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Today is as good a day as any to simplify the name of the podcast. The focus is still aimed at helping leaders, particularly small business owners, but let’s just go by “Daily Brief” shall we? It’s easier to say. And to remember. The Grow Great Daily Brief. Proof that I’m embracing minimalism and simplicity in my own life. I’m not just preaching at you. 😉 

Let’s talk about caring. And I’m not talking about caring about how much money you make, or how successful your enterprise is…or the dozens of other things you care about. I’m talking about caring about people. Firstly, the people you work with. Teammates. Associates. People inside your organization. Secondly, the people who buy from you. Customers. Clients. 

Employees Come First

Lots of business owners and leaders give it lip service. As usual, talk is cheap. 

The other day I’m reminiscing with a leader confess that he felt he’d been doing a great job. The team was performing well. He felt good about himself as a leader. Until the higher up’s had a 360 assessment done. It revealed his team couldn’t stand him. They found him pompous, unapproachable and out of touch. He sensed none of those things. The news sent him reeling, questioning his every move. 

He was a smart guy. And had a degree of wisdom, too. So he used the information as an opportunity to gain some clarity about himself. Others might have resented the information or the people who delivered it. They may have disagreed and dismissed it. Thankfully, he didn’t do that. He decided instead to accept it as the viewpoint of people on his team. People who worked with him. They’d say they worked “for” him.

Emphasis had always been on the team hitting their goals. The performance was the deal and mostly, the team achieved. Each one of them (seven of them) would readily project how much more successful they could have been if their boss was more compassionate and caring. About them, and about their customers. But he wasn’t. Well, he hadn’t been.

About 6 months went by, prompted by a meeting he held with the team. During that meeting (conducted with some serious coaching to help him do it well) he opened up with his team like never before. He thanked them for their feedback and apologized. He listened. He took notes. Then he committed to them, and to himself, that he would do better. 

He did do better! Regular meetings with regular feedback provoked him to read books he’d never read before. He found himself having conversations with his team members that he never thought possible before. In fact, he wouldn’t have considered having them in the past. Now, they’re crucial conversations that he can’t fathom living without. 

This leader went from being an autocrat to a leader. He did it because he cared enough about his own career to be open enough to care about what his team was thinking and feeling. He’ll be the first to tell you, he had to swallow his perceptions that he was all that, and he had to make himself believe that the feedback of the team members was valid, at least from their viewpoint. Another 360 performed almost a year later wasn’t surprising. He was fully prepared for the results because he already knew how his team felt. “A week never ends without me knowing,” he says. Why? Because he cares. 

Clients Are Next

Thousands of working lunches and dinners with a variety of business acquaintances – sometimes prospects, sometimes customers, sometimes suppliers – will show you how nice people are. We meet at a nice restaurant with white cloth table settings and multiple wait staff per table. Not my kind of place, but it happens. It’s one of those dinners where folks are intent on one-upping each other. I watch. And listen. Smiling inside. Quite often outside, too. I always find it entertaining to watch grown people engage in popularity contests over a meal like a bunch of high schoolers. 

One guy is particularly brash. He’s the guy who dominates every conversation with some opinion. Sports, weather, politics, the economy…no topic is too expansive for him. He’s got an opinion about it. And it’s coming in hot and strong. 

From the get-go, he’s curt with the restaurant staff. It’s evident he’s going to behave with a “you bet you will” attitude. Constant demands. Never once a “thank you” or a “please.” Tossing out directives and commands, not requests. I’m his guest, along with the rest of the group. But by the time our water glasses were first filled I knew this was a guy who didn’t care about anybody including his customers. Like others at the table, I was thinking, “If he’ll behave this way toward these people doing their best to wait on him, then he’ll behave this way toward me, too.” 

Which is why employees are first. A leader who treats employees poorly, or without regard, will not treat customers well. They may say they will, but they’re liars. 

Too many business owners and leaders behave transactionally toward their customers. The customers pay a specific amount of money, which warrants decent (not extraordinary or dazzling) care. But the new wears off quickly and the owner moves on to hunt the next customer, treating their business like a never-ending series of one-night-stands. 

