Last week, I wrote about how to fight through the natural slowdown of the pre-Labor Day period (compounded by the Recent Market Gyrations) and Get Business Done.
With Labor Day behind us, we should now all be in full flight in getting our most important projects and initiatives Fast- Tracked and on course to be completed by the end of the year.
These could include:
• Starting a New Business.
• Pursuing a New Business Initiative within an existing business.
• Developing a Work Plan and Budget for that business initiative and getting that budget funded (either internally or by an outside investor).
• Re-invigorating an existing business'Organization Chart and Design via the development of new job descriptions, reporting structures, new employees and contractors.
• Deciding upon, green lighting, and “Spinning Up” new technologies and SaaS platforms that make our businesses run leaner, faster, and through and on Better Data and Intelligence.
• Buying a competitive or complementary business.
• Selling and exiting from your business (and if this is something you want to get done in 2015, it is time to get going now).
So what do the most Effective Executives do to shake off the summer rust and make more and better things happen than the competition?
They Decide, They Act, and They Course Correct.
They Decide. Now more than ever, the ability to make rapid business decisions and then execute on the project action items and to-dos that flow from them is a fundamental success factor for any modern executive.
Why? Because never before has the information to make great business decisions been as quickly and completely available as it is right now. And if you don't have fast and good enough access to the information you need to make these decisions, then find and invest in one of the amazing array of Business Intelligence Software platforms that will do it for you.
They Act. In Ken Burns' great PBS series "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History," there is a segment on Teddy Roosevelt's (one of the great doers in American history) favorite expressions, "Get Action."
Roosevelt, who wrote more than 150,000 letters in his lifetime (do the math, that is more than 10 per day), was above all else a leader of great decisiveness and action, and it was this quality above all else that made him one of the greatest leaders in American history.
This Will to Act - to make that call, to put out that beta, to find the reasons to do the deal and fight through and fix the reasons not to - is a business muscle that all the greatest leaders and executives have and is one that can only be developed through consistent, vigorous and exhaustive application. Yes, in the great words of Thomas Jefferson if you want to know who you are “Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
They Course Correct. Because of technology never has it been easier to decide, to act, and then rapidly course correct as needed. In this respect, the most effective executives I know have the healthy egos to decide and act, but also the discipline, detachment, and humility to rigorously measure which of their decisions and actions are not working…
...and then rapidly adjust and/or abandon them as the data dictates.
Decide. Act. Course Correct. Rinse and Repeat.
Follow this simple but powerful formula and 2015 can still be the best year of all of our business lives.
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Don't Ask. Act! Action will Delineate and Define You.
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