CEO Success Report -
November 2002
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CEO Success Report
- November 2002
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Increasing the Effectiveness and Enhancing the Lives of CEOs
and business owners.
Contents of this issue...
.. Welcome - A few words from the publisher, Gary Lockwood
.. Thought-Starter - "Think Strategically about Your
Business"
.. Guest article - "The Giving of Courage: The First Duty of
The CEO"
.. CEO Resources
.. Quotes to use in your staff meeting this month
.. Humor to lighten up the executive suite
.. Contact the publisher
.. Subscribe and unsubscribe instructions
See past issues of the CEO Success Report at:
http://www.CEOSuccess.com/archives
===================================================
WELCOME to this issue of the CEO Success Report!
===================================================
Hello again. I'm Gary Lockwood, President of CEO Success.
Welcome back once again to the CEO Success. I know you have
no shortage of material to read and I thank you for choosing to
read our newsletter.
We work hard to provide practical ideas, thought-provoking concepts
and useful information for you.
You (and about 1000 of your CEO peers), have honored me by
being a loyal subscriber. For that, I appreciate you.
For many business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals,
annual planning is one of those intimidating efforts that get
pushed off indefinitely. Yet, you know intuitively that, if you
actually did it, you stand to gain a lot.
Why is this such a daunting task? For many, it's because we
imagine annual planning as a huge, time-consuming and difficult
chore. What if it was easy and quick? What do you stand to gain
from effectively planning for next year? Planning helps you remove
the uncertainty, avoid surprises, pull your team together, and
save time and money.
Today's Thought-Starter outlines a simple process for you to plan
for next year. Do yourself a favor. Get started this week.
May I ask a small favor? Please forward this issue to other CEOs
and company presidents who may be interested in receiving
these messages. Thank you.
And now for our guest article this month...
Investing in the courage of your people brings extraordinary, even
unwarranted, corporate results. And, in monitory terms, it is free; it
costs only the will to do it. And the remarkable thing is, you don't
need to have courage yourself to create it.
Our guest article this month is from Tom FitzGerald. Tom writes that
courage breeds success and success breeds courage. But Tom also
explains that someone must begin the process of giving courage and
then sustaining it. That is the duty of the leader. This article shows
you how.
Read more about Tom at the end of his article.
I hope you enjoy receiving these articles and ideas to
help you sharpen your thinking about being an effective CEO.
My wish is that you use the ideas in the CEO Success Report to
get the results you really want. If you want some help in putting
them into practice, or if you have questions, email or call.
As you know, our specialty is Increasing the Effectiveness
and Enhancing the Lives of CEOs and business owners.
Enjoy this issue with my compliments.
Sincerely,
Gary Lockwood
CEO Success
P.S. I have openings for two new coaching clients. If you are
ambitious, ready to tackle some big achievements, and are
willing to be accountable for the results you produce, let's talk.
Coaching is not cheap, nor is it easy. If you are in charge
of your life, ready to move quickly, and can afford to invest
in your future, contact me at (909) 739-7444 or at
Gary@BizSuccess.com or check out the details at
http://www.BizSuccess.com/coach.htm
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This month's THOUGHT-STARTER
===========================================
Think Strategically about Your Business
by Gary Lockwood
For many business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals, annual
Planning is one of those intimidating efforts that get pushed off
indefinitely. Yet, you know intuitively that, if you actually did
it, you stand to gain a lot.
Why is this such a daunting task? For many, it's because we
imagine annual planning as a huge, time-consuming and difficult
chore. What if it was easy and quick? What do you stand to gain
from effectively planning for next year? Planning helps you remove
the uncertainty, avoid surprises, pull your team together, and save
time and money.
Here is a simple process for you to plan for next year. It is
relatively easy and can be done in a day or so. First, let's get
prepared. You'll need a few hours of uninterrupted time (best if
done in only one or two sittings), so block off one day or two
half-days in your calendar. If you work with a partner, spouse or
key management team, schedule to do this together, as a team.
Decree casual, comfortable clothing and make arrangements
for coffee and lunch.
For most enterprises, the annual planning process is most
effective when guided by a professional facilitator. If you decide
to have a go at it on your own, use the following step-by-step
process.
Phase one is self-evaluation of the enterprise. Here, we'll look at
what's important to us, where we're going, what are we all about
and what's our prime purpose. This is what strategic thinking is
all about. For this phase, identify the five or six key areas that are
important and essential for your business - cash flow, customers,
employees, image, growth, productivity and so on. Write them
down. These are your organizational values.
In each of these areas, develop a crystal clear vision of where you
are going with this. What's possible. What does it look like when
you're living up to your best expectations in each of these areas?