If you can’t or won’t fall in love with your customers, then you deserve to go out of business fast. And you will. 

The energy expended to practice contempt toward clients is often more than the energy required to love clients. Hatred, contempt or indifference burn humanity. They ruin people, mostly the people who practice them. But also the people to whom those feelings are directed. 

Love is the answer. It’s right. People who say YES to us and allow us to serve them deserve our love. Of all the providers they could select they chose us. It’s an honor. Highly valuable. 

Leaders – and I use that term loosely – who refuse to decide to honor employees and clients with care are tyrants. Not leaders. 

You Are Third, Which Makes You First

It’s right. Caring and compassionate leaders do what’s right all the time. 

It’s practical. There’s math involved. Simple arithmetic. Not calculus. Let’s say you have 60 employees and 2,000 clients. That’s 2,060 people who have a direct relationship with you. They each represent a variety of others indirectly connected. Suppose that number if four times the total, or 8,240. Then there’s the vast scope of influence of all those people. Think of the number of people who see various Instagram posts, Facebook posts, Linkedin shares or other social media reaches. You can’t count how many people are impacted by how you behave. And I don’t care if you’ve got Google search queries set…the reach of your influence for good or bad is extensive. People talk. And they repeat what they hear. 

Jeffrey Gitomer is a famous sales coach and author. I’ve followed Jeffrey for over 30 years. He’s long said that people can say one of three things about us. Something good. Something bad. Or nothing. And we get to choose what they say. He’s right. Sadly, too many business owners don’t choose wisely because they think caring about themselves is the path best taken. But you come third. And if you’ll decide to put yourself after your employees and clients, then you’ll start to win bigger. You’ll grow great!

You’re building an army that will fight against you or one that will fight for you. It’s up to you to build the one you most want. Stand apart like an arrogant dictator, like my dinner host, and you’ll be fighting alone. Stand with others, show them how much you care, and like the team leader who decided to wake up and change his ways, and you’ll be a wise General building a large army capable of winning in any market conditions. In our simple math solution, there could be you alongside 8,240 others who all know how much you care about them, or you can go it alone. You know which way is going to win. 

Care enough to put others ahead of yourself. It’s the path of leadership. It’s also the path toward achieving your wildest dreams. 

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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There’s a little documentary on Netflix called, “Long Shot.” Here’s how Sports Illustrated teased the release of the documentary.

The case dates back to August 2003. Los Angeles Dodgers fan Juan Catalan was arrested for the murder of 16-year-old Martha Puebla, who was fatally shot outside her home in Sun Valley, California. It was believed that she was killed due to her testimony in a gang murder case, where Catalan’s brother, Mario, was a co-defendant. Juan Catalan was arrested and awaited his trial for murder.

Catalan said that he was at a Los Angeles Dodgers game at the time of the drive-by shooting. Although he presented ticket stubs, it wasn’t enough. Catalan refused to take a lie detector test and a description of the shooter by an eyewitness didn’t really match. He needed to find a way to prove he was at the game.

Enter Larry David. Curb Your Enthusiasm was filming an episode at Dodger Stadium for the fourth season of the HBO show. Catalan remembered that he was caught on camera in the background while they were filming. The Dodgers helped put Catalan’s attorney in contact with the producers and they reviewed footage from the show. Catalan was caught on camera eating a hot dog and watching the game with his six-year-old daughter.

So many things had to go right. But one person, Catalan’s attorney, Todd Melnik, is pivotal. He had to pursue finding out about some camera crew that his client remembered seeing at the game. Catalan had no idea who they were, or what they were shooting. Melnik went to the Dodgers to find out. Then went to the Curb Your Enthusiasm folks to continue the pursuit. Relentless. Tenacious. 

What if he hadn’t been so dogged? Catalan may have been executed for a crime he didn’t commit. 

In episode 51, dated August 1, 2018, we asked the question, “What are you willing to do to survive or to grow great?” It’s the power of not quitting. 

