Manage Your Time or Others Will Do It for You by Harvey Mackay

I'll never forget an important time management lesson I learned in a seminar many years ago . . . especially how the instructor illustrated the point.

"Okay, time for a quiz," he said, as he pulled out a one-gallon wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on the desk in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.

When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is the jar full?"

Everyone in the seminar said, "Yes."

Then he said, "Really?" He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar. This caused pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. Then he asked the group again, "Is the jar full?"

By this time the class was onto him. "Probably not," we answered.

"Good!" he replied as he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar full?"

"No!" the class shouted. Once again he said, "Good!" Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, "What is the point of this illustration?"

One eager beaver raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you really try hard, you can always fit some things into it."

"No," the instructor replied. "The point is if you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in at all."

So, today, tonight, or in the morning when you are reflecting on this story, ask yourself: What are the 'big rocks' in my life or business? Then, be sure to put those in your jar first.

And by the way, you get the same size jar as everyone else. No exceptions.

What changes from person to person is the size of each rock. I've got a couple boulders in my jar: family first, always. Things like friends, my company, my speaking/writing "hobby," maintaining my network, my volunteer commitments, my health, and my religion all take up a lot of space. The gravel is all the stuff that takes up more than a few minutes but doesn't necessarily happen every day, like a committee assignment, a vacation, learning new software... you get the idea.

And now, the sand. You can decide whether to be that 98-pound weakling who gets sand kicked at him, or the creator of a spectacular sand castle. The sand is the yes/no stuff that absolutely has to fit around everything else after it's in the jar. A little piece of sand in your eye is a big pain, and those are the ones that get the no-thank-you right off the bat. A little sand on an icy street is one of life's little pleasures when you live in snow country as I do. You choose the sand. It's your jar.

In other words, it's your time. Change the rocks, gravel and sand into hours, minutes and seconds. Then decide what your priorities are and how much time you'll spend on them. If you don't, someone else will decide for you and you'll end up with a jar full of heavy, jagged, nasty shards that nobody could touch without getting stabbed by another rock. Do you really want to spend your time working on other people's priorities?

As Benjamin Franklin said, "If we take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves." Good time management is taking care of the things that matter most to us first and keeping that jar of rocks in sight all the time.

My friend Lou Holtz has a great formula: W.I.N. -- What's Important Now? Use some of your precious time to figure out what's important in your life and you will win.

-- Harvey Mackay

taken from Jim Rohn's Weekly E-Zine 09282008

http://jimcollins.com/lab/hedgehog/p2.html

THE  HEDGEHOG CONCEPT

The essential strategic difference between the good-to-great and comparison companies lay in two fundamental distinctions. First, the good-to-great companies founded their strategies on deep understanding along three key dimensions—what we came to call the three circles.

Second, the good-to-great companies translated that understanding into a simple, crystalline concept that guided all their efforts—hence the term Hedgehog Concept.

More precisely, a Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles:

1. What you can be the best in the world at (and, equally important, what you cannot be the best in the world at). This discerning standard goes far beyond core competence. Just because you possess a core competence doesn’t necessarily mean you can be the best in the world at it. Conversely, what you can be the best at might not even be something in which you are currently engaged.

2. What drives your economic engine. All the good-to-great companies attained piercing insight into how to most effectively generate sustained and robust cash flow and profitability. In particular, they discovered the single denominator—profit per x—that had the greatest impact on their economics. (It would be cash flow per x in the social sector.)

3. What you are deeply passionate about. The good-to-great companies focused on those activities that ignited their passion. The idea here is not to stimulate passion but to discover what makes you passionate.

To quickly grasp the three circles, consider the following personal analogy. Suppose you were able to construct a work life that meets the following three tests. First, you are doing work for which you have a genetic or God-given talent, and perhaps you could become one of the best in the world in applying that talent. (“I feel I was just born to be doing this.”) Second, you are well paid for what you do. (“I get paid to do this? Am I dreaming?”) Third, you are doing work you are passionate about and absolutely love to do, enjoying the actual process for its own sake. (“I look forward to getting up and throwing myself into my daily work, and I really believe in what I'm doing.”)

If you could drive toward the intersection of these three circles and translate that intersection into a simple, crystalline concept that guided your life choices, then you’d have a Hedgehog Concept for yourself.

