Men’s Life Plan

I found this to be very interesting. Tim Blixseth became a success through hard work and want-to. Don’t say it cannot be done.

Guru

Investors Business Daily has a neat daily article on its website called Leaders and Success where they profile an individual that has distingushed themselves in the world.  One of the many resources I try to read daily.  Here is today’s article about Haagen-Dazs’ Reuben Mattus.

Sometimes, I will read something that is interesting. Sometimes, I read something that makes me think about an issue in a new way. And sometimes, I read something that changes my life. That is what happened a couple months ago when I read this article in Fortune magazine.

Money quote: “The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call ‘deliberate practice.’ It’s activity that’s explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one’s level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.”

Apply this to one aspect of your life. You will attain greatness.

Best always,

Guru

The Wall Street Journal has a nice summary of the Robert Nardelli’s departure as CEO of Home Depot here.

“What Mr. Nardelli missed, however, is that in the post-Enron world, CEOs have been forced to respond to a widening array of shareholder advocates, hedge funds, private-equity deal makers, legislators, regulators, attorneys general, non-governmental organizations and countless others who want a say in how public companies manage their affairs [sometimes called ‘stakeholders’]. Today’s CEO, in effect, has to play the role of a politician, answering to varied constituents. And it’s in that role that Mr. Nardelli failed most spectacularly.”

However, this does not completely add up as his companies operating performance was solid:

“In six years on the job, he doubled Home Depot’s sales and more than doubled its earnings.”
But he did not provide return to shareholders. This is one of the many lessons each of us must understand, the market is always right (even if it is wrong). The market was not valuing his current performance, it was evaluating Home Depot’s long-term prospects, and betting against their strategy vis-à-vis the competition, i.e., Lowes.

The article then goes on to suggest that the event that really put Nardelli on the outs with the Home Depots owners was the much publicized annual meeting fiasco. “Mr. Nardelli [committed] his gravest political error: Aware of the [investor] protests to come [at the company’s annual meeting], he convinced other board members to stay away from the meeting, and restricted shareholder questions to one minute. That sealed his public image as a callous and entrenched corporate leader.”

“In response [to the criticism], Mr. Nardelli belatedly tried to become a politician. He went on a “listening” tour to visit 25 of the company’s largest shareholders, and he granted interviews to a number of television and newspaper reporters. He apologized for his ham-handed handling of the annual meeting.”

Then the not so satisfying take home from this whole article is:
“Taking the political route may be necessary to success in the post-Enron world, but it, alone, is not sufficient.”

As a successful leader, I think the real lesson from the Nardelli saga is that each organization leader has constituents that must have confidence in your vision. It is not the “stakeholders” that matter. They are the critics that can derail your reputation with your owners–those that can hire and fire you. You cannot turn a deaf ear to the critics, in fact, you should hear them out. Consider their complaints. Then move on with your vision for the organization. You must lead from the front with a clear vision for the future—if you cannot see it, no one else can either.

While driving with a close friend the other day, right before the new year, I was talking with him about what we each wished to accomplish in the upcoming year. I was talking about the goals for the new year (some would call resolutions-more about that sometime) and he blurted out-”Goals are just dreams with deadlines.” Now, I am all for a good cliche, or a good rah-rah cheer, and this one I have heard for may years. But I really began to wonder–Is this really true?

I have some pretty far fetched ideas for what I wish to accomplish in this life-often called “goals.” Some of which I have already accomplished, others I am not sure, mostly because those goals are mutually exclusive from other goals. But I also have dreams. Those are the things that are pie in the sky-type ideas that I would never accomplish without significant luck (e.g., win the Powerball lottery). No amount of writing those dreams down and developing a plan to execute step-by-step would make these things happen.

So I disagree with the cliche that goals are just dreams with deadlines. Dreams are farfetched. Goals are concrete and can be accomplished. Set your goals, develop your plan to accomplish those goals and then execute your step-by-step plan. It is that easy.

Or, possibly, dreams are just goals with plans that we think are too hard to be executed?

Best always,

Guru