And so it continues…

What I love most about a good book is that even after you are done reading it, you keep thinking about it. I’m trying to move on to the next book, but to be honest, I’m not done talking about the last book. The hope is that you read something that you can share that will light a fire under others. So, before I can move on, I need to just spend one more week talking about a few things. The first thing is kind of small, but something to think about. In the book he said he is always working at least one quarter ahead. That means that when January comes, he is already thinking about April. The first three months of the year he already has a game plan. How many of us can say that? Do we know what our major goals are for the first quarter of the year? If we don’t know what they are, then no way do we have a plan on how we are going to accomplish it. Towards the end of the week last week, I started thinking about a few things and having some conversations to get some things in place. I need some things to happen very quickly next year.

         Another interesting note from the book was that he has a book of the month club for his company. One month he picked a book that really challenged people. The people that refused to read it, he let go. He made the decision that if they weren’t willing to read the book, they obviously were not a good match. Maybe reading a book doesn’t work in your workplace, but there must be something that shows that someone just isn’t a match. Maybe we can’t let them go, but why do we keep them in leadership positions? And, when I say leadership positions, I mean a position of influence. Sometimes titles are important, other times you need to just look at who is influencing the people around them.

         The last few things I want to talk about are a little more serious. He makes the comment that to hire rock stars, you have to be a rock star. That comment has been weighing on me. That comment hits me hard for a few reasons. First, how do I know if I am a rockstar, and if I’m not, how do I become one? Also, whose definition of rockstar are we going by? The crazy part is that I think it must be a combination of your peers and the people below you. I think you have to know what it means to be a rockstar in your field. What can I point to that I do better than anyone else? What is something that I do, that the people around me who do the same job recognize that I do better than the others around us. Here is the tricky thing though, the people who report to you also have to think you are a rockstar. They want to be part of a rockstar team, so if they don’t see it, they don’t want to be a part of it.  So maybe you are getting good raises or reviews, but the people who work for you think you suck. If that’s the case, they aren’t going to stick around. My goal has always been for the rock stars to love me, and the lazy people to be bothered by me. Maybe they don’t dislike me, but they know that my expectations don’t align with theirs.

Lastly, and this is a big one, he brings up two questions. He asks, what are three words that you don’t ever want to be said about you and what are three words that you want attributed to you?  I’ve never thought about it in such a simple way. I’ve always thought about what are three things that you either want or don’t want said about you. Then I can give a really long explanation. Just three words, that’s different. I also think it’s easy to think about the negative. So now I am stuck spending the next few days thinking about these words. These words should push you at all times. When you are planning your day, are you making sure that you are leaving enough time to be the person you need to be? If I fill my day with tasks, I’m going to get a bunch of things done, but my people probably think I’m a jerk. If I spend all my time with people, my boss will think I’m horrible.

As I finish the final weeks of the year, I want to be thinking about all these things. Am I planning ahead? Am I a rock star? Do I have people in leadership roles who don’t align with what I want? Finally, what do I want people to say about me? I will answer some of these questions next week!