To have a fully developed Hedgehog Concept, you need all three circles. If you make a lot of money doing things at which you could never be the best, you’ll only build a successful company, not a great one. If you become the best at something, you’ll never remain on top if you don't have intrinsic passion for what you are doing. Finally, you can be passionate all you want, but if you can’t be the best at it or it doesn’t make economic sense, then you might have a lot of fun, but you won’t produce great results.

50 inspiring and truthful quotations about your mother and about being a mom yourself...




"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother."
-- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.
They have clung to me all my life."
-- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world.
It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path."
-- Agatha Christie

"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother."
-- Albert Einstein

"By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off.
They are the great vacationless class."
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own."
-- Aristotle

"Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like."
-- Arnold Bennett

"A mother is she who can take the place of all others but
whose place no one else can take."
-- Cardinal Mermillod

"A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary."
-- Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"I really learned it all from mothers."
-- Dr. Benjamin Spock

"If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time,
the insane asylum would be filled with mothers."
-- Edgar Watson Howe

"My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother.
I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."
-- George Washington (1732-1799)

"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

"What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

"The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness."
-- Honore' de Balzac

"Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within hearsay of little children tends toward the formation of character."
-- Hosea Ballou

"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not."
-- James Joyce

"The best academy, a mother's knee."
-- James Russell Lowell

"The phrase "working mother" is redundant."
-- Jane Sellman

"God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers."
-- Jewish proverb

"Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process."
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"A boy's best friend is his mother."
-- Joseph Stefano

"Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes by dozens and hundreds.
Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole world."
-- Kate Douglas Wiggin

"Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother."
-- Lin Yutang

"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it."
-- Mark Twain

"Motherhood is like Albania-- you can't trust the descriptions in the books, you have to go there."
-- Marni Jackson

"We are not born all at once, but by bits.
The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit,
in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful.
Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth."
-- Mary Antin

"To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power."
-- Maya Angelou

"Over the years I have learned that motherhood is much like an austere religious order,
the joining of which obligates one to relinquish all claims to personal possessions."
-- Nancy Stahl

"Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; a mother's secret hope outlives them all."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1775-1817)



"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."
-- Oscar Wilde

"When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general.
If you become a monk you'll end up as the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso."
-- Pablo Picasso

"A mother's hardest to forgive. Life is the fruit she longs to hand you, Ripe on a plate. And while you live, Relentlessly she understands you."
-- Phyllis McGinley

"Men are what their mothers made them."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive."
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom.
People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally 'being lived.
' They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates, and society."
-- Stephen R. Covey

"Never say anything on the phone that you wouldn't want your mother to hear at your trial."
-- Sydney Biddle Barrows

"The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes one a mother—which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician."
-- Sydney J. Harris

"An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest."
-- Spanish proverb

"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."
-- Theodore Hesburgh

"A woman has two smiles that an angel might envy, the smile that accepts a lover before words are uttered,
and the smile that lights on the first born babe, and assures it of a mother's love."
-- Thomas C. Haliburton

"Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown.
In my heart it don't mean a thing."
-- Toni Morrison

"Children are the sum of what mothers contribute to their lives."
-- Unknown

"A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them."
-- Victor Hugo

"A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us when adversity takes the place of prosperity when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts."
--Washington Irving

"The only thing a lawyer won't question is the legitimacy of his mother."
-- W. C. Fields

"A man never sees all that his mother has been to him until it's too late to let her know that he sees it."
-- W. D. Howells

"Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children."
--William Makepeace Thackeray

"The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."
-- William Ross Wallace

The Key to Happiness
By: B.Tracy

Your ability to achieve your own happiness is the key measure of your success, of how well you are doing as a person.

You learn the key to happiness that has been the same through all of history. You learn how to dispel the two myths that may be holding you back and how to achieve more happiness in everything you do.

Dedicate Yourself to Your Best Talents
The key to happiness is this: dedicate yourself to the development of your natural talents and abilities by doing what you love to do, and doing it better and better in the service of a cause that is greater than yourself.

This is a big statement and a big commitment. Being happy requires that you define your life in your own terms and then throw your whole heart into living your life to the fullest. In a way, happiness requires that you be perfectly selfish in order to develop yourself to a point where you can be unselfish for the rest of your life.

Please Yourself First
In Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano is asked why he is so intensely individualistic and unconcerned with the opinions and judgments of others. He replies with these wonderful words: "I am what I am because early in life I decided that I would please at least myself in all things."

