Work, Airplanes and advice from Warren Buffett

I wonder if all great leaders have the same goals. I know they won’t be exactly the same, but I wonder how close all of them are. We all want to develop people, we want to have influence, and of course, we all want to make enough money to pay the bills and not have to worry. So why are some people so successful and other people never even get close? We all have the ability to read a book, watch a YouTube video or go to a website and read an awesome article, so again, why do some of us struggle? I’ve talked about his book before but, in Ruthless Consistency, the author mentions two things that I think really apply here. One of the biggest things he mentions is environment. He says that you don’t motivate people, you create an environment in which the right people will be motivated. I want to point out two things that he said with that statement. First, we don’t motivate people. I know a bunch of people want to disagree with that, but I can assure you that it’s true. You can have one great speech and it might work once, but after that it must be something else. This is why a lot of sports teams change head coaches. After a certain amount of time, the team can’t hear the same speech, it no longer works. But the more important thing said was the second part. It said, an environment in which the RIGHT people will be motivated. That means that some people are wrong for what you want to accomplish. You can create the perfect environment for what you want to do, but if you have the wrong people, it won’t ever work. Some people are just a bad fit. I don’t want my favorite athlete to do my dental work, it’s not a good fit. But if I say that, the athlete doesn’t get offended. He admits it isn’t his strength and he moves on. Why are we so offended when we can’t force someone to be a good fit for our job? We all have different hobbies, we know we all have different skills, so why can’t we accept that we need to move on from certain people? The other big struggle with that is that the person who doesn’t fit has the ability to change the environment. So even if we somehow create the perfect environment, it’s going to be short-term. Maybe next week we can have the discussion about how to move someone along when it’s just not the right fit! Now to the second thing that the author mentions in the book. The author tells a story about Warren Buffett’s personal airplane pilot. He said that his pilot came up to him one day and asked him for career advice. If a pilot can go to an investment guru for advice, I’m sure the advice applies to us also. Here is how Warren Buffett responded;

1.    Write down your top 25 career goals.

2.    Circle your top 5.

3.    Look at the 20 goals you didn’t circle.

Then he said this, “The 20 goals you didn’t circle, have now become your Avoid-at -All -Cost list”. He called them almost priorities. This has always been a game changer for me. How much time do I spend on things that aren’t important to me. When I say aren’t important, I mean things that will not get me to where I actually want to go. Do I know where I even want to go? I have a program on my computer, and I know it can do way more than I am using it for. I need to go out and watch a video on how to do a few of those things. So, I know what I want to do, and I know where to get the information. But, when I go to YouTube, I find myself watching clips from old TV shows I used to like. Watching those videos of old tv shows is taking me away from where I want to go. How many things do we “dabble in” instead of focusing on what we want. I think of those career goals like a to do list at work. We have a top five that needs to get done, but we don’t ever get them done because we are spending way too much time on task number twenty. I’m probably willing to bet a large amount of money that task number twenty should probably be done by someone else anyway. If that logic is correct, that means that I can’t get my career goals accomplished because I am spending time on things that I shouldn’t be doing, and I can’t get my daily goals accomplished because I am doing things I should be delegating.

So now what? I think we need to focus on three things. First, what can I do to improve my environment? That may mean finding a better fit for someone. Second, what, are my top 5’s? That means what are my top goals in life and what are my top 5 on my to do list? Last, stop doing things out of order! It’s ok to say to someone that they are going to have to wait. It’s ok to delegate. Depending on what your title is, some of things you shouldn’t even be doing, so why are you doing them? If you need to pause to train for a season, I understand. But, you need to have a due date to get back to your goals.