious expenses orplaces to reduce spending to lesson the drain on profits. They’re called profitholes and there are at least thirty. Here are ten: § Weak plans--sharpen focus andaccountabilitiesKeeping unproductive employeesSlow to marketNepotism—hiring family and paying them too muchSlow accounts receivable collection rateHigh inventoryAdvertising the wrong message, to the wrong mediaWrong products:  sell what people will buy, not what you think they will buy§ Excessive décor, overpaying fringes§ Accounting errors—poor auditing andsystem design or controls The point is thatit’s worthwhile to identify, exactly, the real source of profitability and thenot so obvious drains on that—to look beyond the numbers and into the source.Having said that, the right people in theright positions are your greatest assets, so don’t put profitability abovepeople.  FosterCollaboration  “You can’t go italone” as the saying goes. Collaboration is the master competency thatenables teams and organizations to function effectively.   Collaboration isvital to achieve and sustain high performance. At the heart of collaboration is trust; without it, you cannot lead, youcannot get extraordinary things done.   In aPricewaterhouseCoopers study on corporate innovation in companies listed on theFinancial Times 100, trust was the number one differentiator between the top 20percent of companies surveyed and the bottom 20 percent.  The top performers’ trust empoweredindividuals to turn strategic aims into reality.1 Simply put, whenleaders create a climate of trust, they take away the controls and allow peopleto be free to innovate and contribute. Trusting leadersnurture openness, involvement, personal satisfaction, and high levels ofcommitment to excellence.2 Exemplary leadersknow that self-serving behavior will lead to organizational suicide, and thatto be successful, they and their team members must subordinate their own goalsto the service of the greater good.  Toget extraordinary things done we must rely on each other and have a positivesense of interdependence where people know that they cannot succeed unlesseveryone succeeds. Be the first totrust. Ask questions, listen and take advice.  Choose Balance An executiveclient of mine once told me, “What drives me as an effective leader comes fromthis inner ‘I feel good’ place because I treat myself well.  The more I do in physical, spiritual andmental health, the more I feel exponentially more powerful, capable andconfident.  I’m a better manager, nicerparent and more productive.” Jim Collins,author of “Good to Great”, talks about his research of leaders who had balanceand those that did not.  He says that thesplit was about 50/50.  For half of them,their life was about building a company, many had troubled marriages and notmuch else going on outside of work.  Theother half had balanced lives. Is it possible tobuild a great company and also build a great life?Coleman Mockler,CEO most responsible for Gillette's transition from good to great, had a greatlife.  Coleman's life revolved around three great loves: his family,Harvard, and Gillette.  Even during the darkest and most intense times oftakeover crisis, Mockler maintained remarkable balance in his life.  Hedid not significantly reduce the amount of time he spent with his family, andrarely worked evenings or weekends.  He was so good at assembling theright people around him, and putting the right people in the right slots, thathe just didn't need to be there all hours of the day and night.3 He chose balance. When you look atboth sides, the half that has balanced lives endures much of the same intensityand issues in building their companies, as do the half that doesn’t havebalance.   What thisindicates is that those who have balance, choose it.  Whether you can have a balanced life or alife with other components in it besides work is not a matter of circumstance,but a matter of choice.  Maybe the halfthat doesn’t have much other than work doesn’t view balance as important?   Want to learnmore? If you want tounearth what you as a leader passionately care about, reach breakthrough goalsand learn the ideas, methods and tools that enable you to make the differenceyou’ve always wanted to make, contact Kate Ripp at 303-697-5914 or by email [email protected] orvisit her website www.championleadersinc.com  1.    InnovationSurvey (London:  PricewaterhouseCoopers,1999), 3.2.    TheLeadership Challenge (James M. Kouzes and Barry Z.Posner)3.      Good to Great(Jim Collins)