Auditors and accountants work with a range of clients, including businesses, public organisation, individuals and are usually brought in to ensure that the businesses or interests of the client are being run efficiently. They check all financial records; including tax and other monies that they are required to pay by law are up-to-date.
Auditors will check how efficient the processes in place are. For example, an internal business auditor will look to identify areas of the business that are particularly wasteful, or check to see that they are in line and compliant with current regulations.
The skills required to be an auditor now range beyond the realms of raw data. Taking insights from the data and making recommendations is the core of the job, working through the intricate systems and pointing out inefficiencies. However, living in this modern, digital age it is now expected that accountants and auditors will know their way around the commercial accountancy software packages and be competent IT users.
Being analytical is a pre requisite, as is being good with numbers, but technology has raised the bar. Computer software has removed a lot of the tedious and repetitive tasks but it won’t give the answers, nor will it point out what is wrong. As advanced as the software is at crunching data, it is little compensation for an experienced auditor who has had a wide range of experiences.

Effective human resource management is important for business success. You can succeed in learning these skills. It can be an advantage to have a natural affinity for dealing with people, however there are a few things you can do to help the process. Relationship Building: Start by using an individual’s name. Encourage conversation; look co-workers in the eye as you are speaking. Show respect, and be sure to do pay attention to the other person’s opinion, irrespective of whether you are in agreement or not. The development of listening skills is among the greatest things you can do to develop your people management skills. Show interest in what they can offer the team. Live up to your word: Keeping your promises is key. If you can’t keep your promises, the delicate bond of trust is wrecked, and if they can’t trust you employees will not perform at their best. Each time you give a commitment or give a promise, you are squandering your time and effort if you don’t act with integrity. You will discover, if your people can’t depend on your word, you can be sure they will behave in the same way.

Be open to feedback: Feedback should be a reciprocal process. People management skills mean keeping an open mind to all feedback. Being accessible and receptive proves that other people’s opinions count, your opinions will be respected in return. Honest discussion also promotes creative problem solving, ways of accomplishing goals, and develops the team dynamic. By giving the employees some input, every member of staff takes ownership of the results of the project.

Communicating is the key: Communication is central to dealing with individuals effectively. Keeping an open door policy, listen closely to other people, encourage all sorts of feedback, and allow team members an equal voice. Encourage staff not only to speak to you, but also with each other. The sharing of thoughts is imperative in the creative process, and in communicating with each other, it is easy to discover any issues swiftly, permitting corrective measures to be implemented to prevent any further problems.

A little time is essential, nevertheless the dividends achieved far outbalance the effort necessary. By building the bonds of a good team and demonstrating effective listening techniques, you can easily accomplish the best in business success.

Success in business depends on competent people management skills. People management can be acquired and learned. Having a natural skill for communicating with people can be a plus, even so there are numerous skills you can learn that will help the process. Relationship Building: Remembering co-workers by name will be a start. Talk to people; look employees in the eye during a conversation. Be respectful, and be sure to listen to the other person’s point of view, even if you do not agree or have a different opinion. Acquiring the ability to listen is among the greatest things you can do to improve your people management skills. Be sure to exhibit an interest in what they can contribute to the team.

Keep your promises: Keeping your word is key. If you can’t keep your promises, the delicate bond of trust is wrecked, and no-one will give you their best if they can’t trust you. When you make a commitment or give a promise, you are squandering your time unless you act with integrity. To be honest, if your people can’t depend on your promises, your staff will not be available when it’s really important. Feedback is important: Feedback must be a two-way process. Human Resource management skills mean being receptive to all feedback. Being accessible and open demonstrates that other people’s views matter to you, and they will value yours. Supporting open conversation also promotes evolution of new ideas, innovative ways of fulfilling the goals of the team, and develops the company in general. If your co-workers are given a voice, the project will become important to every employee. Encourage all sorts of communication: Managing your team boils down to one concept — good communication. Be accessible, employ listening skills, welcome people to share ideas, and allow all your team to express themselves. Inspire staff not only to speak with you, but also with each other. The growth of a business relies heavily on the interchange of ideas, and when the employees communicate efficiently, you can root out any issues swiftly, and corrective measures may be applied before things get out of hand.

