PMETH

People define success in many different ways and of course I have my own ideas of what success really looks like.  For instance, if you are successful at work, people like you and more importantly they enjoy working for you, or better yet, they enjoy working with you.  Some of you may be thinking “I don’t care if these people like me” which, by the way, is very common.  But, if you feel this way, you might want to reconsider because I have not heard about or read about one great leader that people didn’t like.  I’ve never heard someone say, “Man, he is such a wonderful and inspiring leader.  I hate him.” 

Secondly, if people like you, they will be more responsive and more willing to help you and as a manager, that is crucial.  Think about it.  Don’t we naturally do more for the people we genuinely like?  It just makes sense.  If people like you, they may actually do more than is expected and that’s how organizations rise to the top—everybody exceeding expectations.  And generally speaking, if people don’t like you, they probably don’t respect you.  And we should all have the desire to be respected.  I think respect may be one of the most important things that we all need to strive for in the workplace. 

To be successful at work people have to respect you in every sense of the word.  Not just intellectually.  There are a lot of people whom I respect intellectually – they are very smart, smarter than I’ll ever be in fact.  But people can be intelligent and still be a wreck.  They are unorganized.  They look like a train wreck.  They contradict themselves.  They lie.  They don’t keep their promises or worse don’t even remember making them.  They can’t manage themselves and we’re supposed to respect them.

To be successful in business, people must respect you in every sense of the word.  For instance, I’ll hear people calling someone’s character into question and then someone will follow it up with, "Oh, but he is so intelligent".  So WHAT!!!  I don’t care how smart someone is.  If they look you in the eye and lie to you and only care about themselves, they don’t deserve our respect.  Of course we do respect them though but only because we have to.   

If you are successful at work, you are probably making a real difference.  And if you are not making a difference, you are probably just average.  I see people everyday that just wake up and go through the motions.  And guess what, these people aren’t very happy.  In fact, some of them are down right miserable. 

If you go to work everyday and do only what is expected of you, where is the fun in that?  For instance, if there is something that you work on everyday or every quarter or every year and you do it the same way every time, why not take the time to see if there is a way to improve the process.  It is a wonderful feeling to make a difference and you don’t have to work 60, 70 hours a week to do it.  Great leaders have balance.  It’s not how hard you work.  It’s how smart you work.

Success at work is inspiring others to do better work and we can do this by taking pride in our work.  If there is a mistake in your work, don’t blame it on someone else or say well that is the way it was done last year.  It is your responsibility to make sure the work you are signing off on is accurate. 

If you are successful at work, you don’t complain about things, you try to fix them.  Complaining will get you nowhere and no one wants to be around a complainer. 

When people see that you take pride in your work and when they see you trying to make things better instead of complaining, they will want to be better.  YOU will have inspired them to be better, more than we are today.  And that's what leadership is all about—inspiring people to be more than they are today.

One last point...Success has nothing to do with how big your paycheck is.  I run into a lot of people that measure success by how much money they make.  The amount of income you earn has nothing to do with how successful you are.  Because really, I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but if all you do is show up at work and do what you are told, nothing more, nothing less, and I don’t care if you are working 80 hours a week.  If you are not making a difference, guess what, you can be replaced in a second.  There are a lot of people more than willing to work like a dog.  So people that walk around pounding their chests saying “I’ve made it!” simply because of how big their paycheck is, may want to sit back and reevaluate the contribution they are really making.  It is easy to make a buck but it is a lot harder to actually make a difference. 

If you want to be successful or better yet go beyond successful and actually reach your fullest potential and Make Extraordinary Things Happen, live by the PMETH Principles.

People Make Extraordinary Things Happen! ^™