The headline? Leroy Jethro Gibbs said that. Yep, THAT Gibbs. The one we know and love on NCIS.

Teachers. Business people. Creatives. Leaders. We all need a degree of smartness. And patience.

The world is full of smart people. It seems to me there are far more smart people than patient people. Fewer still are those who are smart and patient.

It’s an interesting intersection of qualities.

Wisdom is typically defined as the application of knowledge and experience. I doubt wisdom is possible without the two components that Gibbs said made up the DNA of a sniper.

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Great Leaders Wear Pink Shirts

Great leaders have shaved heads. And big ears. And graying goatees.

Some do. I’m not saying I’m one of them, of course. I hope to be a good leader, but perhaps like you – I’m a work in progress. Greatness is likely far beyond the scope of my abilities.

The horrors of Penn State display how leadership can falter. People considered the university president and the head football coach as great men – great leaders. But now, these men (and others) appear as something different. They are seen by most as men who failed. They didn’t do the right thing when faced with the opportunity. Turns out, they’re hypocrites.

One word is fundamental to leadership, influence.

In that sense, we’re all leaders. You influence somebody. You have an impact on everybody who knows you, interacts with you and even those who observe your life without your knowledge. There are people you observe and they have no idea you’re looking at them, listening to them or paying attention to them.

People are watching. They’re listening. Paying attention.

Leadership’s power is displayed by our actions – our behaviors – when nobody is looking. Or when we don’t think anybody is looking.

How’s your leadership? If you want to know, just closely examine how you behave when nobody is watching.

Do the right thing. Help the rest of us do the right thing. Influence us for good. Be a good example for us. Be a leader.

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I’m talking him off the ledge. He owns his own business. A business he started over 10 years ago. A business he now hates.

Well, he doesn’t hate the business, but he hates going to work. Every Sunday evening he begins dreading Monday morning.

“I don’t want to do this any more. I just want to pull the covers over my head and stay in bed.”

The toll is high. His family bickers constantly. His health isn’t terrific. He’s drinking a tad more than before. He can’t remember the last time he exercised. Or went to the doctor for a checkup.

He tells me this isn’t what he bargained for. I tell him, “This is exactly the life you bargained for.” Silence.

I thought he hung up on me, but he was just sitting quietly in stunned disbelief that life had gotten so out of control.

I sat quietly knowing he’s not alone. Saddened by the fact that I’m encountering too many small business owners who feel owned by their business instead of the other way around.

Jeffrey A. Landers wrote this book, “The Home Office From Hell Cure: Transform Your Underperforming, Time-Sucking Homebased Business Into A Runaway Success.”

Home offices can be from hell, but so can other offices. Small, medium and large businesses can be just as demon possessed as a homebased business. They need a cure. And like any other ailment, there’s not a single prescription because the illnesses are varied.

Don’t let your small business kill you. Or over-run your life. Today, I’d like to give you just a few simple, but powerful ideas to consider.

Hint: These powerful ideas have everything to do with YOU, not your business. It starts with YOU.

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“We appreciate the end result of our work. I appreciate just getting to do the work.”

Coach Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Steelers

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Are You Serious About Building Your Business? Click Play.

Let’s Start From The Beginning. Or The End.

Among the most important work of building any business are the following:

1. Getting what’s in your head documented so the gap between knowing and doing is closed. When principle players of a business don’t document what they know, the organization is unable to learn. Only learning organizations remain viable over time.

2. Getting systems built so products/services can be delivered with predictable success over and over. Some call it scale. Some call it sustainability. Whatever you call it, it’s urgent that every business build a work-flow that enables the delivery of the service to be excellent every single time. The exception, poor service, should be the exception – not the rule.

3. Once systems have become second nature, it’s time to consider automation – putting some activities on auto-pilot. This may involve lower cost labor executing activities previously done by more skilled people. It may involve using technology to perform functions previously done manually, giving the company more man hours for more profitable functions.

All of this boils down to a simple “easier-said-than-done” approach to business building:

If Then Systems

“IF” this happens, “THEN” here’s what our business does to respond.

Every business is nothing more than a series of requests. Daily our lives are driven by requests. Customers have requests. Prospects have requests. Partners have requests.

Businesses run into trouble when they aren’t able to effectively and efficiently handle all these requests. Every stress felt by a company stems from that company’s inability to properly handle all the requests put upon it. From cash flow, to lead generation, to making payroll – and every other challenge facing a business – they all can be fixed with an improvement to more consistently deliver superior value in answer to all the requests.

