Back to Basics

My former boss, a newspaper sports writer in his previous life,  used to tell me all of the time: "If it ain't blockin' and tacklin', we probably don't need to spend much time on it." Football requires that teams effectively employ the basics of blocking and tackling in order to put their team in a position to win. So does business.

Often businesses and people, after they reach a certain level of success, feel a compelling need to change what they did that made them successful in the first place. They were once passionately engaged in doing the basic actions required to succeed in their chosen endeavor and somehow, not doing those things began to make sense. The change in doing the successful basic actions probably did not occur overnight. Failure nor success rarely happens quickly. Instead, the players became complacent doing the day to day actions that resulted in measurable progress and felt that they could surely make things happen more quickly if they would fundamentally change what they had been doing successfully. When this calculated change occurs and things don't work out it is typically the process that is faulted and not the people. After all, they reason that it was the same people involved now as when they were making progress. So if could not be the people, it must be the process. Disillusioned to say the least.

The things that helped to make you successful are they very same things that will ensure a greater level of success, if you get better at those things. Let your competition travel down the road of unproven processes hoping to make light-speed process. There is a reason that the basics are called basics. The basics are the fundamental building blocks to every successful foundation. When you hear companies, large and small, talk about "getting back to the basics" consider just how much they have allowed their foundation to erode  by deliberately walking away from the fundamentals of "blocking and tackling. The negative results are self inflicted wounds that are 100% preventable.

Consider those actions that are basic to the success in your professional and personal life and commit to getting better at those things. Do change, but not for the sake of change. Change by getting better at the basics, not back to basics.

Want & Need

We were fortunate as children to have two sets of Grandparents. Each set of Grandparents were noticeably different although as children we hardly noticed the stark-worldly-differences that would, later in life, be readily apparent. One set of Grandparents were poor and the other set were well-off. The material value of each set was, in the eyes of us children, never more apparent than at Christmas. The less fortunate set of Grandparents would always give us what we wanted, toys. These toys were never expensive but we didn't care, because as children what the toy represented was all that mattered. The well-off set of Grandparents would ALWAYS give us clothes. Not the trendy clothes we might have tempered the insensitive gift with, but we got basic stuff like underwear, socks, shirts and pants. These gifts were not what we wanted, they were the gifts that we absolutely needed. I can't prove this, but I'll bet that my well-off set of Grandparents spent time with my parents asking what we needed and very little time discussing what we wanted. Because what we wanted was not likely to make a lasting impact on our daily lives whereas what we needed had the potential to make a difference!

When you are dealing with people in business and in life regarding their wants and needs, you must always provide recommendations based on the level of need and not the shiny-new-toy they think they want. While this is almost always the path that will be the toughest to take, it will surely prove to be the wisest choice. You must first start with discovering the difference between the want and the need and that discovery more often that not comes through close observation and asking the right questions. Someone may want you to prepare a presentation for them when what they really need is for you to show them how. You may want someone to do something for you when what you really you need is help learning how to do it for yourself. Socrates said; "What we need to learn to do we learn by doing."  You must be willing to give the instructions and help based on needs and you must be willing to accept the help based on needs and not give or get that which is wanted.

Late

This is a picture of vultures hanging out in a graveyard. Now we all know how vultures feed themselves, so they are wasting their time here because they are, of course, late. These guys represent: opportunity lost, simply because of missing a manageable timing issue.

Once while listening to a national TV talk show host, I caught the tail-end of a discussion about someone trying to determine why they were always late. No mater how hard they tried, seems that they were rarely, if ever,  on time to anything. The importance of the meeting did not seem to matter either. They were just as late to high value meetings as they were to low value meetings. The host listened for several minutes as this individual shared the many justifiable reasons they were late to everything! After a few seconds the host asked: "Why do you think your time is so much more valuable that anyone else's?" The individual was highly offended and proclaimed that they did not feel, at all, that their time was more valuable, they simply had so much to deal with that they found it almost impossible to be on time. The host countered and said: "Of course you think that your time is more valuable that anyone else's, otherwise you would not waste the other persons time by being constantly late."

When you are on time, you demonstrate your commitment to the value of the opportunity. Being on time is almost always a matter of proper preparation. Whatever the planned opportunity, make certain that you have factored in enough time to get ready with everything you need to make the most of the meeting, but that you also factor in enough travel time (walking down the office or driving across town) to arrive early. Get to the meeting, ready and early, it matters!

Have & Get

If you HAVE it use it, if you don't HAVE it, GET it!

HAVE:

One day a man was driving his new pickup truck down a rather busy city street when he realized that the front right tire was going flat. Much to his disappointment he pulled the truck over to the side of the road and began the process of taking the flat tire off and replacing it with the spare tire. After jacking the truck up he removed the lug nuts and carefully placed them in the small decorative tire cover he had to remove to get to the lug nuts. He then placed the tire cover that was holding the lug nuts on the curb. As he was taking the tire off he accidentally hit the lug nuts and watched helplessly as they all fell into the storm drain! A passer by saw the predicament the owner of the truck was in and after a few minutes suggested that the truck owner remove one lug nut from each of the three tires still on the truck and use those to hold the spare tire on until he could get to a place where he could replace the lost lug nuts. He could use the the resources that he had and get the job done without HAVING to get other resources.

