Aug 29
2009

In the book “What They Don’t Teach You in the Harvard Business School”, Mark McCormack tells a study conducted on students in the 1979 Harvard MBA program. In that year, the students were asked, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” Only three percent of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13 percent had goals, but they were not in writing; and a whopping 84 percent had no specific goals at all.

Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings, while somewhat predictable, were nonetheless astonishing. The 13 percent of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. And what about the three percent who had clear, written goals? They were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.

In spite of such proof of success, most people don’t have clear, measurable, time-bounded goals that they work toward.



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Aug 26
2009

A famous study, done on a Harvard graduating class found that the 5% of that class who had a written plan for their life had success greater than the sum of the success of the other 95%. Now, you’d not be unreasonable to ask why the other 95% wasn’t taught to plan. I can speak to that issue – from personal experience. I spent the first 30 years of my working life in jobs where “planning” was what I did. And I can say with all due humbility (if that’s a word?) that I was better than good at it. But no one, in college or at work, every even broached the idea of a life plan. I had a plan of how to work the system in the company I started with. That plan went well I got every promotion that was available and I managed things so that more were available to me that to most people. But the company, very carefully, did not expose me to opportunities outside the box. I don’t blame them for that. They had a “position” that they needed filled and the person filling that position needed to be willing to work for what that position was worth to the company. It wouldn’t do for the person to get any ideas!

I got an offer to go with a competitor for a lot more money but the carefully crafted golden handcuffs caused me to pass it up. If I’d known how to plan, I’d have known how to evaluate the opportunity vs what I had. As it was, the decision was made on emotion – fear of the unknown.

If you don’t have a plan for your life which addresses your spiritual, family, career and physical needs and if you don’t update it regularly, you will come to the end of your life with a lot of coulda, should, woulda’s.



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Aug 23
2009

Personal development is, in the end, what it’s all about.  Jim Rohn has said for years “Work harder on yourself than on your job”.  Your worth, in the marketplace, depends on your ability to deliver value.

“OK,”, you say “what does that mean?  What parts of me do I need to develop?”.  Well, the short answer is “all of them”.  However, that’s kind of daunting and also not very efficient.  We’ve all heard, in church, “be more like Jesus”.  That statement is the key – both in the literal sense and as a principle.

Let’s talk about the principle and leave the other for church – the principle is “Find someone who is successful, in your field, and work to be more like them”.  This is called modeling – as in “model yourself after …”.   An example, if your goal is to be successful in real-estate, you might study Donald Trump.  If your field is finance, Steve Forbes.

So what’s the catch?  Wellllll, there’s two parts to the above:

  1. Pick a model
  2. work to be like that model.

But, each of those two parts has some parts.

It looks like this:

  • Pick a field
    • Pick a model
    • Work to be like the model
      • Find information
      • Get mentoring

Notice that “Pick a field” comes first – see Dreams and Goals and Plans – if you didn’t read those parts first.

Let’s assume that you’ve got a dream and a plan, Now you pick someone or some someones (it doesn’t have to be one) to model.  “Right!” you say, “I just walk into Donald Trump’s office, and say ‘Don! Baby! Be my mentor’”.  Well yes, in a sense.

Many, many of the true models in the world are accessible.  They want to be accessible.  Some, because they want to give back.  Some, because they want to be idols.  If motives matter to you, be sure you understand them.  The access is generally free or cheap.  There are some high-dollar coaching programs but you can start for the price of a library card or an internet connection.

There’s one thing to understand before beginning a search for a mentor / model – the most important attributes and skills are common to all fields and to understand and internalize the field-unique skills you must gain these common (actually very un-common) skills first.  What are these skills?

They are “people skills” and personal integrity – see “Jesus” above.  If you haven’t got these qualities, no amount of coaching or studying will make you successful.

There are some excellent resources for understanding your skills.

