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Name of author Rick Baker, P.Eng.

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Common Sense versus Common Practice

by Rick Baker
On Aug 19, 2014

People perform better when they know their roles.

People perform better when they feel accountable for their performance.

Leaders can help their people understand their roles by clearly stating the top 7 or so action-things each person must do to succeed in each role. Those top 7 or so things will form the framework/guidelines for roles.

While that is common sense, it is not done at many small businesses.

Leaders can provide further help by working with their people to create goals linked to those top 7 or so things.

Again, few would argue the common sense of having desired goals linked to desired actions. Yet again, while it is common sense it is not common practice at many small businesses.

Desired goals and desired actions gel well when combined with planned performance-review processes. The key is creating performance-review processes that are closely tied to specific actions required to meet specific goals.

Common sense.

And you can make it common practice. 

Tags:

Goals - SMARTACRE Goals

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Seek Simple advice: Listen to what people say...are their words the words of Victims or Initiators?

by Rick Baker
On Aug 19, 2014

The Thinking Behind The Tweet

We do better with people when we understand them...as Stephen Covey taught - 'Seek First to Understand'.

We all go through ups and downs and the ups and downs can skew our day-to-day personalities. So, yes - it is rash to judge personality too quickly.

Setting day-to-day variances aside, we all have predominant tendencies. While we do not want to pretend we are armchair psychologists, our success in this world of other people increases when we observe people and develop an ability to understand them.

And, people do have predominant tendencies. One of those tendencies has been captured by psychologists and labelled locus of control. Some of us 'have' an internal locus of control while some of us 'have' an external locus of control. People who 'have' the internal locus of control believe they can affect change and outcomes. They tend to be Initiators. People who 'have' the external locus of control believe they have little ability to influence change or outcomes. They are fatalists or Victims. 

Victims tend to complain about their lot in life. Victims tend to blame others. Victims tend to blame situations. Victims are pessimistic. Victims make excuses. [Feelings of envy and jealousy hang around the shadows of Victims.]

Initiators are the opposite.

Tags:

Seeking Simple! | Thought Tweets

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Seek Simple advice: Baby action steps pave the path to unshakable self-confidence.

by Rick Baker
On Aug 19, 2014

The Thinking Behind The Tweet

We learn from our experiences. This learning grows experience by experience, piece by piece. And the more repetition of experience-pieces the stronger the learning. And, because we have gone through the learning process we know we know.

When we know we know we become confident about our abilities. The more we know we know the greater the confidence. 

Simple repetition of properly-performed action steps are the key to self-confidence.

We need to imagine future situations to determine the right action steps. That's the best path.

However, if we are confused about the right action steps then we can perform the action steps we know we  know...and do them with mastery. Every one of us can do that!

So, baby steps take every one of us toward unshakable self-confidence.

Self-confidence is a process. We can design it. We can control it. 

We should all want to do that - self-confidence is a mindset to great value.

Tags:

Seeking Simple! | Thought Tweets

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Seek Simple advice: speak up and be heard, shut up and be appreciated.

by Rick Baker
On Aug 19, 2014

The Thinking Behind the Sales Tweet

Jay Abraham tells a great story about meeting a fellow at a convention-hotel bar. Jay asked the fellow dozens of questions and the fellow talked about himself for hours. At the end of the evening, the other fellow said Jay was the most-interesting person he had ever talked to.

Tags:

Seeking Simple! | Thought Tweets

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