Chief Executive Officers are responsible to help an organization or business return a good investment for its shareholders. When they are successful, they, the company, the customers, and the shareholders are abundantly compensated.
What about you? Do you know some of the success strategies that CEO’s use to improve their company’s results? If so, would you be willing to adopt and apply these success strategies to your own company, You, Inc.? Read on and learn!
Success Factor #1: Delegate More.
Selena Cuffe’s company, Heritage Link Brands, imports wine from South Africa, exclusively from vineyards owned by members of the indigenous black population. She started the business, and has found it very hard to let go of some of her regular daily activities. A critical success factor, as you mature in business is figuring out what you are good at and to delegate other key functions to quality people who those functions done for you.
So how does this principle apply to your personal success? First, you must live according to Pareto’s Principle (The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less
), which states that 80% of the value you deliver comes from 20% of the activities you engage in. One of the ways that I learned to think about this comes from @ericabiz, who says that she thinks of her activities in terms of how much she herself makes per hour. Let’s say that you make $60,000 per year, which is roughly $30 per hour. Are there business or home activities that you spend time doing that are worth less than $30 per hour? If so, take time to think about how to outsource those tasks to someone who can do the job at just below that price.
Success Factor #2: Become a Good Judge of People (including yourself).
Have you taken the time to figure out what you really enjoy about your work, what you are better at than others, and are you aligning your activities accordingly? This is the approach recommended by Marcus Buckingham and others (StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths). If you have not taken the time to identify those strengths, do so now!
Reflection Points:
In terms of becoming a better judge of people, you need to know your personal tendencies. Are you too cynical about people, expecting them to underperform or betray you? Or are you too optimistic and trusting? One of the sayings I’ve picked up on is, “Trust and Verify.” Assume the best, but prepare for the worst. Especially in business matters, do your work on checking the track record, background references, etc., so that your business relationships pay off. And most importantly, make sure that you are the type of person that another person would be happy to do business with.
Success Factor #3: Communicate Well.
I was speaking with a successful business consultant a couple of weeks ago about good communication in business. He mentioned a book by Stephen Covey called The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything
Action Points:
- How well are you communicating with your internal and external customers?
- Do you take time to clarify expectations up front, and on an an ongoing basis?
- On the personal side of things, how much time do you take to prioritize communication with you kids, with your spouse, or with close friends?
- Do you always seek to listen carefully, compassionately, and non-defensively?
- Are you committed to attacking the problem versus the person?
- Do you seek to come up with solutions that will benefit the other party and you? (win-win solutions?)
Success Factor #4: Get Better at Generating and Picking Winning Ideas.
How committed are you to being innovative? The businesses, employees, and entrepreneurs who succeed are the ones who are continuously able to bring value to their customers by thinking outside the box. I recently read about a new app for the iPhone called the Idea Stimulator–it’s a 99 cent tool for coming up with about 150 ways to help you tap your creative muscles to come up with brainstorms for different problems.
Action Points:
I don’t exactly recall, but I think I learned this exercise from either Earl Nightingale or Brian Tracy. First, schedule one thirty minute block into your weekly schedule. (If you want to challenge yourself even more, do this daily). Take a blank sheet of paper and write the following at the top of the page:
“I am an excellent x who earns y per year.” (For the amount earned per year, take your current salary and add 50% to the amount).
The next sentence is the most important one of all. Write, “How can I increase my service and add 50% more value to my customers today?” Then write a minimum of 20 ideas, and don’t stop until you have them all written out! You may feel uncomfortable, you may think the ideas are goofy, but keep on going. Then review all the ideas and pick one to carry out. By doing this exercise on a regular basis, you will be honing your ability to innovate and add value, and it will pay off in the end!
Success Factor #5: Just Be More Patient.
You may think that this does not make sense. Many people reading this article are not lacking in motivation. Many of you are high achievers, impatient to get your goals accomplished. There is a paradox, however, that patience yields. By slowing down, you are able to focus more clearly, keep your mind/spirit/body more balanced, and get more done! Instead of thinking that you have to get all your goals accomplished RIGHT NOW, remember that the race is not always to the hare, but to the tortoise. By making sure that you take at least one action step toward your most important goals on a daily basis, you will develop endurance and persistence to accomplish your goals and enjoy your success.
Action Points:
- Make sure you have taken the time to write your goals down.
- Make sure that you are not trying to do too much all at once.
- Choose the 3 most important tasks to accomplish this week to move you closer to your most important goal/s.
- Each day, just work on one step that will move you closer to achieving one of 3 top priority tasks for the week.
- By the end of the week, you will most likely have worked on the tasks that are the highest value and most impactful.
- Repeat the process next week
These are some success strategies that CEO’s across America are implementing today. Don’t you deserve to learn and profit from their strategies? Then take these ideas and put them into action this week [photo credit: onrevv (picture of Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com) on Flickr]
Hi Stephen,
Beautifully written article. I’d like to add my 2 cents to your point about the importance of communicating well because this is a real hot point for me. When I was interviewed for my last job in the “corporate world” I was asked (by the person who would be my direct supervisor) what was the most important thing for me when considering joining a company. I told her “good communication” without question – never more so than for that particular position as a field manager based some 2,500 miles from my boss, and 7,000 miles from the company. She assured me all would be well, and I accepted the job. Turned out the company’s weak spot was – yup, you guessed it – communicaation, especially between corporate and those in the field. And who complained the loudest to her staff – yup again, my boss!