I started thinking of accomplishments, and I don’t just mean notable accomplishments. Any achievement. Any success. 

Go ahead. Think of all of yours. Or somebody else’s. Anybody else’s. 

Could they have been done if you, or the people who got them done, had quit? 

While we’re often looking for brilliance or genius, success mostly boils down to the effort – doing the work – and refusing to stop until or unless we’re completely defeated. 

Street signs warn drivers that there’s no outlet, meaning this street isn’t a through street. In other words, it’s a dead end. That just means you can’t get there from here. You’ll have to find another way.

More often than we’d like to admit, we journey down streets that are “No Outlet.” In our life and our business, there are no signs. We have to travel down the path to find out. 

We set out to pursue something, we get one week in, or one year before we find out it’s a dead end. That doesn’t mean we quit. It just means this isn’t the path to get us there – “there” being success, or achieving the thing we’re chasing. 

Our pursuits are filled with dead ends. It’s fine. It helps us figure out the navigation to the success. Like rats in the maze, the cheese is still there somewhere. We just have to stay alive long enough to find it. 

Persistence. Determination. Resolve. 

Those are the traits that free wrongly imprisoned people. They’re also the traits that will free us from failure. 

Today is Monday. The Lord has blessed us with a new week. New opportunities to figure some things out. New opportunities to grow, improve and transform our lives and our businesses. 

The success you experience – all of it – will be determined by your resolve to not be denied. Move forward no matter what. No matter if you’re embarrassed, afraid or nervous. Just keep going down the path toward where you think success will be found, and if you’re wrong, pick a different path until you find it.  

I don’t care how educated you are. Or how talented you may be. Those are blessings, but they’re not the chief factors in helping you win this week. More important factors are going to be your resolve to hit a dead end and make adjustments to figure another way. Embrace the motto…

I may quit, but not today!

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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On Monday Today.com posted an article entitled, “How to avoid life’s biggest regrets, enjoy the best years: Advice from 90-year-olds.” A 34-year-old United Methodist minister, Lydia Sohn, not a researcher, wanted to know what older people regretted most. She wondered if people in their 90’s regretted not achieving more. What she discovered was their regrets had nothing to do with their careers, accomplishments or achievements. 

“The biggest regrets of the 90-somethings Sohn interviewed had very little to do with their careers, work or what they hadn’t achieved. Instead, the most pain came from failures in their relationships, particularly with their children.

They deeply regretted not having closer ties to their kids, seeing that their kids didn’t get along with each other as adults or feeling that they didn’t put them on the right path in life.”

Today is my son’s birthday. He’s our firstborn, making us parents in 1980. This is his family. He’s father to 3 of our grandkids, two boys, and a daughter. We also have a daughter who is not quite 2 years younger than him. But today isn’t her birthday. 😉 

As my son, Ryan worked in retail during high school and college. Dealing with the public was easy for him. He went on to earn an undergraduate and graduate degree, spending about a decade in public education, mostly as an administrator, before joining the ranks of entrepreneurship. Today, he owns and operates a successful home inspection business in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area – TruVision Property Inspections. 

Knowing this week was the week of his birthday, I read the Today.com article with greater interest. I’m not yet in my 90’s, but I am a father and a grandfather. 

“They also wished they had taken more risks to be more loving — both in being more open about their feelings for new people and being more affectionate with those already in their lives. The wished they’d listened better, had been more empathetic and more considerate, and spent more time with people they loved, she noted.”

Sohn kept discovering insights she didn’t quite expect. 

“The elders’ answers here were a surprise to Sohn, who had read about the “U-bend” theory of happiness. The research found people’s psychological well-being generally dipped in their 30s, reached a bottom in their mid-40s, and then rebounded after 50.

But the 90-somethings she interviewed contradicted those findings. They reported being the happiest from their late 20s to their mid-40s, when their children were still at home, their spouses were alive and the family lived together.”