Among the big challenges facing most small businesses is this one, “How can we say YES to this request?” Unfortunately, too many small business owners don’t consider a more important question, “SHOULD we say YES to this request?”

It really starts with making decisions that put the business in the best possible position for success. Success is based on financial results, number of happy customers, how many customers will recommend our company, happy employees and ongoing innovation and creativity.

The Solution Is Also The Problem

The problem is TLC. The solution is also TLC.

Time • Logistics • Communication

Time is an obvious problem. We don’t have enough of it. Ever.

Logistics is a multi-faceted problem. It’s who and where, all at the same time. Who has it. Where are they at with it. Simply put, logistics is work-flow. It’s how we get things done. We do it with the help of other people.

Communication is internal and external. It’s how we talk, what we say, when we say it and it involves every aspect of our communication with people inside the company, or those directly involved in our work (suppliers, vendors, partners, anybody who is associated with our serving customers). It’s also how we communicate (in all forms) with our prospects and customers.

The elephant in the room is one word: EMOTION.

Every element of TLC evokes emotions, either positive (calming, excitement, intrigue, comfort, happiness) or negative (fear, dread, anxiety, depression, unhappiness).

It’s important that a business establish basic guidelines and expections to build a TLC model that is effective in building the most successful business possible.

An Obvious Truth: If the business suffers, everybody associated with that business suffers. If a business thrives, everybody associated with that business benefits.

That means every decision must be congruent with the purpose of the business. So we begin with the end in view, “What is the purpose of your business?”

Money. Well, of course. But that’s an outcome – a hopeful outcome – of what a business does. The purpose is something deeper, more important. “There’s something more important than money?” Sure.

Time is more important. You can earn more money, but you can’t create more time.

And this first component of TLC presses on us how the purpose of our business has to be focused on one big question, “How do you want to spend your days?”

That is, what do you want to do with your time? Specifically, what do you want to do with your working time?

Every successful person – in our case, business people – must determine how they’d like to spend their time. Every day people get up and DO something. It’s that something we DO that determines our daily purpose. It establishes who we are. It defines us.

We can fight against it. We can even deny it. But when all is said and done, it’s what’s done that defines who we are – and what kind of business we build.

If everything is important, nothing is important.

Be congruent.

Establishing priorities is one of the most important decisions facing every leader. It forms the foundation of the entire business. Openly and subtly it tells everybody what we value most.

Business owners often make the mistake of making everything important. They love the mantra, “Sweat the details.” Or, “the devil is in the details.” It’s a cowardly way of justifying their poor management style.

The autocrat – a person with absolute, singular authority – rules with an iron fist. Unmoved by input from anybody else, he’s the center of his own universe. Every good idea must be his own, otherwise, it’s a bad idea. Every job in the company is best performed by him, but he only suffers the foolishness of others because he’s too important to do every job. He’s not too important to be the backseat driver behind every decision and every action taken by others.

Over time – sooner than later – the business realizes that there really are no priorities because every single thing is important. The owner’s ire is provoked by everything. People are unable to get a read on what really matters because it all seems to matter.

The practical reality is we all know things have a value based on their relation to other things. Some things are more important than other things. It’s important that people in a company draw the proper conclusion. That is, they must quickly learn what matters most. Leadership provides that answer with the establishment of priorities.

Congruency. Have you ever seen somebody in a place where you didn’t expect them? Sure, we’ve all done that. Perhaps we’re accustomed to seeing a person who waits on us regularly at our favorite eating joint. One evening we go out to attend a concert. We see somebody who looks familiar, but we’re unable to place them. They approach us and all of sudden it dawns on us who they are. Why did it take us so long to recognize them? Because in this moment of time, our congruency meter is thrown off by the context of this concert. In the restaurant setting we have no problem recognizing them. That’s congruency. It’s how we all make sense of the world.

It’s also among the many components that explains why the abused wife stays with the abusive husband. He says he loves her…after he’s beaten the crap out of her. He says one thing and does something different. Incongruities confuse her. She must make sense of it somehow. So, over time, she convinces herself his words mean more than his actions. “He just loses control sometimes,” she might say. Or, “I shouldn’t provoke him.” She has to make sense of her world in any way she can. And she does.

