Tag: Book

If You Need Inspiring Words, Don’t Do It

Be so clear about the organizational vibrancy you want to architect, build, and grow that nothing can extinguish your fire.

Burn the ships.

If what you’re doing doesn’t make our world better, you’ll know it because you’ll keep hitting your snooze button.

And if hitting the snooze button is your modus operandi (yes, it’s criminal), no amount of inspirational quotes and anecdotes will ever move the needle.

Positive, uplifting quotes are wonderful. They give us the same warm and fuzzy feeling a shot of whiskey provides to an alcoholic. But you’ll never see anyone world-class doing shots before they do important, inspiring work.

Our goal is to literally jump out of bed at the first chiming of our morning ringtone and welcome the brand new day like we’re welcoming the most important day of our life.

Is boldness genius?

You could Google it to research who said it (like it even matters), or you could say it and get to work – like you mean it (which matters more than anything).

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This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

Once Upon A Time: Chain Of Excellence Prologue

In a world full of cookie cutters, Walt Disney was a craftsman.

In a world full of complexity, Disney works hard to simplify its key, repeatable messages.

We live in a world where every answer is a click away, and yet common sense isn’t so common.

Here’s common sense at it’s finest:

Leaders impact the employee experience; employees impact the customer experience; customers affect the financial experience; creativity is the DNA for continuous improvement at every stage.

Disney’s Business Chain of Excellence: Leaders -> Employees -> Customers -> Business Loyalty -> Creativity & Innovation.

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This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

Business Excellence Next Steps Activity

Strike while the iron is hot. Iron is easily malleable when hot, and impossible to shape when not. 

Now (yes, right now) is the time to write down some important, top-of-mind business excellence thoughts.

Make a few lists and don’t fuss over minute details – this is high-level, very rough-draft thinking. Have fun, and don’t over-analyze. This should be quick:

Who (whom should you involve):

What (what needs to be done):

Where (where will the work occur):

When (when will the work happen):

How (how will the work be accomplished):

Why (why is this important; what’s to be gained by doing it, what’s to be lost by doing nothing):

How’d that feel?

Have you perceived what’s happened in the past few minutes?

You’ve just started planting, on paper, the seeds of intentional business excellence behavior that will facilitate the slow and steady path forward to business excellence transformation.

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This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

Disconnect From Hope And Enthusiasm

Hope is a great strategy, but a poor tactic.

Actions speak louder than thoughts and words.

We judge ourselves on our intentions, others judge us on our behaviors.

That last sentence is the single most important personal leadership insight in this book.

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This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

The Best Business Excellence Analogy I Can Make

You improve one of the five Organizational Vibrancy pillars, the other four benefit.

You neglect one of the five Organizational Vibrancy pillars, the other four suffer.

Now, improve two. Or improve three. What if you improve four? The fifth pillar stands no chance at remaining average.

Now neglect two. Yikes! Or neglect three. What if you neglect four? The fifth pillar literally becomes invisible, a non-entity.

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This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.