The article continues…

“These are definitely the most stressful times in my life… Weren’t those the most stressful years [for you]?” she asked the elders. Yes, they told her: “It’s stressful and chaotic, but so wonderful and fulfilling.”

The lesson here seems to be: Enjoy the chaos of right now, Sohn said. Yes, babies are fussy, children take over your life, teens are moody, the commute is taxing, the days are hectic, work is crazy and free time seems to be non-existent — but savor every minute. People measure happiness differently when they assess themselves in the moment than when they think about life retrospectively, Sohn said.”

I care about your business. But not more than I care about YOU. You care about your business. But not more than your family. I hope that’s true. If it’s not true, then step back this weekend and take a closer look at your life. This week I’ve intentionally focused more on you – the whole YOU. 

You matter! The people in your life matter, especially your family. Don’t spend all your time reaching for another level of financial success only to regret that you didn’t love your kids enough to serve them well. Or to regret that you blew up a marriage due to neglect or bad behavior. 

I’ve failed at many things in my life. I was not a perfect father. I’m not a perfect husband. But I put in the work with honest intentions. I made sure the people in my life knew I loved them. I said it often and demonstrated it. Whatever business success or failure I’ve had, nothing makes me more proud (or feeling more blessed) than having children who love me and who are willing to be loved by me. And let’s not forget their mother, my wife of 40 years and the love of my life. 

One wife. Two children. Two in-law children. Five grandchildren. Ten people who make up my tribe. Ten people who matter more than any enterprise ever could. Ten people who drive me daily to avoid having the regrets the 90-year-olds expressed. Let’s all work harder to avoid these regrets.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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Selfishness is not a leadership trait. But some other “self” traits are very much necessary.

• Self-awareness
• Self-confidence
• Self-control
• Self-help

What do you think of when you hear the term “self-help?” I think of all the hours spent in brick and mortar bookstores through the years, browsing through that section called, “SELF-HELP.” Whatever you think of, there may be one thing many people get wrong. Self-help doesn’t mean we have to go it alone. It just means it’s our choice, our decision and we have to do the heavy lifting. Nobody forces us to engage in self-help. 

Narcissism isn’t a leadership trait. Or overpowering ego. Or vanity. Many people in positions of authority are all of these things, but they’re not leaders. They’re just in charge. Sadly. 

Let’s think together about three area where we can help ourselves as leaders. I mentioned them already in that list above. The first 3 are really the sum of self-help: self-awareness, self-confidence, and self-control. Before we can serve others we have to be willing to serve ourselves. Not to indulge in self-centeredness but to pursue our own growth, improvement, and transformation.

Maybe there’s too fine a line for some between self-help and self-indulgence, but that’s why self-awareness is first on my list. The ancient Greek maxim says it best, “Know thyself.” It’s among the hardest work you’ll ever do though. First, you have to know, but then you have to accept. 

The real game changer for all of us is knowing what we’re really good at. Your strength is in the thing you do really well (talent) that comes naturally to you (which means, it’s not difficult for you). Just because it comes easily to you, there’s the challenge to discount it though because culture tells us that everything is hard. Watch Keith Richards or Mark Knopfler play the guitar. They’re talented and it’s easy for them. Thankfully, they don’t discount it so they earn millions playing music. To be fair, they’re good at it, too – so people are willing to pay for it.

What do you know about yourself? What do you accept about yourself? Two very different questions. Which is why so many bosses are deluded. They don’t know themselves accurately. And if they do, they may not be willing to accept the truth. You’ve seen it before. The person who thinks they’re good at something that everybody knows isn’t a strong suit for them. The Emperor has no clothes syndrome. 

Spend time learning more about yourself. You’ll never outgrow the benefits of self-awareness. Or the opportunities to learn more about yourself. You’re not static. You change. So you have to continue to study yourself. Your quest for improved, increased self-awareness should never stop.

I suspect more people struggle with the acceptance part of self-awareness. We’re tempted to want to be something more, something different. Driven by jealousy and envy we can quickly be dissatisfied with who we are. Sometimes we want to be somebody else, or at least have the strengths somebody else has. But we don’t. And here’s where we can get off track and end up in the ditch. It’ll really destroy our ideal opportunities to serve others and become the best leader possible. 