GET:
The West Texas country is beautiful. The land is filled with low profile, hardy trees that can withstand the winds that whip across the landscape, cactus and a very rocky soil. There are thousands of rocks, large and small. The ranches are huge and the Texans are "Can-Do" Texans. One of my Texas rancher friends was inspired to smooth out a section of a very rocky road on his ranch. He spent a month working the section of this road with a tractor and whatever other equipment he had at his disposal. After about a month he told his ranch foreman that the road was even rockier than when he started and was more difficult to drive on. His ranch foreman agreed and said: "If you keep fixing it with what you have, pretty soon you will not be able to drive down it at all." The foreman knew that in order to get the road smooth the rancher would need to GET soil and fill in between the rocks. It mattered not, how much he worked the rocky terrain, unless he GOT additional soil, he was not going to have a smooth road.

When you have to get something done, evaluate your situation and determine if you HAVE what you need or do you need to GET something to ensure that the outcome will meet expectations. There will be instances when you get involved and do not realize, until well underway, that you either do or do not have what is required. If you HAVE what you need, keep the fires burning. If you do not have what you need GET it.

Start by Stopping

There should always be two list. One is the list of things you are going to start or continue doing. The other list is the number of things that you are going to stop doing.

In our business and professional life we can easily become so enthralled with our inherited or created duties that we fail to consider if the time committed to performing those duties well, is really getting us anywhere. Going through the routine is just that, routine and routine does not help anyone distinguish their performance from others. Making constant evaluations of the things that you commit valuable time to is not only a good idea it is critical to your success.

The reality is that many people and companies repeatedly do things because they always have and because they can and not because they should. When we start placing a greater value on doing or continuing to do the things that we know contribute to our progress, we are making decisions that we know are going to pay-off. When we stop doing those things that amount to not much more than distractions, we free-up valuable time that we should now devote to those things that are on the "keep or start doing list".

The trap of filling your time with activities of very little value is an easy one to get caught in. Since we seem to be busy we feel we are doing our job and while we are doing a job as we currently value it, it is not our job. Any job has the potential of filling the time allowed and if we are at work at least eight hours a day and we justify our existence by doing things that are of little value, then sooner or later someone is going to notice. Then what? Our job is a job that contributes to the success of the team by engaging in those activities that we know are going to make a positive contribution because we know they are on the "doing list."

NOTE:


The facts support that one of the healthiest things a person can do is to stop smoking. (Additionally if you stop you are going to save a considerable amount of money. The guy in front of me in line the other day at the convenience store bought a package of cigarettes and he paid $6.50 for one pack!!!) When you stop smoking your body immediately will start getting better. 

Leverage

My Dad was a full-time pipe fitter and part-time everything else. He taught me many things about how to build and repair things. One of the things that my Father was particularly good at was carpentry. He could build almost anything with wood and I always loved to watch him use the circular saw because he was precise with it and even though it was violently loud, the smell of the fresh cut wood was wonderful. One of his favorite stories he used to tell me, ad nauseam, was about one of his fellow carpentry workers who while using a hammer would grasp the hammer in the middle of the handle. The foreman would constantly correct him by explaining that the best use of the tool was to grasp it at the bottom of the handle, thereby utilizing the leverage created and making the hammer much more effective. By using the hammer in this correct manner it would require far less effort to drive a nail into the wood and that would result in a more productive worker. The worker did not heed the advice so the foreman arrived early one day and cut the handle of the hammer in half, then handed it to the worker to use without the benefit of the leverage he should have taken advantage of.

Leverage can come in many forms: professional relationships, experience, knowledge, support, inquisitiveness, friends, research, failures and success to name a few. This valuable resource of leverage is readily available and yet we often do not take time to consider the numerous leverages that will help to serve our current and future needs.

Here are two examples of what using our leverage might look like:

One of the first leveraging questions we should ask when considering pursuing a new path is; "Who else is or has done this thing we are considering and what were the outcomes?" By simply leveraging our inquisitiveness and asking theses types of questions, we can better equip ourselves to make a calculated decision. When we do ask these leverage questions we may conclude from the answers, that this is the best course of action or it is not. We may come to the conclusion that the person we are asking did not do what was required, based on our current level of knowledge, in order to achieve the outcome we desire. Either way we have used our leverage to help us make a decision that we have a foundation to support.

We all have professional relationships that constitute a vast amount of collective knowledge. People really do what to help and the most effective method to engage others in your evaluation process is to simply ask. The leveraged conversation might start like this; "I have a great deal of respect for you and what you have accomplished and I need your help. May I ask your opinion of something that I am considering?"

Before you take the next step, consider leveraging your resources. Never take advantage but always leverage.

To Be or Not To Be

"To be or not to be, that is the question." William Shakespeare wrote this very famous line in his well known play, Hamlet. Hamlet was questioning whether to live or to die. In this soliloquy he is wondering if it is nobler to bear his grief or to take action.

We are faced with questions, big and small,  daily regarding our chosen path. Our current professional station in life is more often than not the sum of our decisions. Our decisions lead to actions or inaction and those choices lead to a result that we either initiated or accepted. We are successful because we decided to be successful or by default, we are not successful because we decided not to be. We either did something at sufficient levels when given the opportunity or we simply did not. To be really good at anything requires a commitment to stay the course that has been strategically set and continue making incremental progress.

Many times we hear of circumstances, beyond control that caused a less than desirable outcome and thus the people involved could not have succeeded no matter which course they chose to take.  These circumstances often take the form of excuses rather than actual circumstances beyond control. Lt. Colonel Harold Moore, the famed character in the movie: We Were Soldiers and US Army officer in command during the first big battle of the Vietnam War was quoted as saying; "Three strikes and you are not out. There is always something else you can do." His decisions lead to putting soldiers in harms-way and he was simply not willing to give up no matter how overwhelming the odds.

If we are going to be great and separate ourselves from the competition, we must decide; To Be! Otherwise the result is: Not to be!