Describe as best you can, in writing, what it looks like and what
it feels like when you have reached the point in each of your key
result areas where you are happy with each. This represents a
picture of your future, as you prefer it to be.
If you can articulate a clear vision of your preferred future,
focusing on those areas that are important to you and to your
business, that vision becomes your destination down the road.
That clear vision allows you to set goals in the direction of your
preferred future. That vision provides motivation, energy, purpose
and direction. It certainly helps you to communicate with the people
around you.
Starting with a clear vision of what's possible helps you to answer
the question we must ask ourselves each day -- why are we doing
this piece of work and is it taking us where we need to go?
Phase two is about making choices. This process includes telling
the truth about our current reality. We need to identify where is our
greatest area of need. Where can we make the most definitive
progress this year? To do this, use a scale of 1-10 (10 is great
and 1 is lousy) to rate each of the organizational value areas.
Rate each as to how well you are currently living up to that value
when compared to your vision of your preferred future. If you're
doing this as a group, have each person describe their rating.
Phase three is to establish priorities. The hardest and most vital
part of thinking strategically is accepting the simple truth that we
cannot do all the things we want to do or even all the things that
are important. When we try to do it all, we do not do any of it well.
Use the completed ratings to select the one or two areas where
you have the greatest opportunity for improvement in the coming
year. Where is your greatest dissonance? In which value area
would improvement translate to significant results? In which value
area is the largest gap between your preferred future and your
current reality? Select one or two value areas as your priority for
the coming year.
Phase four is to develop the action plan. We must get clear about
who will do what and when. Start with brainstorming all the
possible actions which could move you closer toward your
preferred future in the one or two value areas you have selected
as your priority for the coming year. Be creative here. Don't be
limited to doing what you've always done; you'll limit yourself to
getting the same results you've always had.
Once you've created a list of possible action steps, group the
action items into categories such as marketing, communications,
facilities, employees, etc. Usually, 3-5 categories will cover them
all (it's OK to have a "Misc." category). Now, go back through each
action item in each category to assign a person to be accountable
for that action, and to determine when that action item will be
complete.
Phase five is implementation. The plan has little value until we do
something with it. This must also include follow up and review of
progress. Each person must have a clear understanding of his or
her individual accountability. If it's just you in your one-person
company, you, too, must get clear on how you will accomplish your
assigned tasks. This may include blocking off some time each
week to concentrate on your action items.
Once or twice a month, stop to review your progress. What's getting
done? What's not getting done? How are we doing? Examine the
action items that are being pushed off. Either break them into
smaller, easier tasks or decide explicitly that you are not going
to do that one.
Celebrate your successes and the progress you are making. At
the same time, don't get too impatient. Remember that your plan
is for the whole year, so it's OK if everything is not done by the
end of the first month.
The process of thinking strategically about your business can be
one of opportunity and excitement. Through this process, everyone
in the organization can understand and commit themselves to a
consistent system of values and vision for the future. It helps bring
the plan alive for the people who must deliver on the goals.
The payback is a high return on your investment of time and
commitment to the process. The payback also comes in your
ability to withstand the whipsaw of change. An enterprise grounded
with a clear direction and a plan to get there will have focus on what
is important and the flexibility to respond to new opportunities.
Block off some time to think strategically. Here's to a successful
year for you and your business!
About the Author...
Gary Lockwood is Increasing the Effectiveness and Enhancing the
Lives of CEOs, business owners and professionals.
Get the Free BizSuccess newsletter -
http://www.bizsuccess.com/newsletter.htm
or send any blank email to mailto:subscribe@BizSuccess.com
==================================
Guest Article
==================================
The Giving of Courage: The First Duty of The CEO
by Tom FitzGerald
Investing in the courage of your people brings extraordinary, even
unwarranted, corporate results. And, in monetary terms it is free;
it costs only the will to do it. And the remarkable thing is,
you don't need to have courage yourself to create it.
He was the Chief Executive. He had been so for several years. Many
thought he had done well, better than the other guy for sure.
Others thought otherwise, but that is the lot of all CEOs - not
everyone will love them.
Certainly his personal life was showing shabby, and many knew - too
many. He was finding it harder to muster support for things that
needed doing. And there was talk of his retirement. "Lame duck" was
mentioned, and successors talked of.
But on the day of crisis, in the time of trouble for his people, by
instinct or by wisdom or by inspiration, he fulfilled the first and
foremost duty of a leader:
He gave courage.
He did so quietly. He did so simply. He did so without pretence or
bluster or grand rhetoric. His means were mostly silence, and just
being there - standing there - before his people - in witness.
He was their Chief Executive. He gave courage. And not just to his
own people but to the country, perhaps the world. In that moment he
was leader to us all. And all acclaimed him. And all took courage
and were stronger. And with that courage could mobilize and focus
and work again.
