Don’t ever stop putting forward ideas. Ideas are currency. Keep the idea muscle in top shape.
Don’t try to be liked by everybody. Half the people are going to hate you either way. If you show ambition, people will despise you for it, but if you show no ambition, the other half will hate you. It’s a no win situation. Concentrate on moving forward.
Put people in positions to make an impact. It’s not about you, it’s about them. If you can make other people shine, you’ve done your job. A rising tide lifts all ships, yours included.
Realize you have a certain degree of inefficiency within your team, and the number is likely higher than you think. The larger the organization the more likely this is to be true. Create systems to minimize this.
Focus on the margins – It’s worthless to focus on what happened on the past. Learn from it, don’t let it happen again, but don’t let it impact future decisions. Beware of sunk costs and know the cost of one more.
Always focus on opportunity costs. What are the lowest value activities your team does? If that was outsourced or automated, what else could they focus on up the value chain?
Focus on 80/20. There are a few things you do that contribute the most. Punt everything else to others.
Always explain why. If you ask somebody to do something, be sure you tell them why. If you don’t, bad things can happen.
By
/ 2015-03-22