Self-confidence is vital to acceptance. Know that your leadership has nothing to do with mine, or anybody else’s. Sure, some leadership traits are common. Things like honesty, integrity, candor, encouragement and a host of other positive qualities. But stylistically, we’re all different. Don’t waste your time wanting to be, or trying to be, somebody you aren’t. Instead, accept who and what you are – we’re talking about your strong points and your weak points, those areas where you have natural talent versus those areas where you don’t. Lean hard into what you’re great at and stop worrying about everything else. 

Assessments can be terrific tools for the work. StrengthsFinder, Meyers-Briggs, DISC and a variety of others can be worthwhile to give you a better glimpse of who you are and what you’re best at. 

Others can be terrific resources to help, too. Have you ever wondered why what you see in the mirror looks different than photographs you see of yourself? We all have this image in our head – and it can often fool our eyes. We perceive ourselves in certain ways. Others perceive us differently. Sometimes we see the same things. Sometimes we don’t. Spotting and understanding those differences can really help us. It’s brave work that the best leaders crave. A deeper understanding of ourselves and discovering ways we can improve. The problem is, we need others to help us. That’s just one reason why I’m launching the first mastermind or peer advisory groups of business owners – The Peer Advantage by Bula Network. You want a safe, confidential and secure space where this personal work can happen. And when you find it, and learn to take advantage of it…it brings about an awareness you’d never have otherwise. Life changing. 

That depth of self-awareness and self-acceptance fosters increased self-confidence. You get more comfortable and confident in who you are, and what you are. You’re working to shore up the things you can, but mostly…you’re learning to really own the things that come easily and naturally for you. It’s that whole soar with your strengths kind of a thing. 

You find greater success when you stop giving energy and time to fool yourself and others. No longer driven to be something you’re not – and likely never will be – you put all your energy into being the best version of yourself. The work is more profitable and fun. And success begets success. Confidence builds. It’s a natural outgrowth of the work you’re putting in on yourself.

Your work escalates into greater self-control. Being your ideal best – following your natural abilities and personality – provides you opportunities more personal growth than you’ve ever experienced before. Depending on your commitment, you can improve your behavior because your thinking grows. Beliefs, especially your beliefs about yourself, drive your actions, which provide the results you get. Self-control hinges on your commitment to yourself first and your devotion to others. 

Think of the leaders in trouble and you’ll see leaders who didn’t do this work. Their failure to put in the work on themselves led to them neglecting self-control. Integrity, honesty and other virtues erode. Delusion fosters blind spots. It’s fully preventable if people would just devote themselves to the work on becoming the best people possible while pushing themselves to grow as leaders. 

As a leader, you’ve got plenty of people relying on you to be your best. Lots of eyes and ears are on you all the time. So you have to be in great touch with reality. Mostly the realities about yourself. If you’re not able to see yourself as you really are, how do you suppose you’ll see your leadership, your organization or others accurately? And how will you possibly be able to properly see your place in all of it?

With that level of blindness, you can’t possibly serve others as well as you can! That’s the great thing about this work. Put self-improvement at the forefront of your work and everything and everybody else benefits. When you’re willing to grow, improve and transform (things that aren’t always fun or pleasant in the moment), then you benefit the world around you. All of it. It can’t be helped. 

The best version of ourselves makes us better people. We become better husbands and wives. Better parents. Better bosses. Better able to help others grow, improve and transform. It has a compounding effect on the world. I want it for you. Your life has enough stress in it. Isn’t it time you made up your mind to give yourself to doing some work that is all upside? 

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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We don’t want to admit it, but sometimes we hide. Everybody does it. Sometimes. 

Some people do it often. I’ve even known people who appeared to do it all the time!

We don’t call it hiding. We’re just waiting for the right time to handle it. Something else came up that requires our immediate attention. Excuses.

Hesitation. Procrastination. Avoidance. It’s all the same thing as hiding. 