His name was Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani. Chief Executive of New York
City.
He gave courage!
We don't talk much, we men and women of business, of the needs we
have for courage. It's not expected. It's not taught in B schools.
We don't have the words. And it's embarrassing. After all, the
absence of courage is fear or at least anxiety.
But talk about it or not, we need courage. And our people need it.
In the final analysis courage is what drives our businesses. It
gives us the power we need go to work, to take risk, to create, to
thrive. Without it we grow weak, and our people grow uncertain. And
we and they are fearful, and find it hard to decide, find it hard
to invest in our own future, find it hard to communicate a vision
of a prosperous future to clients so that they can invest through
us - and that is selling.
I am not talking here of fierce, heroic courage needed in the face
of great danger; the New York fire fighters and police showed that
- in their lives, in their actions, in their deaths.
No, I am talking of a quieter kind of courage, an ordinary kind.
But the kind that let Giuliani stand silently, simply, there upon
the devastation - and represent us all and take symbolic
responsibility for our future - and become the focus of our fear,
our anger, confusion, shock - and then transmute them into resolve.
Giuliani's was a quiet courage. A mundane courage; one might almost
say. The kind of courage that could be shown on almost all
occasions. But one so rare, it seems, that when he showed it we
were in awe of it - and him.
And we took courage.
Most of us, perhaps all of us, live our lives with feelings of
uncertainty, of anxiety. It is part of the human condition. But our
culture seems to cultivate it too and our educational systems seem
designed to magnify it.
But when we find a company where people exhibit courage, quiet
courage, the courage to listen and speak, to argue, decide and
thrust ahead, we find a successful company. And we find the obverse
too, for failing, unsuccessful companies seem to breed timorous
people. Or is it vice versa?
Courage breeds success. Success breeds courage. But someone must
begin the process of giving courage and then sustaining it. That is
the duty of the leader. That is the first duty of the leader - by
whatever title or position, CEO, COO, VP, manager, supervisor:
To give courage.
Giving courage is more, much more, than giving "encouragement."
Encouragement, once a word of substance, has come to mean very
little: perhaps a kind of vanilla cheerleading; perhaps an
exhortation to do better; perhaps a kind of verbal incenting; or
worse, sanction for failure.
En-Couragement means in its original sense, quite simply: the
giving of courage to others; the instilling of courage in others;
the creation or evocation of courage within others. A profoundly
simple thing. A profoundly important thing. An incredibly rare
thing too.
But who must we give courage to?
First, of course, to our people; they need it from us. Just as we
need and must take courage from our leaders, so our people need it
and must take it from us. And they can take it and multiply it if
we give it. And they expect it; whether they know it or not, or can
articulate their need or not. And if they do not get it they will
resent us for not providing it.
Secondly, we must give courage to our peers, those who work with us,
shoulder-to-shoulder and sometimes eyeball-to-eyeball. And to our
clients. They work shoulder-to-shoulder with us too.
And lastly, we must give it to our leaders. For sometimes our
leaders are afraid. Giuliani gave great courage to his leaders.
And how do we give courage?
It is no great mystery. It needs no special knowledge or cleverness
or training. Just think of the best bosses you ever had and ask
what did they do?
What was it that Giuliani did? What did the mayor of NY City do
that imparted so much courage to us all? In simple terms, there
were just seven things - but all were acts of faith and generosity:
First, he was there. He stood there to be seen, to be counted. That
was the most important act of all.
Second, he assumed the burden of responsibility, however guiltless
he must be.
Third, he bore witness. He acknowledged the enormity of the injury
and the challenge.
Fourth, he showed emotion. Showed by voice and words and tears that
he cared, that he felt.
Fifth, he gave rich praise to those who labored.
Sixth, he voiced certainty of success.
Lastly, he spoke to his people as a people, as a single entity,
recognizing their oneness and evoking their unity.
Most of us, thank God, will never face so great a challenge. But
day-by-day, hour-by-hour, as managers, we have a need, a duty, to
give courage to our people, so that they may grow in strength and
hope and energy. And we can do it just as Giuliani did:
First, we can be there. For us, in our ordinary work, it means
getting out and being where the challenges of our businesses are:
in the plants with our workers; on the counters with our staff;
before our clients with our sales staff - wherever the challenges
and our people are.
Second, we can take on the burden of responsibility. Even if it is
the responsibility of someone else, taking responsibility is a
defining act of leadership.
Third, we can bear witness. We can acknowledge the size and scope
of the difficulties and the problems and the challenges to be
overcome. And though they may be just the usual ones, they deserve
to be acknowledged too.
Fourth, we can show emotion. Genuine, real emotion. Of happiness,
sadness, friendship, confidence, worry too - human emotion.