Your happiness likewise depends upon your ability to please at least yourself in all things. You can be happy only when you are living your life in the very best way possible. No one can define happiness for you. Only you know what makes you happy. Happiness is an inside job.

Your Happiness is Up to You
The biggest myth about happiness is when people say that it is not legitimate or correct for you to put your happiness ahead of everyone else's. Throughout my life, I've met people who have said that it is more important to make other people happy than it is to make yourself happy. This is nonsense.

The fact is that you can't give away to anyone else what you don't have for yourself. Just as you can't give money to the poor if you don't have any, you can't make someone else happy if you yourself are miserable.

The very best way to assure the happiness of others is to be happy yourself and then to share your happiness with them. Suffering and self-sacrifice merely depress and discourage other people. If you want to make others happy, start by living the kind of life and doing the kind of things that make you happy.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, define for yourself the activities that you really love and enjoy, at home and work, and then organize your life so you do more of them.

Second, believe in yourself and trust your own feelings. Then, please at least yourself in all things.

Third, determine what it is that you do that brings the most happiness to others and then organize your life so that you can do more of it.

Repost from:
http://www.imeem.com/hopefloats/blogs/2007/07/01/8Y53xTTs/the_key_to_happiness

The Law of Compensation
By: B. Tracy

You Get What You Give
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay, "Compensation," wrote that each person is compensated in like manner for that which he or she has contributed. The Law of Compensation is another restatement of the Law of Sowing and Reaping. It says that you will always be compensated for your efforts and for your contribution, whatever it is, however much or however little.

Increase Your Value
This Law of Compensation also says that you can never be compensated in the long term for more than you put in. The income you earn today is your compensation for what you have done in the past. If you want to increase your compensation, you must increase the value of your contribution.

Fill Your Mind With Success
Your mental attitude, your feelings of happiness and satisfaction, are also the result of the things that you have put into your own mind. If you fill your own mind with thoughts, visions and ideas of success, happiness and optimism, you will be compensated by those positive experiences in your daily activities.

Do More Than You're Paid For
Another corollary of the Law of Sowing and Reaping is what is sometimes called the, "Law of Overcompensation." This law says that great success comes from those who always make it a habit to put in more than they take out. They do more than they are paid for. They are always looking for opportunities to exceed expectations. And because they are always overcompensating, they are always being over rewarded with the esteem of their employers and customers and with the financial rewards that go along with their personal success.

Provide the Causes, Enjoy The Effects
One of your main responsibilities in life is to align yourself and your activities with Law of Cause and Effect (and its corollaries), accepting that it is an inexorable law that always works, whether anyone is looking or not. Your job is to institute the causes that are consistent with the effects that you want to enjoy in your life. When you do, you will realize and enjoy the rewards you desire.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, remind yourself regularly that your rewards will always be in direct proportion to your service to others.

Second, look for ways to go the extra mile, to use the Law of Overcompensation in everything you do.

This is the great secret of success.

Repost from:

http://www.imeem.com/hopefloats/blogs/2007/08/07/RZavV42L/the_law_of_compensation

by B. Tracy and Colin Rose

The more organized and systematically you deal with any problem, the more positive and creative you will be in solving it. Here is a 10-step method you can use to think systematically. With this method, you develop your creativity to genius levels.


1. Change your language from negative to positive. Instead of using the word "problem," use the word "situation," or call it a challenge or an opportunity. If a sale falls through, you can say something like "This is an interesting challenge. It's an opportunity for me to improve my sales effectiveness so this doesn't happen again in the future."


2. Define your situation or difficulty clearly. What exactly is the challenge you are facing? What is causing you the stress and anxiety? What is causing you to worry? Why are you unhappy? Write it out clearly in detail.


3. Ask, "What else is the problem?" Don't be satisfied with a superficial answer. Look for the root cause of the problem, rather than getting sidetracked by the symptom. Approach the problem from several different directions.


4. Ask yourself, "What are my minimum boundary conditions?" What must the solution accomplish? What ingredients must the solution contain? What would your ideal solution to this problem look like? Define your parameters clearly.


5. Pick the best solution by comparing your various possible solutions against your problem, on one hand, and your ideal solution, on the other. What is the best thing to do at this time under the circumstances?