I was born in Oklahoma, what was once Indian territory. In fact, the county where I was born is Ponotoc County. The county was created at statehood from part of the Chickasaw Nation. Pontotoc is usually translated “cattail prairie” or “land of hanging grapes.” I remember cattails, but no hanging grapes. 

I can’t remember when I first heard the story of buffalo during thunderstorms, another trait of Oklahoma hence the name, “Tornado Alley.” It feels like one of those stories I’ve always known. After catching myself telling it to somebody a few years ago, I finally decided to fact check it to see if it was true. Sure enough, it is. 

Thunderstorms typically come up out of the west and move east. As the storm approaches the area there are cattle out in a field, and buffalo in an adjacent field. Which direction do you think each herd of animals travel once they sense the coming storm?

The cattle will travel east with the storm. But not the buffalo. For some reason they start charging toward the storm, traveling west. Question: which animals are in the storm the longest, the cattle or the buffalo? 

Yep, the buffalo get through the storm quicker because they’re going in the opposite direction of the storm, even though they’re heading directly into it. By traveling with the storm, the cattle are caught in the storm for who knows how long! 

The lesson is simple. We can run and hide like cattle and endure the agony of the storm longer…or we can be like buffalo, fearlessly going into the storm knowing that it’ll shorten our agony. Make sense, right? Then why don’t we do instinctively do it, like buffalo? Because we’re often more like chickens than buffalo. 

Hiding feels good. I guess the cattle feel good, thinking they’ll outrun the storm. Of course, they can’t. They end up being in the storm much, much longer than if they’d just stayed put. Shorter if they’d followed their buffalo brethren and dashed headlong into the storm. 

Here’s the best illustration of overthinking – which is largely the culprit for our hiding – that I’ve ever seen. A little boy is in the water, on his back, holding on for dear life onto a rope stretched across his chest. Crying and clearly worried, the little boy has no idea that if he’d just put his feet down he could stand up. Finally, a woman – presumably his mom – comes and shoves his feet down into the water, helping him stand up. Instantly, he stops crying because he realizes his fears aren’t going to be realized. 

So it is with our hiding. Our fears are mostly much worse than reality. Hiding prolongs the worry. But the agony has a higher price tag than that.

Hiding Robs Us

Thankfully I’ve never been subjected to a robbery or theft. I’ve been conned, which is sort of the same thing. That’s a story for another day. It doesn’t feel good. Being duped, or robbed. Hiding is self-perpetrated robbery. We do it to ourselves. That makes it even stupider. 

In the moment, it feels better. If we spend too much time thinking about it, we can rationalize it, too. Making it seem logical and right. 

Which is why speed is important. I wish I could convince myself and others that we can think it through and overcome our hiding, but it won’t work. The only remedy for hiding is to charge forward. Take action. It’s not about facing fear or overcoming fear. It more about just doing it in spite of our fear!

I used to focus a bit on the question, “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” I’d encourage myself and others to have the courage to answer the question. Usually, the answer isn’t all that bad, but what if it is. Like the litlte boy holding onto the rope, he might answer, “I’ll drown and die.” Which is why I don’t ask or answer that question too much anymore. 

Instead, just do something. I don’t even think what we do is all that important. The little boy could put his feet down while still holding onto the rope, but like us when we hide, he’s stuck.

Hiding robs us of taking action – which has all sorts of negative consequences – and it sticks us right where we are, which is why we’re hiding to begin with. Nothing good comes from it. We just endure the beating storm longer. 

Doing Anything Is Better Than Doing Nothing

Fear is why we hide. You may want me to encourage you to identify and face your fear. I’m not. Don’t waste your time. Trust me, I’m a lifelong dot connector. That means I can be very prone to overthink something. It’s not a stall tactic for me as much as it’s a congruency thing. I’m trying to fit things together so they make sense to me. So when a person says one thing, but act in ways contrary to what they say, I try to figure out what’s really going on. Empathy is my drive to understand. One side of empathy is dot connecting and making sense of things. It’s a super power. The flip side is trying to make sense of things that are senseless and don’t fit. Somethings are incongruent. So my super power of empathy becomes a curse and I’m the little boy holding onto the rope for dear life. 