Oh, my, Marquita! I guess you learned the lessons of communication first hand from that boss! It’s a challenge for me to make sure that I communicate well with my online and offline readers and customers. And hearing your story motivates me to continue to excel in that area!
Hi Stephen, these are all such great points to make! The big one for me is outsourcing. It took me years before I realized that I shouldn’t be a “Jack of all Trades and Master of None”. I used to take hours and hours to learn how to do things, just because I thought I had to do them myself.
Over the last 2 years, I’ve been outsourcing a lot of things, even things I “could” do myself, and it makes things so much easier. The biggest thing about outsourcing is to find someone who can do the job without having to teach them how to do it first. I hired someone last year, who told me he could do a particular task. However, when he went to do it, he couldn’t. It was a lack of communication I think, but I ended up spending a few hours teaching him. It would’ve been better to just find someone else who could do the job!
Thanks Stephen, for all the tips! I’m going to pay heed to them! regards Julieanne
Julieanne: scaling up your business by training others to do the work of the business is easy to say, but not so easy to execute. It’s a vital skill that we can all continue to learn to better. Thanks for sharing your story.
Hey Stephen! This blog post talks about me
Well, I am not a CEO but I run a business online and to tell you the truth, 2 of my biggest issues used to be N.1: Delegate more, and N. 5: Be more patient.
I used to do everything by myself: marketing, content creation etc, but now finally I have decided to try outsourcing most of my tasks so that I have more time to concentrate on more important one, and guess what: it worked just fine! It’s great to outsource, especially if the person you are delegating the job to is good at it. But again, I agree with the “trust and verify” method.
Be more patient: well, I am still working on that one
being an impatient person by nature, it is hard sometimes to wait for hard work to pay off. But I guess as long as we don’t completely give up, we’re on the right track 
Great to read your blog, and thanks for all the tips! Regards, Houda
Houda, in the beginning we all do everything ourselves. But in time, we do need to train others to do what we’re doing. One of the best things we can do is to break down every single process/task in our business into a checklist form so that it’s easy to train someone to step in and take over.
Twitter: vduplessie
says:
Hi Stephen,
Great suggestions. I am a big fan of outsourcing. Once I learned how to delegate I freed up so much mental power and energy. And while all of the others are great suggestions as well, the biggest one is the Being Patient. We live in an instant gratification society and many folks get anxious because they want success NOW instead of working and waiting patiently for the reward. This gives me a takeaway for the day to remember to be quiet for a few minutes and to be patient more.
VaNessa
VaNessa, I really appreciate the Patient principle as well. I learned it from J.B. Glossinger of Morning Coach, and it was one of the most freeing things I had heard to date.
Twitter: rgoutal
says:
That was a huge helping. As I reflect on the five success factors and the related reflection and action points, and where I am now, it strikes me that balance is big. I think some corp CEOs could be real good at. say, generating ideas, but lousy at patience. Probably a bad combination! They clearly all work together. It isn’t about picking and choosing then and that’s why I feel that you have served up a heaping plateful!
Richard, I’m glad you enjoyed the article. A smart CEO realizes s/he is not good at everything, and surrounds her or himself with smart people who compensate for whatever weaknesses s/he has. Easier said than done
Great advices!
Slowing down is a great one. When I started doing this some years ago I was perplex: by slowing down, I started to think in the 20/80 frame, which made me do much more in much more time. It was incredible.
Getting better in picking winning idea’s – it is the first time I see this approach and it seems to be very appealing. I put it on my next week schedule
Thanks for sharing!
One of the best things, Marc, that I read on the subject of slowing down was a time management technique from Darren Hardy of Success Magazine. He analyzed great achievers: one of their most productive secrets is to say NO to unimportant activities. They say no to even good things in favor of the best and most important. That’s all part of slowing down, yet working smarter and doing more.
Hi Stephen,
I really enjoyed this article! These 5 items are so true. I especially agree with the first point about delegating. I’ve seen many businesses fail because of this. The CEO would micromanage everything and make bad decisions because there is no way he can do everything when the company grows big and he won’t be good at everything. It is really sad.
Thanks for the article.
Great points Stephen! I could not agree more with what you wrote so clearly here. I especially liked your idea about blocking out 30 minutes a week to come up with new ideas to help yourself be more innovative and creative. You definitely have to be growing all the time otherwise you will just get lost in no man’s land. Thanks for sharing this!
Tony Tate
Tony, thank you for the feedback. I know, the 30 minute idea is a great one, isn’t it? (It’s not my own, believe me). It takes some effort, but how often do we waste 30 minutes doing unimportant things. I need to make sure to take my own advice this next week
Twitter: UrPurposeWithin
says:
Hi Steve,
My favorite idea is #4. I work often on generating ideas without judging them. I think brainstorming is an oft-forgotten but powerful tool. The more you work at coming up with lots (and I mean LOTS) of ideas, the better you get at it. The more ideas you consider, the more likely you are to find a really good one. I don’t have an iPhone but if they come up with the Idea Stimulator for an android phone, count me in!
Take care, Allegra
Allegra Sinclair recently posted..The Power of a Personal Mission Statement