Wednesday, September 21, 2011

It's Not About You

I am just back from travel. I stayed in a Delta Hotel. Delta is a midsize middle to high end Canadian hotel chain. The missed on 2 counts this time. There was no regular tea in the room. Bigger and tougher to solve, there was no easy way to plug in the iron.

The former (tea) is just poor execution and the latter (no plug) is poor planning. It takes great planning and great execution to succeed in business.

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I read a short book - "It's Not About You - A Little Story About What Matters Most in Business" by Bob Burg and David Mann. As the title suggests, it is a short book - 120 pages.

I love the title. Ties into the Humility Imperative site I spoke about earlier.

The book is written "storybook style". Not my favorite style but i do know people learn from stories. And it is cute and well written.

It tells the story Ben who learns a number of powerful business/leadership lessons:

1. Hold the Vision - clearly I agree with this one. Vision is the first step to success.

2. Build your People. Again, the only way to succeed is by leverage.

3. Do the Work. Stating the obvious. Do the work to succeed. Work ethic was one of my competitive advantages.

4. Stand for Something. And this does not mean just standing from more profit or more sales.

5. Share the Mantle. Success always involves way more than the leader despite the popular business press often trying to make a hero out of just one person.


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And of course, no post is complete without some bragging about how advanced my grandson is. He is way ahead for his age. He acts like a teenager - he sleeps all the time. Or perhaps he is acting more like an adult - he sleeps when I talk about Time Management.

4 Comments:

At 8:16 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice entry. People will always underestimate the importance of vision having a big and unique vision will give you the power to pereservere and prevail.

in Arabic we say Mabrook for a new born so Mabrook!

 
At 1:18 PM, Blogger Kevin Dee said...

Jim,congrats on being a grandad ... you look very happy.

One small observation about your comment, " It takes great planning and great execution to succeed in business".

I would like to think that was true, and perhaps I might modify it to, " It takes great planning and great execution to be a GREAT business"

Delta have done pretty well, and there are a myriad of companies who have "succeeded" in the mediocre category.

Maybe that is the difference between a Delta and a Hilton?

 
At 2:20 PM, Blogger Bob Burg said...

Jim, thank you VERY much for your kind and generous review of John David Mann's and my new book. And, of course, congratulations on the birth of your grandson. May that photo be only one of the many memorable grandpa/grandson moments over years!

 
At 12:41 PM, Anonymous Ben Lichtenwalner said...

Great points, Jim. Humility, with a focus on serving your stakeholder, first, is critical to successful business leadership today. I've just added that book to my reading list.

I also agree with Kevin:
" It takes great planning and great execution to be a GREAT business."

 

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