The remedy is to do something. And the quicker, the better. 

Do The Thing You Most Dread

You’ve heard this before…because it’s smart. And wise. It’s also practical.

The thing you most dread is the thing giving you the urge to hide. To avoid. By doing the very thing you fear, or dread, you’re moving in the direction of the solution, like the buffalo. Maybe it won’t be exactly right, but you’ll figure it out. Once you’re moving you can adjust for where you’re getting it wrong. The more you adjust, the closer you get to getting it right. This is where our need for speed can serve us well. Get your first shot off. Just aim it toward the target, see how close you came to hitting the bull’s eye, then adjust before taking the second shot. Rinse and repeat. We never hit the target unless we pull the trigger though. 

Besides, by taking aim at what we dread, we get over it sooner. It’s a win-win. 

Right now you’re dreading something. Mel Robbins is a motivational speaker and author of the book, The 5 Second Rule. Her advice is solid. Count to 5 and do it.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Now start counting.

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Yesterday’s show was about our ongoing desire for more. And better. Today, let’s flip that idea on its head and talk about why less might make us happier. No, I’m not contradicting myself. Less is a path we should likely embrace more fully. 

I’m  a broken record in urging people to stop cheerleading that old trite maxim, “Everything is important.” It’s a lie. It presupposes that there are no priorities, which we all know is a lie. Some things are more important than others. 

If everything is important, then nothing is important.

Truth is, some things matter a lot. Other things don’t matter at all. And a ton of things fall somewhere in between. 

But when it comes to thinking about the magic of LESS, we can apply it to priorities, processes and most anything else. Let’s think together about just a few areas where less might make us happier, and more effective as leaders. 

The To-Do-List

I don’t use them. Never have. I’ve always prioritized on the fly, in real-time. I’m skilled at it because I’ve done it my entire life. I’m constantly adjusting things, measuring the urgency and importance. It looks like multi-tasking, but it’s really not. It’s just the opposite. It’s less. 

With today’s technology, there are so many things that can be handled in a few seconds or minutes. Let me give you an example of some things that have recently hit what would have made a traditional to-do-list. 

I do some volunteer work that has to do with my church work. A friend, and co-worker in the Faith who lives in Alabama – I’m in Dallas/Ft. Worth – was texting me late last Friday. We’ve got a Labor Day event here in DFW. I had an idea, asked him via text what he thought. He immediately texted me back, “That’d be great.” Within 5 minutes I had updated a website with the information and posted the same information on two different Facebook pages. Done.

Was it that important? Or urgent? No. But I was at my computer with all the tools I needed to execute it quickly, so I did. 

It would have taken me at least a minute to log it onto a to-do-list. Took me 5 minutes to complete it without logging it anywhere. 

And that’s how I operate. I’m not telling you how you should operate. I’m just telling you what has always worked for me. Yes, I’m practiced. Yes, I’m detail oriented. No, I’m not forgetful. To each his own. 

For me, and I hope for you, we can get more done if we can limit the irons in our fire. We’ve all got a fire going. And we don’t lack for irons. Some irons represent problems. Others, opportunities. 

Too many leaders feel the need to handle the irons. They dodge and perry, shooting quickly from one thing to another, to another. More, more, more. 

We’ve all got too much data coming at us, and we’ve got too many irons in the fire to handle them all simultaneously. Let me encourage you to figure out how you can incorporate LESS into your life so you can actually get MORE done. 

Push your attention and brain power onto one iron at a time. If an iron represents a problem, pick the one that needs fast attention (or it’ll get hotter). Pull it from the fire and get rid of it. Don’t put a bandage on it. Heal it. Forever, if possible. It may mean you do your part to heal it, then you pass it onto somebody else who can carry it the rest of the way. That’s great. Just get it done so you can forget about it. 

