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Showing posts from 2016

Process Determines Outcome

It says that work decides the Destiny. If you want to achieve the goal there should be intention for completing that work. You have to finish your work totally whether circumstances are not according to your. In my early twenties I became involved in a business to import balsa wood from the jungles of Ecuador and Peru to the United States. At the time, my Spanish speaking skills were quite good and the company I was working for asked me and another fellow, who spoke Spanish very well, to go to Ecuador and Peru and to get agreements from mill owners in those countries to supply balsa wood and ship it to Houston, Texas. The process for doing this involved a great deal of preparation. There was no internet in 1975. Letters went back and forth for six months and ultimately we set up two meetings in Guayaquil, Ecuador and one in Lima, Peru. Our first meeting in Guayaquil was very scary and went badly. German expatriates, former Nazis, who fled Germany after World War II, controlle

Preparation, Failure, Opportunity

The game was tight. The lead had gone back and forth. And, there was a lot on the line. This was the Men’s AAU Basketball championship game for the greater Denver area. As the time wound down on the game clock our team had the final possession with less than ten seconds left. My team was down by one point. One of us would take the final shot. If it went in, we won. And if it didn’t, all those championship dreams that we had been harboring since the beginning of the tournament a couple of weeks before would be dashed. I always loved basketball. I was not good enough in high school to make the varsity. Yet, in college, I had grown four inches and had kept playing and practicing. I kept dreaming that someday I would be good enough to play on a high level. Now I was in graduate business school at the University of Denver and had become good enough to play on a very good AAU basketball team. We trained and worked out daily. The players in our league were either former college

Are You Ready To Soar? Check Out The Wings To Fly Book

If you are tired of feeling like you are grounded or stuck and you want your life, your business, or both to take off but you don’t quite know how or where to start, then take a look at the new ebook, Wings To Fly by Steve Scott, Personal Business Coach , Author and Public Speaker. Wings To Fly is a daily reader with 365 short topical readings on a variety of topics that can position you to soar, or if you are already flying high, staying there. If you have 3 to 5 minutes a day to invest in your most important asset, you, then Wings To Fly can support you in staying focused on creating pathways to accelerate the process of your successful performance. Here are some of the topics that you will find in Wings To Fly that address every day concerns and provide insights in how to deal with them to keep you on track and flying: • Relationships • Happiness • Courage • People Skills • Managing Time • Peer Pressure • Leadership • Attitude • Winning • Kindness • Gr

The Stages of Team Building

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The Tuckman-Jensen analysis of the stages of team building has become a foundational piece in understanding how teams come together or pull apart, how they perform well or fail to meet desired results. Tuckman and Jensen state that teams go through five stages of team development: 1. Forming—the search for commonalities 2. Storming-breaking away from false harmony into individual power displays, leading to rifts between team members. There is a tension in this stage between unity and individualism. 3. Norming-behavior in this stage is more about consensus between team members and more of a shift from “I” to “We.” 4. Performing-behavior at this stage shows that the members can self-lead. This stage focuses on problem solving and completing assigned tasks. 5. Adjourning-This allows a sense of completion for the team members. Otherwise, there can remain a festering feeling of unfinished business. All successful teams need to go through these stages. And, time needs

What Is Failure?

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Failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated ever day over a period of time. How often have you or someone you know seen something that is not working in a business and take the attitude that it just doesn’t matter enough to do something correct it, eliminate it or even improve it? Most of us have been guilty of falling into this philosophical trap of “it just doesn’t matter.” These errors in judgment get repeated because people don’t think they matter. Over time, accumulation of poor thinking leads to poor choices. Failure’s most dangerous attribute is subtlety. To reduce the number of failures and to increase the possibilities for success you must have powerful personal philosophy guiding your every step. You must become more aware of your errors in judgment and that each error really does matter. The next time you see something that you know is not right or leading you down the wrong path, address it. The next step is to do something about it.

The Formula For Success

One of the questions we must answer to have greater success in business and life is this: How can we change the errors in the formula for failure into the disciplines required in the formula for success? The answer is by making the future part of our current philosophy. Both success and failure involve future consequences, namely inevitable rewards or unavoidable regrets resulting from past activities. So what do we need to do daily to be on the path to success? We must develop the discipline to look down the road every day. Why are new disciplines so important? They cause us to amend our thinking to keep us on track to creating the successful future we desire. Also, disciplines tend to multiply. We start with one new successful discipline and we build momentum and self-confidence to develop others. Success is about paying attention to what we are doing each day to move us to the future we desire. Failure, on the other hand, is largely a function of neglect. And, not doing the things

