Going the Extra Two Inches

 Good Company – Arthur M Blank (William Morrow)

If you own a business, or aspire to start a business, you need to read this book. If you are in a leadership role at a company or aspire to a leadership role, you need to read this book. Even if you just aspire to just lead a better life, I suggest you read this book.

Why? You may be asking. The answer is simple, in Good Company, Arthur M. Blank, one of the co-founders of Home Depot and the current owner of the Atlanta Falcons football team, does the best job I can remember, of detailing how to live a life and run a business base on core values. Further than that he gives a perfect look at what living a life of abundance is all about.

Now you may be scratching you head and saying, “it’s easy to live a life of abundance when you’re a billionaire.” That misses the point; abundance is not about what you have or how much of it, it’s about your attitude and the choice you make to have an vision of the world that is based on whether you view the world through a lens of scarcity or have the vision of an abundant life.

While almost every company has what they call mission, vision and values; you know the faded poster hanging on the wall in HR or the one in the cracked picture frame in the lobby, in Good Company, Blank goes a step further by stressing that it’s more important than just having values, you actually have to live them.

The concepts he outlines are straight forward. They include:

1.   Put people first

2.   Listen and respond

3.   Include everyone

4.   Lead by example

5.   Innovate continuously

6.   Give back to others

I could delve deeper and spell out more, but this series of values are not difficult to understand, it’s the execution part that trips most people up. Blank offers multiple great examples of each of these steps in real practice and the outcomes they lead to. In a world where success and successful people are vilified, Blank truly raises the bar and sets the tone for how you can be wildly successful and still be a respected, caring citizen of your community. He drives home the customer-centric vision that each and every one of his business endeavors is based on. It’s not about going the extra mile once in a while, but going that extra two inches every single time. I can state without equivocation that I would love the opportunity to work with Mr. Blank, or any true servant leader who approaches business the way he does.

Think Different: About Creativity

 The Creative Mindset: Mastering the Six Skill That Empower Innovation – Jeff DeGraff and Staney DeGraff (Berrett-Kohler Publishers)

Creative. The word alone can get people nervous and shaky. Creativity, that’s for artists, writers or musicians…right? At some point, if not all the time, any business can need a shot of creativity, a new idea, a new way of thinking, a new way to solve a problem.

So, can you teach people to be creative? Probably not, but you can help to build a formula for understanding how being creative works. Jeff and Staney DeGraff have built that roadmap in the form of The Creative Mindset: Mastering the Six Skill That Empower Innovation.

The DeGraff’s boil down their six steps to the acronym CREATE: Clarify, Replicate, Elaborate, Associate, Translate, and Evaluate. You will have an   A-ha! moment as you realize how much sense these steps make. Here are the steps spelled out with my input:

Clarify – Understanding, and most importantly, you have to communicate clearly the challenge at hand.

Replicate - Mimic and build on your new ideas. This can set the creative tone for your team/business.

Elaborate – You may have the kernel of a great idea, but don’t be afraid to take that idea and add new alternative tweaks or ways of thinking to help build on the idea.

Associate - Connect ideas with analogies to help others clearly understand a concept and in what direction we are headed.

Translate - Stories are priceless tools and help drive ideas home within your team and to your customers. Create stories based on your ideas.

Evaluate – Consistency is import here; select the best ideas to fit team expectations and it will help aid buy in and keep everyone is on the same page.

There isn’t a lot of over-technical science involved in this. We are talking actionable steps that you can put into practice with your team and in your business pretty quickly. I recently facilitated a leadership, team building session where I rolled out some of these steps to the group and you could almost see the lightbulbs turning on above their heads as the grasped concepts and then carried them forward into the next exercise. It was really that easy to connect to purpose.