If an iron represents an opportunity, look for the irons that are short-term opportunities where execution can happen right away without complex decisions. Sometimes it’s simply us saying “Yes” to something. Or “No” to something. Why leave an iron of opportunity in the fire waiting on a quick decision from you? Handle it now and let your company be taking advantage. 

Complexity

Less is more. Work to squeeze the complexity out of your operation as much as possible. 

Some things aren’t simple or easy. They’re difficult, complicated and ridiculously hard. But there are other things going on in our companies that are much more complex than necessary. Sometimes time has piled on the difficulties. I’ve gone into companies that had piles of procedures and systems that formed over time. So much so, that you’re hard pressed to find a single employee who knows why some of them exist. They got started, others got added, then others, and before you know it things are more cumbersome than necessary. I’ve seen it happen in every business. Complexity grows instead of effectiveness and efficiency.

One of the best solutions is to get out of your office and walk around. Tom Peters and Bob Waterman called it “managing by wandering around” in their 1982 class, In Search Of Excellence. Peters and Waterman found it happening at Hewlett Packard back in the 1970’s. One wonders if HP stopped doing it. Some historians say President Lincoln may have been the first to do it as he would walk around inspecting the Union troops, but I suspect ancient leaders centuries ago did it, too. 

The point is to visit the source. Go where the work is happening. Talk with – and closely listen to – the people who are doing the work. They’re the people who can quickly (and happily) tell you where complexity exists. Complexity that makes no sense to them. Now it could be, there are things in play they’ve not considered. That’s fine. It gives you the opportunity to help them understand that there is a WHY to the thing they thought was senseless. Or, it could be that the thing is completely useless and just some layer that got added, which nobody gave a second thought. 

It’s time to give complexity and your commitment to simplicity a second, third and fourth thought. Then take swift action. The troops will cheer. Customers will, too. 

Meetings

They are the bane of every leader’s existence. The only people who like meetings are people who hate to work. It’s another rather universal area in business where less is often more. 

I once had a client with a very meeting intensive culture. You could visit the top three layers of leadership and quickly discover that almost 70% of their collective time was spent in meetings. Quite often, as many of you will attest, meetings were scheduled that overlapped. A meeting might be scheduled to begin 10 minutes before a prior meeting was scheduled to conclude. When I’d ask, “What do you do?” leaders would report that sometimes they’d leave a meeting early or other times they’d be late to the next meeting. They were rather blase about the whole thing. It was as though it were no big deal. I soon found out why. The meetings felt like a waste of time, but they were unable to do anything to change it. Or so they thought.

Many of you know the feeling. While not every business has a culture quite so meeting-intensive, many of us have poorly run, poorly structured meetings. And too many of them, to boot. Less is more. 

You own the joint so you can implement change. Or you’re a leader who can at least impose change on the meetings you’re in charge of. Do it. Today.

We’re stuck in thinking meetings have to be 30 minutes or an hour. Wrong. Make them as long as they need to be, but no longer. Sometimes 7 minutes is just right. And if you feel stupid scheduling a 7-minute meeting, let me challenge you to do it. Along with sharing the structured agenda for the meeting and the notice that they’ll be a hard start and hard stop. See how much better it goes. Besides, everybody will be wondering, “Why 7 minutes?” You’re opening line might be, “Because I expect us to get this done in 7 minutes or less!” 

Time is a constraint for all of us. This isn’t about you acting like your time is so much valuable than everybody else. It’s about valuing EVERYBODY’S TIME. It’s about being respectful. And it’s about getting on with it so actual work – real, meaningful action – can take place. 

Don’t try to make a single meeting do too much. This is a common problem. We think we have to squeeze every possible agenda item into a single meeting. Instead, think about having shorter, more specific (targeted) meetings only with the people who really need to be in the room. Give the meeting one objective – again, less is more. 

Conclusion

These are just a few examples to get you started. Think about all the areas of your operation where “less is more” might profit you. Look hard enough and you’ll likely find them just about everywhere you look. 

“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”  -Steve Jobs

“I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. ”  ? Henry David Thoreau

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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