6. Before you implement your decision, ask, "What's the worst possible thing that can happen if this decision doesn't work?" Before you make any expenditure of money or effort in trying to achieve your goal, you should evaluate what would happen if your decision were a complete failure.


7. Set measures on your decision. How will you know you are making progress? How will you measure success? How will you compare the success of this solution against the success of another solution? How will you define a success? Make it measurable, and then monitor it on a regular basis.


8. Accept complete responsibility for implementing the decision. Many of the most creative ideas never materialize because no one is specifically assigned the responsibility for carrying out the decision.


9. Set a deadline. A decision without a deadline is just a meaningless discussion. If it's a major decision and will take some time to implement, set a series of short-term deadlines and a schedule for reporting.

10. Take action. Get busy. Get going. Develop a sense of urgency. The faster you move in the direction of your clearly defined goals, the more creative you will be, the more energy you will have, the more you will learn and the faster you will develop your capacity to achieve even more in the future.
The world is full of creative individuals who have wonderful ideas, but almost all of them fall down when it comes to implementation. And this is where you can excel. The future belongs to the creative minority who cannot only think but also take action and put their ideas into effect.

Now, here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, take your biggest problem or worry situation today, and ask yourself,
"What exactly is the problem? What am I worrying about?"
Second, analyse your situation creatively and ask yourself, "What else is the problem?" Sometimes the real problem is not what you thought.
Third, make a decision - any decision. Assign responsibility or accept responsibility, and then take action on your ideas.

repost from:
http://www.imeem.com/shantiliu/blogs/2008/02/16/ov14GgId/10_steps_to_solving_any_problem

Great Quotes from Great Leaders – www.TheGreatQuotesMovie.com/

Benjamin Franklin

~an entrepreneur, an inventor, an author, a statesman

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

"Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning."

"Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste."

"Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today."

"Well done is better than well said."

 

Thomas Jefferson

~the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.

"The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first objective."

"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave."

"It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give happiness."

"Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching."

"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on."

 

Managing Oneself


Most people, especially highly gifted people, do not really know where they belong until they are well past their mid twenties.  By that time however, they should know the answers to the three questions:

What are my strenghts?
How do I perform?
What are my values?


And then they can and should decide where they belong.  Or rather should be able to decide where they do not belong.

~P.F.D.

Separate Yourself from the Complaining Crowd
You Can Create Your Own Luck

Chapter 10 from D.J. Trump's Never Give Up.


"Luck is when opportunity meets preparedness."

Complainers aren't "working themselves into luck."  If you want to be  lucky, prepare for something big.

Developing your talent requires work, and work creates luck.

Having this attitude toward success is a great way to set yourself on a  rewarding course for your life.

Complaining without doing anything about it, is actually detremental to  physical and mental well-being.  People are spending way too much time  harping on negative themes (blogging, opinion-gushing venues).  The  emphasis is out of balance, and the negative focus doesn't help the  situation.

Don't dwell so much on a problem that you've exhausted yourself before  you can even entertain a solution.  It just doesn't make sense.  It takes  brainpower and energy to think positively and creatively--and to see  creatively and positively.  Going negative is the easy way, the lazy way.

Use your brainpower to focus on positives and solutions, and your own  mindset will help create your own luck.

When faced with  big challenges, what will separate you from the  complaining crowd will be how you choose to look at your situation.  If  you believe you are in control of it--and you are--you will know exactly  who to look for when you need help: YOURSELF.  You could be your  greatest discovery yet for success, luck, power, and happiness.

Be mature enough to assume responsibility and know that the problem is  yours.  Know that it wouldn't do any good to blame other people.  That  would be a waste of time, and that's one kind of loss you wouldn't like.   Time is something that cannot be replaced.  If you find yourself slipping  into the blaming of others mode, get out of it quickly.

Give luck the chance it needs to lay itself out in your life.  No one can do it  for you.  As soon as you discover that luck is yours to create, you'll be  thinking and seeing things in a whole new way.

So work hard, have fun, and good luck.

~*~

Important lesson: Focus on the solution, not the problem.

"Adversity is a fact of Life.  Chances are that you will never wake up to an adversity-free day.  Accept this as a challenge-rather than a disappointment.  Be bigger than the problems..."


~DJT

~*~Wrong Thing~*~

"Always consider that it's possible you  might be doing the wrong thing, so that no matter how hard you work, it's just not going to happen.  Make sure you're doing what is right for you.  You have to love doing it.  Then be tenacious (not easily discouraged)."

