Moving From Good to GREAT

Anticipate failures and learn from them

It’s well documented how Hall of Famer Michael Jordan was cut from his High School Basketball Team.  If Michael had given up...?  How many times did it take to get WD40?  The 40th try!  How about Thomas Edison and his countless inventions....Thousands of trials and errors!  

Never, ever allow Failure to dim your view of the future.  When you truly find a position or career interest that you are passionate about, strange things begin to occur.  The energy that you get is incredible when you are on a mission.  It will help you through many obstacles along the way.  When you are doing something that you truly care about, your enthusiasm will be quite evident.  When you have a special skill or aptitude for a particular line of work, you will give 110%  each and every day!

Develop a Strong Support Team

Establish a strong network of colleagues and partners.  When you have like-minded people working with you, the sky is the limit.  It is not as important to be buddies with your team but search high and low to have diversified people with the similar goals to help complement each other.  Collaboration is key!

Always be learning!

As we have talked about several times in previous posts, the more educated you are on your goals with clear action steps and timelines, the better you will be at achieving them.  Always be learning has become a mantra of mine and in order to maximize productivity, you will need to be constantly learning and open to new ideas and processes.  We do not always have to re-invent the wheel, first check out best practices of those who have been successful before us.  We can also learn a great deal by looking at the past to avoid potential obstacles as we forge ahead!  Be adaptable and resilient!

Planning

Look beyond the next three to six months.  It is important for short term wins but let’s take a global look at the long term.  How you anticipate drawbacks will often have a remarkable effect on your decision to proceed.  Try to envision the comprehensive picture when making decision and in the planning and organization mode of increasing productivity.  Do not any under circumstance repeat failures. Learn from them and move forward. Don’t get paralyzed by the analysis that you do but keep in mind that the time you invest in proper planning will rarely have a negative impact the final results. 

Keep yourself Physically and Mentally Fit!

Getting your endorphins going will help you relieve stress and anxiety.  It will help complement your natural energy level and allow you to focus in a concentrated fashion.  Circadian rhythms can have a significant impact as well.  This is a field of study that I learned about years ago as it relates to respiratory and other body functions.  "Timing in a 24 hour period of time" can have a dramatic impact on productivity.  It has to deal with “timing the day” for peak impact.  Some people do better in the morning, while others in the afternoon etc…..When selecting your work team, pay some attention to this if you are on any type of scheduled work arrangements.

Stay focused on Targeted Customers

The greatest return on investment will be earned by a concentrated effort on a relatively small percentage of the total customers.  The 80-20 rule needs to be employed for all companies seeking to achieve a greater return on investment.  This small grouping of customers will return at least 80% of the total revenues on average.  When we can confidently identify these customers we have a real plan in place for success.

And finally....enjoy and 

Have Fun!

As I have noted several months ago, real job satisfaction happens when employees live in a trusting, productive environment.  A key mentor in my career taught me that having fun is an indispensable part of being productive because it energizes you and provides an environment for interaction and support.  When such environments exist, it will often increase the quality of your work time which allows you to accomplish more. Isn’t this a great situation….? An increase in the quality of work will undoubtedly increase quality of work and also productivity!  You just cannot beat that!