Excellence 101

The Road to Excellence: 6 Leadership Strategies to Build A Bulletproof Business – David Mattson (Sandler Training)

It really shouldn’t be a secret, but it all too often is; excellence doesn’t just happen it is a process that is built brick by brick and step by step. It also doesn’t happen by accident, it happens by choice and by detailed planning.

It is that planning process that is the focus of Sandler Training CEO and President, David Mattson’s new book, The Road to Excellence: 6 Leadership Strategies to Build A Bulletproof Business. Clearly Mattson taps directly into the countless hours of training working with a wide range of businesses and organizations to draw on not only the best practices they have developed, but also the trends and common mistakes they encounter when advising and coaching these folks.

Mattson boils down leadership to a set of a half dozen strategy areas he labels the Six P’s-

• Planning – like everything else, excellence starts with planning; I say the word plan so often I start to worry that it starts to become wallpaper to the folks I coach. You have to spell it out that this is the most important, cornerstone piece of the success of any business venture.
• Positions – the organizational structure you design can make or break your business.
• People - they truly are the building blocks of success and the crumbling bricks can cause the failure.
• Processes- good things don’t occur by happenstance; leaders create the repeatable steps that build success by having the processes in place.
• Performetrics – what gets measured gets repeated if its working, if it doesn’t measure up, it gets fixed or tossed.
• Passion – my favorite question to ask leaders is “what are you passionate about?” Great leaders not only have passion, they know how to engage their team so they have the same passion and drive to succeed.

Recently I have spent a lot of time and energy focusing on employee engagement/satisfaction and the impact it has on business. Too many folks don’t understand that engagement starts on day one; whether it is a new employee or someone shifting to a new position in your organization. Mattson’s chapter on the onboarding process is worth the price of the book. He serves up easily actionable steps in an amazingly short section that will have immediate impact on your turnover, your employee engagement and your success. Ask yourself the simple question, “What does your first day look like?” This is not something you can leave to chance or the team to make work, it takes a plan, a process, perfometrics…are you seeing a trend?

Get Out…What You Put In

The Go-Giver Influencer – Bob Burg and John David Mann – (Portfolio)

A couple of definitions to start out:

Thoughtful – Showing careful consideration or attention. Or, maybe more importantly- giving consideration for the needs of other people.

Influence – The capacity to have an effect on the character, development or behavior of someone or something.

I have been blessed to be in a position to influence. I have always tried to guide my family members, co-workers and the folks around me with the simple phrase, “you get out what you put in.” I am often asked about why I spend so much time and energy, two commodities in short supply, working with community boards, organizations, students and more. The simple answer is that I get out more or get back more, than I put in. The payback I receive in both satisfaction and treasure, is substantially more than I put in.

To me that is the message the bestselling duo behind the Go-Giver series of books, Bob Burg and John David Mann spell out so well in their latest entry, The Go-Giver Influencer. The pair distill the insight down to the Five Secrets of Genuine Influence that they spell out in the story.

Five Secrets of Genuine Influence

    1. Master your emotions

    2. Step into the other persons shoes 

    3. Set the frame

    4. Communicate with tact and empathy

    5. Let go of always having t be right

Like so much of what goes into truly effective leadership these five secrets boil down to what amounts to, at varying levels, communications skills; not just leadership communication because they don’t draw the line to separate leadership and personal communication. The great secret here is that you can put to use these “secrets” in any relationship you may have, be it in the workplace, your family, as a volunteer or member of a community.

While I admit to never being a big fan of the parable form of leadership learning; I tend to lean towards actionable steps that I can put to work today, The Go-Giver Influencer is a truly learning experience that will guide to a more fulfilling work place, family life and community.