Some time and effort will be needed, yet the payoff is worthwhile. Through encouraging a good team dynamic and developing good listening techniques, a successful business will be yours.

Maximization methodologies have long been used in business to produce quantities of quality ideas, faster. Creative writers who want to rapidly produce quantities of quality work should apply these same principles.

a) Waiting for inspiration creates less output than forcing inspiration.

Simply engaging in the task generates ideas. By defining the work process, the author can frame the mind for the coming task and trigger the mind into searching for ideas on multiple cognitive levels. Creative Directors identify a problem and set about finding solutions, thus initiating the creative state. Similarly, screenwriters know that they will come up with good ideas for screenplays while they are working on the present one. Inspiration for projects comes while working on similar projects.

b) Setting incremental targets and final goals produces more output than a “do your best” approach.

Creative Directors may ask people to generate at least five problem statements a day and come up with at least five ideas to resolve each problem in that same day. At the end of a week, 20 people have generated a solid idea pool that can be analysed. Similarly, writers who set themselves a target of 500 words a day produce more total output after a month than they would if they had not set themselves that target.

By staging the process over a week, the Creative Director i) forces output at regular intervals and ii) allows the problem to incubate in the mind, thus allowing richer insights to generate.

c) Story Structure

Just as in business, where models such as SWOT, PEST, Five Forces and a million others are used to generate ideas for particular circumstances or for particular problems, so stories themselves have such frameworks. Stories are built around templates. The most famous of these is Campbell’s (1968) Hero’s Journey, around which have been built some of the most successful ever films - Star Wars, Spiderman, Shrek, The Incredibles and many more. Applying these structures allows the writer to break a task into smaller arts and more precisely define problems and generate better solutions.

The true value of Story Structure is perceived after a few successful uses. It allows i) the creative writer to quickly map out a story from an idea and ii) triggers idea flow because blocks are overcome and competencies learned - it becomes easier to visualise the idea in the final, fleshed out form.

d) Experience curve, adaptive and generative learning. subliminal and unconscious perception and learning.

Commonly expressed in terms like “you have to write a million words before you write anything good.” When a task is in the early stages, relative lack of experience, knowledge and refined methodology limits performance to sub-optimal levels. With time these factors improve and productivity increases exponentially. Adaptive and generative learning, subliminal and subconscious perception and learning all help the author to get better at his or her endeavour.

In conclusion, by really understanding and Managing Creativity and Innovation, the Creative Writer is able to produce more quality work, faster.

This topic is covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com

Kal Bishop, MBA

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on http://www.managing-creativity.com.

Remember when you first decided to take your being in business seriously? You were the person who sat down and put together a strategic business plan. The plan detailed your long term goals with short term strategies. This plan included the necessary action steps needed to accomplish these goals.

You started out focused on working this plan. You probably did not even need prodding to get things done. You ran your business on excitement and positive energy. My guess is that you even saw great results. Then, over the course of time the excitement dwindled. Your positive energy becomes affected by those around you. Those people who do not possess a positive attitude towards your business.

So what happened?

Simple, you lost your focus. Whatever the reason, your focus on the goals became consumed by daily operational issues. You lost focus on the steps you developed in your success plan. Priorities sometimes get mixed up as a business owner. The most important action you can do to maintain a successful business is to keep your priorities in order. Action plans that you established will reinforce your priorities. So often we allow other things or people to interfere with what is most important.

“The main obstacle in the way of your success is you!”

I am sure you have heard this quote before, but it is worth repeating! The good news is that it will be easy for you to regain your focus and be back on the track of success.

Action Plan
1) Re-evaluate your business plans.
2) Re-assess the action steps needed to achieve your short term goals as they relate to the strategic plan.
3) Find an accountability coach.