Business is driven not by cold logic but by human motivation. And
that is triggered only through the heart. And if we are not
demonstrative by nature, and many of us are not, then such little
emotion as we can show will be seen as being all that we can do -
and appreciated all the more. Charisma is not really needed.
Fifth, we can give praise to those who labor. Honest praise,
generous praise, public praise, even though the work not be
dangerous, the results not be remarkable. For work done day-by-day
and every day is in itself heroic, and deserves praise, while the
praised still live and can be heartened.
Sixth, we can voice certainty of success. The need our people have
for reassurance is as least as great as ours. And, let's admit it,
ours is great.
Lastly, we can speak to our people as a unit, as belonging to a
single entity (not just one-on-one, though that is important too)
and evoking that unity, recognizing the oneness of the group and
its common cause.
Rarely in our lives are we as managers required to show great
physical courage. But, day-by-day, as managers, as chief executives
of our companies, whatever their size, whatever their position
within larger organizations, we have the duty to show the mundane
kind of courage, the kind that Giuliani showed.
The kind that is unpretentious, that is open, honest and without
shame. The kind that says, "Here I stand, God help me; I take
responsibility; and I need help; and sacrifice."
The kind that says, "There is a future; there is hope; we will win."
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Tom FitzGerald is a bottom-line oriented, consulting management
engineer, who specializes in effecting major improvements in
profitability, performance and growth. He has worked with CEOs and
COOs of more than 200 organizations in the US, Canada and Europe,
ranging in size from start-up to Fortune Five Hundred. By education,
a physicist. By birth, Irish. By instinct and experience, a business
catalyst. Contact FitzGerald Associates at:
http://www.managementconsultants.com.
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RESOURCES for CEOs
=============================================
The Executive Committee - Chief Executives Working Together
http://www.CEOSuccess.com
** Attention CEOs
Business leaders are choosing a new way to better their companies and
themselves - through membership in TEC, an international organization of
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Imagine the benefits of meeting regularly with a small group
of company leaders in your area to share experiences, exchange ideas and
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Thousands of chief executives turn to TEC for a learning experience they
cannot get anywhere else. We are committed to connecting CEOs with the
people, ideas and information they need to help them improve their
businesses and enhance their lives.
Check it out at http://www.CEOSuccess.com
========================================================
QUOTES to use in your staff meeting this month
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"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything."
Alexander Hamilton
"We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them."
Kahlil Gibran
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness."
David Dunham
"You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself."
Harry Firestone
"Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do."
Johann von Goethe
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just
sit there."
Will Rogers
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HUMOR to lighten up
the executive suite
==========================================================
What happens when people of different occupations get old.
Old chauffeurs never die, they just lose their drive.
Old chemists never die, they just fail to react.
Old cleaning people never die, they just kick the bucket.
Old cooks never die, they just get deranged.
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The Office Happenings
Quote from a recent meeting: "We are going to continue
having these meetings, everyday, until I find out why no
work is getting done".
Quote from the Boss... "I didn't say it was your fault. I
said I was going to blame it on you."
A motivational sign at work: The beatings will continue
until morale improves.
A direct quote from the Boss: "We passed over a lot of good
people to get the ones we hired."
My Boss frequently gets lost in thought. That's because
it's unfamiliar territory.
My Boss said to me " What you see as a glass ceiling, I
see as a protective barrier."
My Boss needs a surge protector. That way his mouth
would be buffered from surprise spikes in his brain.
I thought my Boss was an idiot, and quit, to work for
myself. My new Boss is an idiot, too ... but at least I
respect him.
He's given automobile accident victims new hope for
recovery. He walks, talks and performs rudimentary
tasks, all without the benefit of a SPINE.
Some people climb the ladder of success. My Boss
walked under it.
Quote from the Boss after overriding the decision of a
task force he created to find a solution: " I'm sorry if I
ever gave you the impression your input would have any
effect on my decision for the outcome of this project!"
HR Manager to job candidate "I see you've had no
computer training. Although that qualifies you for upper
management, it means you're under-qualified for our entry
level positions."
Quote from telephone inquiry "We're only hiring one
summer intern this year and we won't start interviewing
candidates for that position until the Boss' daughter
finishes her summer classes."
***excerpts from: http://www.joker.org/ ***
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CONTACT CEO Success
=================================
Gary Lockwood is the publisher of the CEO Success Report.
Email: mailto:Gary@CEOSuccess.com
Office: (800) 272-1575 (USA) * (909) 739-7444
Fax: (909) 494-4314
========================================
Your Comments, please?
========================================
I appreciate feedback, corrections, and comments about the
CEO Success Report. Please send your thoughts to:
Gary@CEOSuccess.com mailto:Gary@CEOSuccess.com
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