Employees and other people associated with our business do the same thing. They must make sense of things. When ownership says one thing, but does something different…or when ownership does one thing, then contradicts that with an opposite action…people naturally seek to make sense of it.

Being congruent speaks to every aspect of TLC. Our ability to be congruent with who we really are, what we really want and what we think is really most important – those send strong signals inside and outside the business. They mean everything to our business.

In the next show I’ll dive into the T of TLC, time.

Thanks for listening,

Leroy Jethro Gibbs (that’s him to the left) is a TV character on CBS’s hit show, NCIS. It’s one of my favorite shows.

Last night’s episode included a closing scene where we learn rule number 5. Gibbs is a man with rules.

Rule number 5 is, “Don’t waste good.”

Gibbs the leader utters rule 5 to a prospective hire, Anthony DiNozzo. Tony, of course, goes on to join NCIS and Gibbs’ team.

Gibbs is a great leader. He sees the future first. He sees in Tony (that’s him to the right) possibilities that Tony doesn’t yet see for himself. After telling Tony about rule number 5 Gibbs utters two words that make all the difference in Tony’s life.

“You’re good.”

It’s a game changing  phrase. For both men. It compels Tony to join NCIS. It gives Gibbs another good investigator on his team.

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week.

Today, May 4th is Teacher Appreciation Day!

Today I want to share some ideas, thoughts and perspectives on not wasting good in our own lives, and in helping students prevent wasting good in their lives, too. It’s a powerful work. It’s high value work. Congratulations to all the teachers who do it.

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Some time ago I talked about the true meaning of entrepreneurship. For the better part of a year now plans have been underway to launch an enterprise whose customers are not students, but those who educate the students. The endeavor will get underway at Leaning Toward Wisdom, among the older domains I’ve owned. It’s a collaborative effort that I’m heading up with some important young people in my life – educators. Public school educators.

For the past 35 plus years I’ve managed and lead people in the business sector. Countless conversations with these young people – my children – led to my holding forth as I described the principles of leadership I’d found so necessary in the business world. Unbeknownst to me (a year or so ago), public education was (and still is) anemic in so many areas I had long taken for granted. As the dialogue continued to unfold the compelling need coupled with my strong desire to make the final chapter of my working life count for something other than increasing revenues or profits for a business – it became increasingly clear that the opportunity was bringing with it responsibility.

And now, it’s time to put my efforts where my mouth has been for the past year plus. Since you know I’m not going to shut up, it’s time to put up.

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Tom Rath‘s book, Vital Friends, was published in 2006. It was a profound book for me. I have re-read it a number of times because it’s about the importance of relationships and friendships.

I think about it more and more as I grow older. I consider the impact it has on our children. As parents. And teachers. It’s rather important, if not urgent.

Gentry (not his real name) was complaining to me how he hated his business life. It was ruining his personal life. He hadn’t considered how we really just have one life, intertwined into a variety of roles.

He started his business about 30 years ago. Those initial years were hard, but he put in the necessary work to build a business that put over eight figures on his net worth. Now he’s lamenting about all the people who have let him down through the years. The conversation drones on and on. I remain silent, knowing that it’s part of the process to let him fully express every frustration he’s got. Besides, what he says will be used against him later. For his own good.

Gentry has hired one manager after another. None have survived much longer than a couple of years. He’s never terminated any of them. They’ve simply taken advantage of his good graces, then moved on. Thankless scoundrels! Well, that’s how Gentry sees it. The reality is he’s impossible to work for – or with.

Through the years he’s been quick to hire people based on the stuff he’d rather not be stuck doing. He’s neglected to properly vet candidates to hire the one most capable of helping him build his business. Like a guy looking for a specific kind of girl, Gentry has always gone searching for the most compliant person. The person he could manipulate the easiest. They didn’t at first see it for what it was, but in time – they figured it out. That’s when they’d quit. Sometimes without notice. Just walk away…so they could escape Gentry. Every time he saw it as the absolute lowest form of loyalty and a gross betrayal.

Rinse and repeat. It’s how Gentry’s entire career went, as a manager or leader of people.

The tenacity and pigheadedness necessary to build a successful business had more often than not bit him in the butt when it came to creating a thriving organization. He often complained that people were his biggest headache.

I did my homework. I knew the history of Gentry’s business. I dug into the details. It was not easy. People were quite reluctant to talk or discuss Gentry’s leadership. Fear ran rampant throughout the company. Stories began to unfold of a man who would quickly and openly “dress people down.” But it wasn’t too hard to piece together what was happening.