This coach should be someone you respect with proven experience. This is important because it will be natural to receive guidance and discuss ideas. It should be understood that purpose of the accountability coach is to simply hold you to your own standards. It would be a daily process of changing behavior. The results will be in a goal driven entrepreneurial mindset.

For more coaching tips, go to www.YourTupperwareOnline.com. You will be able to read success stories from successful people who used our coaching. Sign up for our free Ezine and receive valuable coaching tips including our next article featuring success using an accountability coach.

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Q. What’s the biggest complaint CEO’s have about their Boards?

A. “The Board is a waste of time - it doesn’t add any value.”

Q. What’s the biggest complaint Board members have about their Boards?
A. “This Board feels like a waste of time - it doesn’t feel like we’re adding any value.”

Q. What’s going on here?
A. Who said the role of the Board is to add value?

It’s not - at least not in the context of masterminding the next I-Pod or the next strategy for outsourcing production to India. That’s up to the management team.

The role of the Board is to govern - some Boards are even called Boards of ‘Governors’. There are 5 key elements of governing effectively:

1. ensuring that the organization has the right CEO
2. ensuring that the organization has a strategic planning process
3. learning the business and the industry well enough to have a well-formed perspective on benefits and risk of the organization’s strategic direction
4. monitoring to ensure that strategies are being executed as planned
5. monitoring to ensure that the Board is governing effectively

The Board role is a mix of three things:

• out-front leadership (CEO and planning process)
• knowledge and insight (business of the organization)
• monitoring and compliance (measurement and policies).

Managing this mix is the responsibility of the Board chair. There isn’t a more important role in the organization. Staffing the Chair role requires careful planning and insight.

There are 6 key qualities of a good Board chair:

1. time to do the job - there are more time demands on the Chair than on anyone but the CEO
2. solid team builder - getting the Board on the same wavelength and creating a good working relationship with management
3. good delegator - there’s a lot to do; the only way to get it all done is through other people
4. comfortable with process - the mechanics from running meetings to information disbursement are almost as important as what the Board talks about
5. strategic - able to lead and keep the Board focused on the high leverage issues, not minutiae
6. firm - knowing how to take and keep control when members, stakeholders disrupt effective workings of the Board

Overall responsibility for the Board falls to the Chair. However, strong committees are also vital to a Board’s success. These committees enable the Board to stay focused and up to speed on issues like audit, compliance and human resources. A recent study shows that the average large corporate board in the US and Canada has between 4 and 5 committees.

So how should organizations deal with the quiet disconnect between management and the Board over the Board’s role? Does it even matter?

I have a few thoughts.

First, if there is an underlying tension between the Board and management it is natural and healthy. While overall goals of the Board and management are aligned - success of the organization - at the end of the day management’s role and the Board’s role are different: management operates and the Board judges management’s performance.

Second, Boards and Board Chairs need to be more explicit about their roles - with themselves and with management. By being more explicit - “our role is to govern and to assess management’s performance” - Board’s set expectations for their role that don’t set directors or management up for disappointment.

Third - and Boards seem to be doing this - Board’s need to get better at their governance roles. Governance in particular is not simple. While some issues are black and white, many require in-depth knowledge of law, business, policy, and decision making process. Only by stocking Boards with diverse, independent and experienced directors can consistent, timely and correct governance decisions be made.

Typically, larger business organizations are more advanced in performing their governance roles. Smaller organizations, and too many not-for-profit organizations appear to struggle with governance and seem destined to continue doing so.

Board composition is a key factor. Small company boards are frequently over-stocked with self-interested parties: investors, service providers, friends and family. Not-for-profits, even the ones that attract strong, experienced board members, frequently also attract, or are mandated to include, representatives from stakeholder groups who may have little or no Board experience.

In summary, I believe it DOES matter that Board’s explicitly identify that their primary role is governance, and what that means. By explicitly defining their role, Board members and management teams get more satisfaction from their Board involvement. Everyone quickly comes to see that by providing strong governance, the Board IS making a significant contribution to the organization.