Simplify and Apply

Change, in most instances, is not easy. Why? It presents a whole new set of challenges to the people who have to learn to master it, not to mention, the other who work with them who can be directly or indirectly in the performance of their work be affected by the change. As we know when we throw a stone in the middle of a calm pond, the waves it creates will wash up on the shore in ways that we cannot see. To increase the odds of successful change we must simplify it to help those who are going to apply it. To simplify change we must make it something that people can remember and recall how to do it. When change can be remembered and recalled it can be applied. Simplification is important in another critical way. Simplification can allow us to achieve 80% of the desired results rapidly. Individuals love results. How do we do that? We focus on the 20% of all factors that are the key in allowing us to reach 80%. Moving rapidly to 80% keeps momentum and still is much better than never at

The Fundamentals of Change

Virtually every major change has its roots in success. In almost every case, the need for change is born of past success—of doing the right thing and doing it well. The first stage of change—The environment shifts and the right thing becomes the wrong thing. The frustrating thing is that, although the old right thing is now wrong, we still do it well. We start the second stage of change by finally recognizing that the right thing is now the wrong thing-we finally see the light. The third stage is the new right thing is new. We are usually not very good at it at first. Initially, we end up doing the new right thing quite poorly. See more at : http://www.selfimprovement-tips.com

Attitude

Attitudes are affected by what we know since what we know determines he decisions we will make. Where our philosophy deals with the logical side, our attitude focuses primarily on emotional issues. What we know determines our philosophy. What we feel determines our attitude. Here is the key point to remember. In business and life it is our emotional nature that governs most of our daily conduct in our personal and business worlds. I have heard many well intentioned people say to others: “Be more logical. Don’t be so emotional.” That’s an interesting statement. Interesting because there is a strong emotion attached to it. Be more logical. All thoughts are things with some type of emotion attached to them. We must be aware of our thoughts and the emotions attached to them. Very often when we look at our emotions and the thoughts that go with them we will start to discover what is moving us forward or holding us back in our business, relationships and life. Why is this process of

Leading Change

Leading change is one of the top core leadership competencies that is honored in successful businesses large and small. There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. When we are leading change, we are leading reform. There is always a large group who profits from keeping the old order. They are quite certain in their stance. Then there are those who see the need for change and who could profit by the new order. Yet they are only lukewarm to it. How come? Most individuals do not believe in anything new until they have had actual experience with it. We are wired to resist random change for we fear the possible random consequence of being declared irrelevant and let go. We are wired, first and foremost to survive, so we hang on to what has worked in the past. The challenge in leading change is to get those who are resistant open to it. And to get those who are lukewarm, enthusiastic about i

Integrity and Leadership

According to Dr.Henry Cloud in his book, Integrity, integrity is “courage to meet the demands of reality.” Yes, integrity includes other aspects including but not limited to habitual honesty through and through and having strong moral principles. Integrity is the quality you find in a good leader. A good leader will meet the demands of reality. Reality may be stormy seas. The leader will see how to navigate the ship to a safe harbor. Reality may be rapid growth. The good leader sees the danger of overextending the company financially and has plans and options to make sure the financial integrity of the company and the well being of its employees is not compromised. Leading by meeting the demands of reality allows us to lead from a position of strength, from integrity. How we lead, as Dr. Cloud points out, leaves a wake. Your wake determines three things.     The type of influence your character has.     Your degree of integrity     Your ability to lead All living things leave a w

What’s In This For Me?

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Self improvement does not change things overnight. It is about small things . You develop a new skill here or a new discipline there. And it is the accumulation of these over time that yield a positive harvest in the field that is life. When you embrace the process of self improvement there will be a positive ripple effect throughout your life . First comes internal change. You change your thinking. All change starts from within. Next, when you have changed your thinking you are now ready to change your habits . When you start changing your habits things start to change in our outside world. When you change your habits it will change your activity . With a change in activity comes a change in your results . And the change in results brings change in your life . Self improvement is your own personal elevator. As you rise to the top you will have to let some people off. You will have to let go of ways of thinking and ways of doing things. In fact, self improvemen

What Never Goes Out Of Style?

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“During my 87 years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.”-Bernard Baruch. It is your choice to build your character and your ability to think. They are critical to your success and happiness. Character and the ability to think are always in style. In today’s world automation and artificial intelligence are allowing machines to do tasks once performed by human beings. Will the need for human beings to have good character and to think go away? No. Human beings will have to have both of these to have good relationships. Without relationships there would be no need for personal development and growth in the areas of character and thinking. Without relationships, there would be no need to add value to yourself. How do you add value to yourself? You don’t need to read self improvement books or take self improvement courses. Encourage your own personal