Involve people in decisions. You
ask them the questions leading
up to the ultimate question —
what are we doing well, what
are we not doing so well, do we
have the resources we need to
achieve the objective, what will
we do if the results are no better
in a period of time, what are the
options, what option would you
choose, what’s the reason?
I prefer not asking one question, and that’s, ‘What should we
do?’ Then they don’t tell me
what else they’re thinking about.
Many times, one of their other
options is one that they really
prefer but think you will not and
therefore don’t present it.
Let people make mistakes; let
them lose money from time to
time. You can be wrong, and
they can have a success with
respect to an idea that you consider worthless, and second is
the fact that they know they
have your confidence that could
cause them to come out with
other ideas, some of which
might be the game-changers,
and they won’t do that if you’re
going to be hypercritical of their
ideas and not give them the
freedom to implement them.
But there are exceptions. The
two exceptions are it’s ethically
inappropriate, and the risk is
too great. That’s not a metric
decision. It’s more of taking a
look at what could go wrong
and how much damage that
event would cause. If that event
would cause a catastrophic
problem for the company, it’s
unlikely that we should go forward in any circumstances.
Live your values. A leader has to
articulate the values, and he
has to do it on a consistent
basis. Those values rarely
should change. They should be
constants. Refer to them at a
time of decision-making, and
make sure you live up to them,
as well. If you don’t live up to
them, anything else you do
won’t matter.
It’s internal — how do you
make decisions, how do you
do the right things, how do
you want people to deal with
people and deal with situations. People use words all the
time, but unless you think
them through, they don’t have
the full meaning that they
could. Words like integrity.
What does that really mean? If
you give it some thought, that’s
helpful. It can be as simple as
working out what’s the right
thing to do and then go from
there to decide what we
should do. Always keep in
mind what the high road is —
always know that.
Look forward. You have to have
the attitude that you’re not
too interested in history —
you’re more interested in
going forward.
No one likes to change.
The only people who like to
change are people who like to
change others. It’s something
that we all have a problem
with, and very few of us
acknowledge it.
Be persistent in terms of
demanding it and rewarding
those who do. Rewards are
almost always monetary.
People are paid based upon
their results and the results of
the company, and we tell
them that.
HOW TO REACH: DiversiTech Inc., (678) 542-3600 or www.diversitech.com