In 1983 Jim started his consulting career with CMA Consulting. However, what goes around comes around, and as a consultant, Jim has found himself leading several companies on a consulting basis. Currently that includes a small, fast growing software company that is harnessing the web to create a significant revolution in processing of P&C insurance claims.

Through Boardroom Metrics Jim offers CEO Coaching and Management Consulting to both public and private companies. He provides significant insight on management, governance and technology issues faced by executive management.

“Slaves to the clock” was the cover story in the March issue of CEO magazine.

“You can never out work a problem, you have to out think it.” said A.G. Lafley, Proctor & Gamble’s CEO.”

Too much to do. Too little time. It’s a universal problem. From the CEO to the newest hire.

We’re bombarded with information. E-mail, faxes, voice mail, overnight deliveries and old-fashioned snail mail. Unexpected phone calls, impromptu meetings, and emergencies that force us to drop everything.

So many projects, tasks, problems, opportunities, and people are fighting for our time and attention that it’s almost impossible to separate the important from the urgent from the unnecessary.

With so much clutter it’s easy to lose track of long- and short-term goals. And… the proposal that’s got to be finished by 3:00 p.m. this afternoon.

It’s easy to spend eight, ten, or twelve hours each day doing things that don’t have any real payoff.

And we wonder why we feel like we’re stuck in quicksand. The more we struggle the deeper we sink.

“P&G’s Lafley says, “I’m here by 7:00 a.m. so that gives me a stretch of uninterrupted thought before the workday officially swings into action and the phones start ringing.” “

Time is the one thing that limits us. The common lamentation is ‘If only I had more time.’ That’s the wrong premise.

The problem is we’re using our valuable and precious time, in unproductive and non-rewarding ways.

Busy… yes. Productive… NO!!!

Think differently. Don’t manage your time.

Do come in early so you can get some work done before everybody else arrives? Before the phone starts ringing? Before your meetings start?

Before the day - and your schedule - falls apart because of the many fires you must put out?

Fires! Fires! Fires!

Someone didn’t do what they were supposed to do, when they were supposed to do it. Now it lands on your desk.

You’re forced to drop everything and put out the fire. Your whole day goes up in smoke and you don’t realize that somebody’s guilty of arson.

To be successful in today’s highly-competitive world you must be focused. You must have long and short-term goals.

When you know where you want to go, it’s easy to determine whether or not the work, tasks, and projects you’re working on will take you there.

Here are three strategies you can use to leverage your time:

1. Block out time for yourself. Close the door. Turn off the phone. And give yourself an hour of uninterrupted time each day.

2. Work on your most important work, tasks and projects. Only do the things that have value. Eliminate everything else.

3. Use your Prime Time. There’s a time of day when you do your best work. When you’ve the most energy and enthusiasm. Tackle your most important work at the time of day you’re at your best.

Set your goals. Leverage your time. And you’ll become more successful than you ever dreamed.

(c) 2004, Jeffrey J. Mayer

About The Author

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey Mayer’s SucceedingInBusiness.com Newsletter. Jeff helps individuals, business owners, corporate executives and sales professionals set their priorities, get focused, and achieve their goals; so they can grow their business, get ahead in life, and live their dreams. To subscribe to Jeff’s free newsletter, Jeff@SucceedingInBusiness.com

Strategic planning the way most businesses do it is pretty mundane stuff. There are things to read, comparisons to make, forms to fill out, and numbers to put together. The first year they do it, it’s modestly intriguing. There are a few new revelations and they see some things differently. The second year, it’s merely interesting. They’ve “been there, done that” and don’t want to do it again. In the third year and beyond they can do it in their sleep; they just take last year’s “plan,” change a few dates and numbers, and that’s it - they’re done.

Sound like a productive process that you want your small business to engage in - certainly not. If this is what your planning process looks like, scrap it or change it; it’s simply not worth the effort that your business is putting into the process.

