Do Something New: Be Bold
One thing is for sure: time flies when you’re having fun!I
It’s hard to believe I am completing my second year with ConvergenceCoaching. I have learned a lot over the past two years working with our clients to help them achieve success. In this blog I’d like to share a selection of my newly attained wisdom.
- There is no success without succession. To be effective, succession planning must be part of the day-to-day operation of your firm, not a “life event” that occurs once every generation. Succession needs to be planned, so that client relationships can be properly transitioned, new roles can be learned, and the financial aspects can be adequately covered.
- Trust is a critical success factor in high performing and successful organizations, and fundamental to achieving sustained success in business and life. The lack of trust is like an additional tax burden on your firm, while an increased trust level is like a dividend. The bottom line: We must all get better at trusting and being trusted.
- Success is a “team sport. Many firms operate like a collection of sole proprietors sharing a common name, office space and administrative infrastructure. Rather than banding together for collective success, the focus is often on “doing it my way,” internal competition, and maximizing personal success. In such firms, we find little happiness or satisfaction. We are meant to succeed together.
- Most people, given the option, do not engage in any sort of personal or professional goal setting process.This often stems from the false belief that staying put is somehow “safer” and less risky than taking the bold action needed to achieve success. Those who do set goals often do so in an ineffective and uninspiring way, by aiming at “minimum performance,” setting too many goals, or setting “squishy” goals that lack specificity and measurability. Step 1 -Start setting goals. Step 2- Stop behaviors which “sabotage” your success.
- Goal setting is only an interesting mental exercise if you don’t transition to Step 3 - Goal achieving. Those who are really serious about achieving their goals willingly submit to a process of accountability, which includes: putting your goals in writing, sharing your goals with others, establishing a “return and report” process with interim action steps and milestones, and getting better at skills needed to achieve your goals (e.g., delegation, time management.) Achieving your goals still takes hard work and effort. Nothing worthwhile is easy.
- The real value of a firm is in its people rather than its clients. The most successful firms succeed by developing and nurturing their people to become future leaders. Emphasizing people development addresses the “ripple effect” often caused when roles change as part of the succession process, along with increasing the capability, commitment and “bench strength” of the firm’s next generation of “rising stars.” And firms that provide a clear “path to partner” have a competitive advantage over those who chose not to take on this challenge.
All firms that I’ve had the privilege to work with are facing these challenges. This struggle is common and “normal.” But I have to ask, “Why be satisfied with “normal?” I don’t know about you, but my excitement goes through the roof when I think about the possibilities for the firm whose leaders choose to take on these challenges to success. So, as we end another year and prepare for the next, I strongly urge you to: Do Something New: Be Bold!
I look forward to beginning Year 3 with ConvergenceCoaching, to even greater learning, and above all to taking bold action in helping our clients succeed. If you have any BOLD ideas or experiences to share, please post them so others can benefit.
Best regards,
Jack
Jack and others, especially whose names I remember,
Hope you are doing well in all areas. Love your piece especially the title, Do Something New: Be Bold, so here goes. I will need those reading this comment to close their eyes and minds to whom specifically is doing so.
Dignity: Woman pushing empty wheelchair, just in front of older woman looking at fruit, treating her client like her mother.
Happy Holidays!
A Fellow Traveler
Jack and Nike,
Hope you and those close to you are doing well. I think I commented on one of your earlier commentaries months ago.
One of my keys to creating and maintaining trust is to see if someone is looking at me and not scared of me. I then try and make a connection, and if successful, try verbally to look for commonality. If they speak a foreign language (Da, that is anything other than Brooklynese), I use my hands and try and simply repeat a little slower what I want to say. Many times I will also try humor. No matter what and no matter who I always look them in my eye because you/I/we must always determine if I/you/we can trust them or if “they” are faking trust (people, corporations, etc., are become very good at faking it), so even I can’t tell when I call them on it.
Most importantly, to create and maintain trust you must waste as little time and “spend as little as possible” with the fakers once you determine that they are. Just don’t let them know it. (FAKE THAT! OR DO THAT!!!!)
What do you, Jennifer, and others think and want to say?
Happy Holidays and Peace Be With You.
Howard
Jack,
Your commentary is identifed as "Uncategorized." May I suggest you categorize it as "Work/Life and/or LIfe/Work.
Taurus
Jack,
Love how you partially recategorized your commentary. A really bold move on your part!
Howard
Howard, thanks for being one of our loyal readers. You were prolific on this one! I'm optimistic enough to feel like I don't encounter fakers too often. Usually, someone acting without authenticity has something they fear and I spend time working to build trust and rapport with those I encounter, so that they have nothing to fear from me and might trust me enough to let their guard down and allow me to get to know the "real" them. Hope you're enjoying the holidays!
Jen,
Maybe it's me, or I come in contact with more fakers, maybe my time and efforts is too valuable to waste on those not receptive, or after sufficient interaction aren't worth that time and effort. Most likely it because I would describe myself as Practical rather than optimistic.
There is only one person I know is not a faker and his name is Alex although I never met him in person. I just worked with father, Jeff Stimpson and I got to know Alex through Jeff.
Jack, Jan and any others: What’s' your favorite book? Why?
“I read a lot of self-help and business books and always get a few kernels of brilliance from them. However, the self-help books often bother me as many are constructed as workbooks filled with exercises and warnings if you don’t do the exercises you won’t get anything from the book. The business books are also heavy-handed, as authors after making one keen observation apply it in every context he or she can think of to prove its worth.
The most recent book I read was Paper Airplane by Michael McMillan mentioned by Tim Storey in Utmost Living. It was very good, but not my favorite. It tried to be too many things: a self-help book, a business book, and camouflaged with brilliant design work, also as a children’s book. In the end, it reminded me of my favorite book.
Tom and Pippo Make a Mess by Helen Oxenbury is hard to find as I believe it is out-of-print. I discovered this so-called child’s book at well over age 50, when it was brought to my attention by Alex’s father. He had been reading the book to Alex for many years (my guess at least eight). Alex, a remarkable young man, who has fought with tenacity since he was born at a birth weight of 21 ounces, loves the book, and often, after his father finishes reading it, rips up the book, and makes a mess.
Every adult and child can benefit from its message whether as a gentle reminder or as a wake-up call. Unlike the many self-help and business books, Tom and Pippo Make a Mess has an ever so-light touch, and encourages the reader to think and reach his or her own conclusions. Equally important, the book’s message with Alex’s comment resonates louder the more times you read it or have it read to you.
What’s your favorite book? Why?”