So, here’s two lists of resources – Personal Skills and Business Skills



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Aug 16
2009

If the corporate world is, indeed, moving in the direction of less and less security and “benefits”, then what are the options?
There’s an old saying “If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting”. The implication being that if you want better, you need to get better. Unfortunately, it’s not even that good any more. Time was, you could keep your head down, put up with the crap and “wait for 30″. Ask the folks at GM and Chrysler how that’s working for them!

Today, the nearest to that is getting hired by a temp agency and hoping they’ll keep you “placed”. How does a lifetime of entry-level pay, no benefits and no security sound?

In “Alice in Wonderland”, Alice is trying to decide:

…
Alice: Oh, no, no. I was just wondering if you could help me find my way.
Cheshire Cat: Well that depends on where you want to get to.
Alice: Oh, it really doesn’t matter, as long as…
Cheshire Cat: Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go.
…

Perhaps, a more structured approach is called for. My personal experience, and that of many others I’ve known and read of, is that the place to start is with your dreams and then begin to think about plans. Oh, by the way, Goals come between Dreams and Plans

OK, you’ve decided to do – something. Scary, isn’t it? Odds are you need some new skills.

First, realize that the road you are starting down has been travelled by thousands or millions of others. People who’ve suffered as you have and have said “ENOUGH!”. You don’t know it yet, but those people think well of you for having decided to make a change. They know how hard it was for you because they did it too! They want to help you. They teach, they coach, they write books, they make videos, they do everything they can think of to reach out to people like you.

These new skills fall into two broad categories:

Can you do what you’ve decided on by yourself? Probably not! And, it’s way more fun and way less scary with help. Where do you find help? Re-read Chapter 10 of “Think and Grow Rich” by Napolean Hill. Oh, you haven’t read “Think and Grow Rich”? You don’t mean to tell me that your wonderful government school didn’t include this most basic resource in your curriculum? Well, Chapter 10 is about creating what Mr Hill calls a “Master Mind”. You can think of this group of people as your “board of directors”. These are the people that advise you, tell you what you don’t want to hear, cheer you on, listen to you bitch, … When you have truly decided to do, to be something better, you will have no problem finding such a group. Places to start include:

  • Church
  • Civic Organizations
  • Coaches / Mentors



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Aug 14
2009

The rate of change in business is ever-increasing.

Think about the recent announcement of “virtual automobile company”. This company designed their new cars using contract labor rented from a competitor with a temporary surplus of people. They will assemble their cars using time rented on robot assembly lines. These lines can change from building refrigerators to cars to lawn-mowers to … in a few hours and they have people only to monitor the computers, unload the raw materials and load the finished products.

I have friends who’s career is based on a factory which builds a particular aircraft. What happens to that idea when each aircraft is built by the robot factory which has spare capacity that week?

Another thought, “printing” parts – machines, based on the idea of an ink-jet printer, are begining to print parts that once required a skilled craftsman. AND, each part in a series may be different, with no more trouble than an ink-jet prints a different picture on each piece of paper.

I have friends who’s career is based on the idea that “things” are made somewhere and must be moved to some-other-where. What happens to that idea when a lawn-mower can be “downloaded” as easily as an mp3?

Think about “wiMax” – wiFi on steroids – a single tower covers a VHF-TV-like area and penetrates buildings and trees. Will wifi survive? Yes, but only for security issues. Will cable-net and DSL survive? No, because they can’t compete on price or usability. Even now, with wiMax in it’s infancy, 6gb home plus unlimited data for a laptop is less than either cable or DSL.

Who do you know who’s job depends on cable-net or DSL?

How many people do you know who still have landline phones? How many fewer is it than last year? How many have gone to VOIP? To cell only?

Can old-style phone companies survive, the the massive burden of wired infrastructure, ever decreasing subscriber base and no DSL to generate cash?

Companies have always had to re-invent themselves. In every industry when a seismic event occurs, some companies will die(either quickly or slowly), some will thrive and some new ones will pop-up. In every case, the new or surviving companies will need fewer people.



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