A Message From Howard
CEOs, Presidents and Business Owners:
Your business success is determined every single day. Business success doesn’t take place because of a good or even a bad marketplace. It takes place because of you. You’re the one that has worked through the difficulties and slogged through the challenges of your business. But one day something happens in your business that…
As I get older and more aware of everything around me, I find it harder and harder to find television programs and movies I really want to see. NBC use to have a promo tag for one of their viewing nights that read “must see TV”. But that doesn’t seem to apply to much on any of the networks or cable channels these days. It’s been my experience that most movies and television programs today don’t have interesting stories or characters with well written scripts. Instead, the writers and producers rely on special effects and cheap, predictable, overused story lines and dialogue. Humor has changed over the years and the jokes don’t seem as clever or as original any more either.
Even though I tend not to watch overdone violence in television programs or films, I never miss a Bruce Willis movie. Every once in a while, Bruce makes a clunker of a movie. But usually his stories are fun and the good guys always win such as in the Die Hard series. The plots aren’t all that different: Bruce is just minding his own business, going about life and before you know it, he is pulled into some desperate situation that only a hero can resolve. He should be listed in the yellow pages as, Bruce Willis: Save The World.
If you think about it, aren’t you the Bruce Willis of your business? At any given moment, an incredibly difficult or challenging situation can arise that takes creative thinking, determination and a great deal of will to solve. During these economic times, you the CEO, president or business owner, have needed to be more of a super hero than you’ve ever been.
It may not have been enough to just to have sales people. You may have had to go out and sell the products or services yourself. You may have had to make cold calls. You may be doing multi-tasking more than ever and wearing various hats of responsibility at your company… and working longer hours.
When you look back on these times, when the economy does recover (and it will), you’ll enjoy thinking about how you got into action, saved the day and made your company a better, more productive, profitable business. Maybe you didn’t save the world but you did save your world.
Three observations about business have impressed me as I have watched the Vancouver Olympics the past two weeks.
1) Athletes need to be more than just good at their sport to win. It’s not just a matter of getting on skis, riding a bobsled down the course at 90 mph or putting on a pair of skates and hitting the ice. Athletes truly have to excel, be talented and be one with their sport.
2) Even if the athletes are the best at what they do, they still have to train long and hard to get on the medals podium – especially to achieve Gold.
3) Not only do athletes have to be physically fit, they also have to be mentally tough to stand up under all the stress, demands and pressure put upon them when in the spotlight.
It’s the same with business.
If you really want to excel, you can’t just own the business. You have to BE the business.
You can’t just show up every day. You have to continually know what is going on in your industry – read about industry news in print and on the internet, read the Wall Street Journal and continually educate yourself in sales, marketing, motivation, technology, human resources, for example.
It’s does you absolutely no good to make a small fortune if you haven’t taken care of yourself and you’re sick and can’t spend the money that you’ve made.
Finally, you must be mentally tough. There will be days you will wish you were anywhere except your business. There is always the next mountain to climb and always a problem that seems overwhelming. But if you are mentally tough you work through whatever it takes to resolve whatever issues you are faced with.
So prepare yourself to be the best and win the gold medal of business – in other words, win the game of business. Get those profits you deserve for all your hard work.
I have observed that one of the problems we have with society today is that parents don’t teach respect and behavior that parents from eons past insisted their children learn. In no time at all those children grow up to be adults and parents. If they haven’t learned manners and respect, they don’t pass it along to their children. Therefore, we have the society we have today. Some of these lessons relate to life or to how to conduct business. But it extends even further within your business to the employee who answers the phone, the sales people, customer service representatives, the marketing staff and even the individuals who water the plants and clean the bathrooms.
Like many Americans, I have been watching and reading about the Vancouver Olympics. One of the most highly watched series during the Olympics is ice skating. There is usually some sort of drama associated with the Olympic skating events and this year isn’t any different.
Here are two extreme examples regarding behavior. In the recent men’s skating competition the American skater, Evan Lysacek, edged out the Russian skater and 2006 Olympic champion, Yevgeny Plushenko, by a small margin. Even though I am not an expert in skating, listening to the skating commentary from NBC’s Scott Hamilton (an Olympic, World and National champion himself) it was clear that although Plushenko skated well Lysacek’s program was more difficult and better executed and deserved to win. Unfortunately, Plushenko acted badly in interviews afterwards by allowing his ego to get in the way and showed the entire world he did not skate with the true spirit of the games in mind – which is simply to do your best, be your best and act as a representative of your country. When asked about Plushenko’s comments, Lysachek was quite gracious, praising the Russian, saying he had looked up to him as a role model in skating and Plushenko will always one of the best in the world. How impressive and refreshing to hear Lysachek speak so highly, so respectful of a world class competitor even though the competitor was really quite unprofessional with his statements.
The other example is from the ice dancing competition. The American team of Belbin and Agosto, Silver medalists in the 2006 Olympic Games, just missed the podium and a Bronze medal after what may have been their last competitive dance together. Belbin and Agosto, like Plushenko, are highly respected and recognized for what they have brought to the sport. Each has led the way for other future skaters with their overall excellence. When interviewed Belbin and Agosto, though reflective, had prepared for such a moment and felt the dance they performed was a fitting good-bye, had done their best and were satisfied with the results. They only had gracious words for the Russian team who took third place.
This is where momma’s advice was right on target. Momma would say: If you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all.
Good advice that extends to business. Never say anything bad about a competitor, a former employee or an associate. You never know when or where you will meet these people again. You may want to sell them a product. You may see them at a professional gathering. And the last thing you want is to have other business people or even customers/clients make judgments about you or your company because of your negative responses.