                                                    -- Donald J. Trump

~*~ Mistakes ~*~

"The most important thing is not the fact that you made a mistake,
but that you realize your mistake and gain courage to fix your mistakes."

                                                   --author unknown


~*~ Code of Honor ~*~


~ In times of stress, the people involved are unable to negotiate their differences because there's no common code of honor or set of rules holding them together.

~ It isn't that people don't want to settle their differences.  The problem is: without rules and expectations mutually agreed upon up front,  they act on instinct, particularly when emotions are high.  Each does what he or she thinks is best, based upon his or her feelings at the time.  Decisions in this setting may not be the best.


~ It is a set of simple, powerful rules that govern the internal behavior of any team, organization, family, relationship, individual and even nation.

~ These rules determine how we behave toward one another within the team.

~They are its heart and spirit.

~ They are what people are willing to stand and depend -- and be accountable for

~It holds the team, family, or relationship together udner pressure.

~ It is common with all great teams.

~ It is repeated, practiced and drilled so many times in so many instances that it becomes unconsciously embedded in the heart of the members.

~ It builds trust, cohesion, and energy.

~ It is the invisible magic that shows up when pressure is high and challenges seem insurmountable.

~ It is a statement of WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU STAND FOR.

~ It defines you and your goal.


                                                   --The ABC's of Builiding a Business Team that Wins.
                                                      by Blair Singer - Sales Communication Specialist
                                                      www.RichDadAdvisor.com

"Being in darkness is all garbage and pain Luke.."
                                       ~Haley Scott to Lucas Scott (One Tree Hill S5 Finale)


It is a beautiful melancholy to experinece emotional pain.
When we reach the deepest part of it, there is nowhere to go but up.  That, is more beautiful.

Comment from an Inquirer blog.*

http://blogs.inquirer.net/moneysmarts/2008/05/20/7-rules-self-made-millionaires-live-by/#comment-76182

*updated

Taboo #5 Material Things. Are they good or not?

Having to study in a Catholic School for 16 years has taught me foundation, self-discipline, and compassion for others.

Are material things good or bad is among the taboos in my entire schooling life that were not openly discussed during classes. Finally, the great quest is over and i found the answer a few years after my Catholic education.

I have decided that being rich in my Spiritual Life is one aspect. I also have to fulfill being rich physically, mentally, and emotionally.

How to be Rich?

Taken from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey:

Physical ~ Exercise 30 minutes every other day. It will give you vitality and energy.

Mental ~ Maintain the 7 Habits. Review each day that your life is in harmony with your Long Term Mission, Vision, and Roles. Acquire knowledge as much as you can. Learn and improve yourself everyday. Spend time only for activities which are aligned to your Mission and Vision. Start saying NO to activities which will not help you achieve otherwise.

Spiritual ~ Renew your commitment to your well-developed value system and your own philosophy. Read important literature. Engage in spiritual activities providing leadership. Begin with end in mind. What do you want your epitaph to say? E.g. Here lies a man who served God and his country and loved his family.

Emotional ~ Think and approach Win-Win situations. Seek to understand, then be understood. Synergize. Get into creative problem solving and come up with a better psychological agreement.

It takes a great deal of self-discipline in staying focused. They say it’s not how you fall but how soon you get up and move on.

B. Tracy Quotes from www.woopidoo.com


"One quality of leaders and high achievers in every area seems to be a commitment to ongoing personal and professional development."

"You must master your time rather than becoming a slave to the constant flow of events and demands on your time. And you must organize your life to achieve balance, harmony, and inner peace."

"You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile."

"People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine."

"I believe through learning and application of what you learn, you can solve any problem, overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal that you can set for yourself."

"Your ability to negotiate, communicate, influence, and persuade others to do things is absolutely indispensable to everything you accomplish in life. The most effective men and women in every area are those who can quite competently organize the cooperation and assistance of other people toward the accomplishment of important goals and objectives."

"The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do."

"One of the marks of excellent people is that they never compare themselves with others. They only compare themselves with themselves and with their past accomplishments and future potential."