People were intimidated and manipulated. All who were willing to talk expressed it in one way or another. Some were more vocal about it than others, but you could sense the despair in each of them.

Two different groups. Both miserable. For their own reasons. And I was left to wonder why people behave as they do, and why they tolerate the behavior they do.

Conclusion? Until people get fed up, nothing changes. For Gentry, or his employees. Both groups were miserable. Both were miserable because of the conduct of one man. Gentry’s misery was the result of his own poor management skills. His people were miserable because he was a terrible leader.

Day after day they all remained exactly where they were because they were not yet fed up with their situation. When employees got fed up, they simply walked away without notice. It was the safest course of action to avoid confrontation with Gentry. When Gentry got fed up he blew up, cussed a blue streak and humiliated somebody – or made the entire staff pay with extra work, added hours to a schedule or some other exercise of control over their lives.

Everybody resented how things were. It was quite clear to me that this was not a situation I could change. Only one man had that ability. Gentry. And I was not convinced he would. I certainly wasn’t confident that anything I’d say would overcome years of autocratic behavior.

I had nothing to lose by shelling it down. I just had to be careful so there’d be no dead bodies when I left. I had to protect the employees from Gentry’s wrath.

The message was simple, but complex. “Until you’re fed up with how things are, things will continue as they always have,” I told Gentry. “You’ve created the business you want. I have to conclude that it works for you – at some level.”

Yes, there was lots of prior conversation. Consulting is like being a bad reporter. You have to sometimes bury the lead. Otherwise you risk failure. Possibly a bloody nose.

Gentry bristled. “Listen, I’m here to help,” I told him. “The world is full of people who will tell you what you want to hear. You’ve managed to surround yourself with those people. If that worked, you wouldn’t need somebody like me. But unlike all these other people who have to consider their own welfare – and how things will go with you, their boss – I don’t have that burden. I’m here to help you get better results. That’s all I care about.”

I took out my white towel and began to wave it after a few sessions of straight-talk and a few glimmers of hope that Gentry would “see the light.” It’s a white hand towel I use to wipe clean whiteboards. At last, I’d had enough.

“I surrender to your determination that you’ve created exactly the life you want – which is why you’re never going to experience anything other than what you’ve got.”

“So, you’re gonna quit, too?” asked Gentry.

“No, I’m not quitting, you are. There’s simply nothing left here for me to do. You’re determined to have things your way. Nobody can help you. Until you’re fed up with how things are, things will continue as they have. You’ll keep feeling like you invest in people. People will continue to disappoint you. You’ll never build an organization that can work effectively because you micro-manage everything. And I rather suspect that’s exactly how you want it. You love being the dictator of your business. But it comes with a high price tag. So you moan and groan about how the minions are letting you down, but you’re all powerful around here. Only you have the power to change things.”

“I don’t agree with that at all. I’ve done everything I can to help these people. I’m into everything because these idiots can’t seem to do it right unless I’m involved. That’s exactly what I want to get away from. I just want competent people who will do the job right.”

You can’t fight delusion. You simply hope to help people see things clearly so they can find their way out of the maze. Sadly, the fact was, this business owner was not yet fed up with how things were – and didn’t seem likely to get fed up any time soon. I firmly, but respectfully worked hard to teach him that the things most needed in his company would likely only happen when he reached a point where he simply couldn’t stand it anymore. A point where he was fed up with how things were.

He wasn’t there yet. His current employees weren’t there yet. They would likely get their before he would. And they’d walk. Leaving him behind to feel reinforced in his sad belief that “these people” were ungrateful and full of betrayal.

Question: Are you fed up enough to make the changes necessary so your success can reach the next level?

When are you going to get so sick and tired of it that you actually do something about it?

I’m watching the NHL playoffs and the color commentator says this, “The more comfortable they (the players) are, the better they perform.”

When a team is down by a few goals you’ll regularly hear the announcers say something like this: “They (the losing team) just need to get one goal here so they can start to feel good about themselves, and get back into this game.”

Confidence. Momentum. Comfort. Feeling good about yourself.

These are important ingredients to being remarkable. Without them it’s impossible to become remarkable. It’s an art. One you must practice. One you must engage in daily.

Give today’s show a listen and find a way to incorporate these things into your life. Equally important, find ways to incorporate these into the lives of others. Serving others is a great way to build your own comfort and confidence. Try it.

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