PMETH

Having the right people around you is critical because we cannot achieve great results alone.  It is important for the leader to understand their deficiencies, and surround themselves with the most competent and compassionate people possible.  Do not surround yourself by people who are willing to drink your bath water.  In other words, do not surround yourself with a bunch of yes people who are simply going to tell you how great you are.

A real leader is not afraid to be challenged.  Real leaders are confident enough in their abilities that they are not threatened by others.  In fact real leaders look for people that have the potential to pass them up. 

A weak leader worries that if he helps subordinates, he will become dispensable.  But if you are able to continually empower others and help them develop so that they become capable of taking over your job, if you do this over and over again, that is if you are able to continually develop leaders, you will become so valuable to the organization that you become indispensable. 

Since there are so many things in life that we cannot control like the stock market; the perception of the stock market; we cannot control interest rates; we cannot control what the competition is doing.  Since there are so many variables that we cannot control we must focus on the concepts, the entities, and on those virtues which and who we can control.  And one of the things we can control is human capital.  That is – people.

I am shocked at how we make excuses for the mediocrity of some of our employees.  I am amazed at how we find pseudo-definitions of fidelity and we say well, they don’t do well in terms of their competency or performance but they are so loyal.  Well, what does loyal mean?  Does loyal mean they suck up to you?  Does loyal mean they are part of your social network?  Does loyal mean they never disagree with you in public? 

Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to the right people because the right people inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people.  Organizations, corporations, health care systems would all be a lot better off if we really understood the value of having the RIGHT people.

Leadership is about the power of doing more together.  We cannot Make Extraordinary Things Happen all by ourselves and we must drive this philosophy down to the receptionist level and all the way up to the highest level.  So let these people know how important they are.  Treat them with respect—ALWAYS.  Not only because it is the right thing to do, but because the greatest potential for growth of a company is through growth of its people. 

People are the principle asset of any company, whether it makes things to sell, sells things made by other people, or supplies intangible services.  Nothing moves until your people make it move.  Therefore, the single most important determinant of the growth of your company is through the growth and development of your people. 

It’s up to you, as a manager, an executive, a leader, a supervisor, a senior manager, whatever your title, if you have the privilege of overseeing individuals in your company, and it is a privilege, if you have this privilege, it is your responsibility to make them want to work harder and it is your responsibility to make them want to do more than merely what is expected.

Why should we do more you might ask?  Simply, because most people don’t.  But why would you want to be among the ranks of most people.  Most people are just average. 

People Make Extraordinary Things Happen! ^™