Eric J. Beck

CEO - Beck Consulting

Finding Something Better

To continue where we left off last time, getting great people to join your team is something everyone wants. Right? But there may be something even BETTER. Waiting around hoping for superman to want to work with your company is basically a waste of time. You say, "We'll pay him handsomely!" Well, that may get him or her in the door, but you've now made one of the most common errors in leadership today. You've lost your strategic focus. So what can be done?

Start with this: You can't build with someone who's a hired gun at heart because they'll always be looking to see if the grass is greener somewhere else. And when (not if) they leave you'll have to pick up the pieces, losing precious time and even more money. Instead of hiring a superstar, hire a learner - someone who is teachable. In a few minutes I'll share why this will make all the difference and better yet how to do it.

In a recent teaching by renowned sales consultant Michael Pink he spoke of business lessons he'd learned while on a trip into the rainforests of Panama. Humid and bug-infested, some people might not find much of anything inspiring there...but he did! He said that plants there will actually spend more energy trying to position a leaf to be in direct sunlight than the energy it used in creating the leaf in the first place! Stunning!

Let me say that again: A plant spends a lot of time and energy creating a leaf. Using the nutrients of the soil, the rain, and the sun, a plant must build from these components an entirely new creation. But above all this, it will use even MORE energy than that to now position the new leaf in the best place to receive sunlight. In other words, the plant spends more of its "money" to train its leaves than it does to acquire them.

If a plant, an organism, will spend more resources to position it's leaves than it takes to make them, what does that tell us? First, look at the success of plants in general: they seem to be everywhere. Also, no one has to do anything to get them to grow. In fact, if we humans just left plants (nature) alone, it seems that they do quite well without us. Wouldn't you like your organization (not too different from organism like a plant) to do this? To be self-sustaining and seemingly perpetual in its growth??? We all say YES! But are we willing to follow the lesson all the way?

Maybe Mr. Pink is on to something here. I think he is. If one of the most prolific natural "organizations" (plant life) has this kind of success, we should take time to ask why would it spend more energy to position a leaf when it could just make three more with the same resources? After all prevailing wisdom in small businesses everywhere is "just try to find the best people you can and hope you can pay them enough to stay around." This thinking is literally bankrupt. A person who you can really build on is not primarily motivated by money. No matter how talented they are, if their primary motivation is money then you have brought a hired gun into your organization...a parasite in biological terms. This type of opportunistic person isn't worth a second look.

What you need, what every business owner needs is people who can be built upon. For a second, think of a person like a kitchen sink. Resources can be poured into them and we would expect the water level to rise accordingly. But if the stopper is not in the drain you'll never make any progress with them. Your resources will never be enough for them and eventually they will leave or you'll go bankrupt or both. Your team's morale will be crushed because they will witness you starving the organization to try to keep this person on. And it just won't ever work.

So let's make this practical and take some action here. What can be done???? The first thing you must do is write down why your business should exist in the first place. You need to create the "sunshine" for your business. Ever seen plant that didn't get enough light? Water it all you want...a dead plant is what you get.

Writing the vision down is not just another mission statement exercise. You need a strategic vision. One that is measurable, actionable, motivational, specific, and comprehensive. Hint: if it's less than 5 pages, you don't have it yet. Even though we don't have the space here to walk through all the steps required you can still get help if your "sunshine" is hidden by clouds. We have an excellent audio module from our executive program called Strategic Vision. I can't imagine why any serious leader wouldn't consider this resource.

Light Driven Connecting

But once your vision is made plain and actionable, you must use considerable resources to move your "leaves" into it light in a significant way. Why? Well because if your leaves only want money (let's say "water") while this is useful, its just not enough for true health. It's not something that let's you build.

Not to take the biotic analogy too far, but, if you consider what the leaves do you can see the parallels and its deep significance. The leaves of a plant do it's most important work: They convert sunlight into growth. This photosynthesis - literally "light driven connecting" - is the biochemical process that nearly ALL life on Earth depends on. So in your organization the process of putting the vision to strategic work is just the same. NOTHING is more important that this. Hopefully you can now see why plants are willing to spend such vast amounts of energy on positioning leaves compared to making new ones.

So I'm recommending you consider this. Consider what resources you currently budget for the clarification of your vision and the tools needed to ensure your people can "process" it on a daily basis. If you're spending yourself silly trying to get the newest, best catch or if you never even considered investing in your vision, reassess now.

A Living Example: NBA Bulls vs. Celtics

The Chicago Bulls became great because of great individual talent put to good use. Michael Jordan was the Bulls, scoring more points and racking up statistics unlike anyone in basketball history. The Boston Celtics on the other hand played team ball. The results: Bulls won 6 NBA championships (all with Jordan playing), the Celtics won 16 NBA championships. One depended on a superstar. The other depended on a team vision and the strategic systems to reproduce greatness again and again.

Take some time to consider that hiring people you can build on starts with vision. As you might imagine, I am convinced that there is nothing in a business or organization of any type (including families) that doesn't stand or fall on vision.

Remember the actions steps I promised? Here is something even better:

See it in action now:

www.totalintegrationnow.com/hiringexample.htm

Here's to your Success!

Eric J. Beck

PS. Playbook subscribers get a 15% discount on all audio modules including The Strategic Vision, just type the word "playbook" into the voucher field when you check out. To revive your vision NOW, click here: Total Integration Resources

PPS. Check out our website updates including Water Cooler Wisdom - Up to the minute small business news that affects you today.

Start creating a better business...today!

You Can Do It!

Next Play (November 2006): "The National Significance of Small Business"

by Eric Beck