Still We Must Act

What is your current and continuing success really made of ?

Are you the recipient of great fortune by being in the right place at the right time or do you attribute your success to something else. The achievements you have made can be directly associated with the effort expended. There is such a thing as "luck" but these uncontrollable events called luck have far less to do with your success that want happens when lucky things happen. There are good and bad things that happen that you had nothing to do with. The issue is singularly focused on what happens when these unpredictable things happen. How do you respond? That is the pivotal question. When good things happen you can certainly take credit for being ready to make the most of the good fortune. Conversely when bad things happen, you need to be prepared to rapidly make the moves that will mitigate the effect and turn lemons into lemonade and you can take credit for that as well. You are going to have to take ownership either way.

Take the time to analyze what has happened that is directly attributed to your actions and take time to analyze the things that are not. Then you can draw a clearer conclusion how to build upon the events that are part of your continuing and increasing levels of success. You must act no matter what happens and to the extent that you are prepared to respond and build upon the events, you will find yourself so busy "doing" that the impact of the uncontrollable events will either be positively greatly expanded upon or you will significantly diminish the negative impact of less fortunate events. Some of the greatest victories are going to be those victories where you can look back at the bad events and calculate just how well you preformed in less than desirable circumstances. Robert Trent Jones Jr., one of the greatest golfers of all time was quoted as saying: "I never learned anything from a golf tournament I won."

So it does not really matter if it is good or bad, still you must act.

Of Brine & Swine

Surprisingly more people are killed each year by pigs than are killed by sharks.

Businesses often spend a great deal of their resources, human and financial, on figuring out a way to get ahead of the competition, the sharks. They focus on the sharks outside the business and rightfully so. You cannot ignore your competition and viewing them as sharks will motivate you to swim faster, else that will eat you up.

But sharks are not what kills or damages most businesses. The pigs inside the building are the real threat to the business. The are also the part of the business that is completely within control of the management. Allowing the pigs to destroy by tolerating their lazy and ineffective work ethic happens far too often. When a company becomes so consumed with the sharks they allow the pigs to run wild, a death spiral is inevitable. Pigs run wild, at times, without running at all. When management allows the pigs to lower the overall expectations by accepting their mediocre efforts and results, they are in effect saying that this behavior is acceptable. Pigs are crafty and will appear to be making progress when is fact, they are simply working dilligently at not working. Others in the company see the pigs performance and reasonably think that if the pigs can behave as they do and still get paid, why should I make the effort to meet expectations. The pigs don't, so I am not going to.

Allowing pigs to wallow in their sty of deplorable results while expecting others to make up the difference does the company considerable damage and will eventually take a toll on everyone. Once a pig is identified, get the pig help and try to turn the pig into a productive member of the team by insisting that they perform at a higher level. If they chose not to take advantage of the opportunity, call the butcher.