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Name of author Rick Baker, P.Eng.

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A Perspective on "Love your clients", "Fail often & quickly", and other fuzzy fads.

by Rick Baker
On May 31, 2016

Sometimes the business-leadership gurus go too far. 

Love Your Clients

When you stop to think about it, isn't the word "love" just a bit too strong for supplier-client relationships? There are plenty of poignant history and romance stories about dying for loved ones – people making the ultimate sacrifice for lovers, family and loved friends. However, I've never seen one movie or read one book where a supplier loves a client to death. And, what about sending Valentines love notes, roses, and chocolates to clients - does that make sense? 

Let's set aside the hyperbolic ideas promoting love for clients and let's commit more brainpower to figuring out how to deliver value to them, on time, at a fair price. 

Fail Fast & Fail Often

Fail fast and fail often...there's another troubling concept. Frenetic action aimed toward frenzied failure - what good can come of that! Sure, no argument – taking baby steps toward small goals is a great strategy. But, let's not forget the goal of each baby step is success not failure. Sure, we need to be able to differentiate between successes and failures and learn from our errors. But, let’s not forget haste makes waste or the wonderful story of the tortoise beating the hare.

Let’s set aside the trendy but fuzzy logic that encourages fast-paced dominoes of failure and let’s think a bit more before taking action, i.e., so we can enjoy the benefits of planning our work and working our plan.  

Other Fuzzy Fads for Success

I’m not suggesting we should ignore the advice of business and success gurus. Quite the opposite. We should consume the advice of the gurus. We should observe it ‘in real time’, using our wonderful brains, picking out the good pieces and formulating our own business and success philosophies.  And we should spit out the pieces that we simply cannot digest.

Tags:

Leaders' Thoughts | Thinking as in Think and Grow Rich

Teams, Trust & Work

by Rick Baker
On May 19, 2016

Trust & Work: We want our teams to do both. 

Trust without work accomplishes nothing. 

Trust is the foundation and catalyst for interpersonal harmony and heightened cooperation. However, those things – those fine things - accomplish nothing physical until they are accompanied by goal-aimed action, including going the extra mile.

Work without trust accomplishes, at most, isolated and fleeting success. 

Alone, the thoughts/plans and the actions of work offer little gratification or peace of mind. Busyness contains value, however, its value is limited. Regardless, work is considerably more valuable than idleness. Work contains the seeds for success.

When combined with trust work-seeds have opportunities to be fully productive. 

Trust & Work: We want our teams to do both. 

Tags:

Thinking as in Think and Grow Rich | Values: Personal Values

On Self-education

by Rick Baker
On May 12, 2016

Today, I'm thinking about self-education. I'm considering the vast differences I have seen in the way people approach this topic. Some feel an intense and compelling need for lifelong learning; others seem to stop feeling a need for education as soon as their time at school ends.

Years ago, I read there are four reasons for giving a speech1:

  1. to inform people,
  2. to entertain people,
  3. to touch emotions, and
  4. to move people to action. 

Perhaps, a similar short-list approach can be applied to the concept of self-education.

Perhaps, there are only four reasons to self-education.

Perhaps, people self-educate: 

  1. to understand self,
  2. to obtain information required for work,
  3. to obtain information required for hobbies, and
  4. to obtain information required to understand and 'deal with' the outside world (including other people).

If that is a reasonable way to approach the topic of self-education then:

  • some people feel the need to do all four of these things,
  • some people feel the need to do none of these four things, and
  • some people feel the need to do some, but not all, of these four things.

What need(s) do you feel?

 

Footnote

  1. Peter Urs Bender, ‘Secrets of Power Presentations’, (2000)

Tags:

Beyond Business | Thinking as in Think and Grow Rich

Find your balance between courage and consideration of others.

by Rick Baker
On May 9, 2016

Inspired by one of Stephen R Covey's phrases, "...balance between courage and consideration"

Courage and consideration of others are two character traits.

Perhaps, courage and consideration are antagonistic toward one another? Certainly, to a degree courage and consideration can cause our thoughts to move in different directions. The character qualities known as courage and consideration can bring opposing goals and make people feel conflicted. So, there is value in considering the need to balance one against the other and vice-versa. 

It seems to me, courage and consideration come into balance when true & pure self-confidence is present. The words "true & pure" are there to remove the possibility that self-confidence is less than sincere, laced with bravado, or clouded by bluster. True & pure self-confidence survives internal tests...it passes conscience tests and it promotes peace of mind. When confidence like that exists, courage and consideration are in balance.

To be more clear: When true & pure confidence exists, from the perspective of the owner of that confidence, courage and consideration are in balance. These concepts - courage, consideration and confidence - are very personal/subjective. Individuals know whether or not their self-confidence is true & pure. And, they know when their self-confidence is ego-speak...not so true or pure, when tested by their conscience and monitoring their feelings...[or when subjected to objective 3rd party testing such as stress studies].

Perhaps, you care about being courageous - perhaps, you see courage as an admirable character trait?

Perhaps, you want to be considerate of other people...perhaps, you see consideration as an admirable character trait?

Perhaps, you see value in possessing both these character traits and keeping them in balance.

If that's the case, work at building true & pure self-confidence.

[Consider the wisdom Napoleon Hill provided in 'Think and Grow Rich', (1937).]

Values, talents, achievements...and peace of mind.

by Rick Baker
On Apr 25, 2016

Values and talents make a powerful mix when combined with goals and persistence. To put this in perspective: there's an important linkage between personal values and individual talents. Values provide the moral compass, which includes the setting of rules (whether formal or subliminal) around behaviour and expectations of 'fair play' by/from others. Talents, when given opportunity, combine with knowledge and skill-practice to create personal strengths. 

Groups of people - teams, communities, societies - have the ability to excel when the personal values of the individuals align. Obviously, alignment doesn't mean 100% consistency and agreement, however, it does mean general acceptance and habits that conform to written or unwritten rules/laws/codes of conduct. 

Groups of people - teams, communities, societies - have the ability to excel when the personal talents of individuals 'feed off' one another...with the strengths of individuals compensating for the weaknesses of other individuals and the strengths of individuals amplifying one another to create results often described as 'the whole is greater than the sum of the parts'.

When both values and talents align and are coupled with a strong desire to achieve and persistent can-do mindsets, excellent performance follows. When the four attributes [values, talents, desire to achieve, & persistent focus and effort] are combined an interesting phenomenon visits - people naturally make more-positive use of heir stress energy.  That phenomenon results in peace of mind. 

Might as well put stress energy to good use

by Rick Baker
On Mar 25, 2016

To maximize the positive use of stress energy:

  • believe you can succeed, 
  • truly understand your personal talents and strengths, 
  • anticipate situations and prepare [in advance] your reaction to them, 
  • gather the tools and people support you need prior to the arrival of the situation/event, and 
  • practice self-talk/autosuggestion/affirmations designed to bolster your self-confidence and courage
Accept the fact things will go awry: appreciate that provides opportunity to build courage and confidence.
 
We grow when we overcome obstacles, especially when we plan in advance then take action that proves we can overcome obstacles.

Copyright © 2012. W.F.C (Rick) Baker. All Rights Reserved.