Doing The Right Things Right

The Two Sides of Level 5 Leadership

Professional Will	Personal Humility
Creates superb results, a clear catalyst in the transition from good to great.	Demonstrates a compelling modesty, shunning public adulation; never boastful.
Demonstrates an unwavering resolve to do whatever must be done to produce the best long-term results, no matter how difficult.	Acts with quiet, calm determination; relies principally on inspired standards, not inspiring charisma, to motivate.
Sets the standard of building an enduring great company; will settle for nothing less.	Channels ambition into the company, not the self; sets up successors for even greater success in the next generation.
Looks in the mirror, not out the window, to apportion responsibility for poor results, never blaming other people, external factors, or bad luck.	Looks out the window, not in the mirror, to apportion credit for the success of the company—to other people, external factors, and good luck.

The term Level 5 refers to the highest level in a hierarchy of executive capabilities that we identified in our research (see the diagram below). While you don’t need to move in sequence from Level 1 to Level 5—it might be possible to fill in some of the lower levels later—fully developed Level 5 leaders embody all five layers of
the pyramid.

Read more about who has what it takes to reach the top of the pyramid. We can all learn by example.

www.jimcollins.com 

How to Set Expectations with Young Talent

By Chris Resto

When I received my first project assignment as a new hire at Gemini Consulting (now Capgemini), I was quite unhappy. My peers were assigned to the high-profile financial services and telecommunications industries, whereas I was “stuck” with a client in publishing. “How boring,” I thought. “How will this benefit my career?” The challenge my attitude and expectations posed to my manager back then is familiar to anyone who manages young talent. Although recent grads do want to contribute to the organization, they also want to make sure they are developing their skills and building their career paths right from the start. If they don’t believe there’s something in it for them, their performance may show it. The good news: A little care and education go a long way when a young employee makes snap judgments about an assignment, as I did, based on limited and superficial information. How my manager approached me is a model for other managers to follow: §          He detailed the learning opportunities the project offered. §          He adjusted my learning goals so that they included skills I didn’t even know I needed.   Identify what the project will teach As you would expect, my manager told me at the beginning of our project what his expectations were. But when I thought the meeting was over, he said, “Now, Chris, what are your expectations? What do you want to learn?” I was stunned—pleasantly so. I told him I worried that this project in publishing wouldn’t be as challenging as one in banking or telecom. He smiled, sensing that it was simply a matter of which industries seemed more glamorous to me on the surface. So he walked me through the specific tasks and responsibilities of the project. It turned out that it was quite complex, involving a parent company’s six business units in different locations. Completing the project would require navigating multiple complex culture conflicts in addition to making the data-driven business case for changing processes. By spelling out the specific challenges offered by the publishing project, my manager allowed me to see that it would give me ample opportunity to develop new skills and build my résumé.   Adjust new hires’ expectations and learning goals My manager then asked me what I wanted to learn. In response to my answer, he replied, “Your expectations are too low. Here, I’ll help you think of some more because we want to make sure you get more out of this project.” It was then that I realized I was so naïve and didn’t know what I didn’t know—in itself a highly valuable lesson. He added these learning goals to the ones I had enumerated: §          Learn how to organize a large meeting. §          Learn how to facilitate a large meeting. §          Learn how to present to a group of people. who won’t initially be open to your message His thoroughness in describing the additional skills I could gain from the assignment sent me the strong message that he cared about my career. Since I have been running the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, a professional development and internship program for sophomores, I have seen other great managers adjust their new hires’ expectations and learning goals successfully. One manager at Johnson & Johnson is among the best. At the beginning of projects, he asks interns to write down their expectations and goals for the projects and for him as a manager. He asks them to list the skills they want to develop and anything they learned in school that they hope to apply. Then the manager does the same exercise separately. Finally, the manager and intern compare their results and work on compromises to expectations that don’t overlap. Year after year, this manager’s interns leave J&J saying it was an incredible experience. And the manager claims that his interns add tremendous value to his group. When setting expectations with young talent, ask for their input and spell out how their work will enhance their development and build their résumés. Your focus on their careers will make them feel more valued, and they will be motivated to create more value for your organization and for your clients. **** Chris Resto is the author of Recruit or Die: How Any Business Can Beat the Big Guys in the War for Young Talent (Portfolio, 2007) and the founding director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program.

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/02042008/perspective02.html

Level 5 Leadership

Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company.  It's not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest.  Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious - but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.


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Goals are broad; objectives are narrow.

Goals are general intentions; objectives are precise.

Goals are intangible; objectives are tangible.

Goals are abstract; objectives are concrete.

Goals can't be validated as is; objectives can be validated.