There are four fundamental reasons why strategic planning is not just necessary, but essential - (1)it allows you to recognize the need for and manage change, (2) it compels you to focus on the long term, (3) it helps you find and keep a competitive advantage, and (4) it gives your team a basis for identifying with your business. In the end it doesn’t matter how you do your strategic planning. There is a mind-numbing array of templates around (a couple of which are on the Business Advisor Online site) - just pick one and go with it. It’s not about the forms you fill out, it’s about the thought you put into it.

Start by asking yourself these three questions. First, what percentage of your time is spent looking outside your small business, rather than at internal company issues? Second, of the time you spend looking outside your business, what percentage of that is spent looking at least five years down the road? Third, of the time you spend looking at external issues that are five years off, what percentage of the time do you involve other key people in your small business? You will have to supply your own numbers, but assume for a moment that they are all 30%. That’s probably higher than the numbers for most businesses, but if that’s what they are, you spend 2.7% of your time looking at long term external issues with your team (30% x 30% = 9% x 30% = 2.7%).

That’s simply not enough time spent on identifying issues that can have a fundamental influence on your business. A business can’t think through the implications of changing, until it first identifies the need for change. A well conceived and executed strategic planning process compels you to look far enough down the road to see how things could evolve and how that evolution could affect your business. It forces you to ask what new competition lies over the horizon and why you are and will remain a better choice for customers and prospects that the others that are out there. It helps you identify how your market and competition is likely to change in the future and whether your market will shrink, or grow. It helps you ask what your customer’s customers need, or will need in the future so you can add value to what they do.

I am a strong proponent of every business, large or small, identifying and capitalizing on their particular strategic advantage. You need something that gives you an edge; other companies may have an edge that is similar to yours, but a business has to focus on something to be successful. In the end, one of the best strategic advantages any business can have is a genuine ability to update, or even revise its business model when the need arises. That’s a strategic advantage by itself, because most businesses simply can’t do it. Most businesses are introspective and bury their heads in the sand when it comes to change. Only with a strategic planning process that gets at real issues will you be able to manage this.

Do you remember the old “Pogo” cartoon, where he says “I have met the enemy and it is us?” The real threats to any business come from inside the organization, not outside. It isn’t the markets, the competition, or regulation - it’s us. It’s our inability to focus on what might happen, when it’s not happening today. It’s our not wanting to initiate change, when there’s no “burning platform” that we can point to, to justify the change. We are too often unwilling to invest our time and effort, not to mention our stress and frustration, in a real strategic planning process that lets us ask the right long term questions and come up with the best answers for them that we can.

Finally, strategic plans, when they’re done correctly, pull people together and give them a sense of purpose and direction. (Be careful though - the opposite is also true, when they are not done right.) Whether your small business has 5 employees, or 500, the best strategic planning process you can devise involves them directly, in a hands-on way. It’s human nature to want to be part of something and to succeed. When your team is genuinely involved in fashioning a strategic plan, they will want to see it work and they will want to be part of that success. You have to lead people through change, it doesn’t just happen; when people are involved in looking at the future from the beginning, it’s a lot easier to get them to buy into it, no matter how frightening it might look.

Real change involves taking risks - and strategic planning lets you identify those risks and decide when they are worth taking. When you go down the road to change, you take yourself and everyone else out of their comfort zone. If you’re like most of humanity, you put change off until every excuse, comfortable alternative, and available resource has been utilized. If you differentiate yourself, you “bother with” strategic planning. You just can’t know the outcome of real change with any certainty and, to do it right, you need a process that at least lets you think through the risks and be better prepared to minimize them. But, more than a process, you need a mentality, a mindset that helps you get at real issues that make a difference and that produce the results you are looking for. And, you need to do it consistently, all the time - not just once a year.

Jim Deyo is the President of Business Advisor Online, an internet based service that provides small businesses with ideas they need to grow and the resources they require to make the right decisions. As a former Sr. Vice President with a major banking institution, Jim worked extensively with small and medium sized companies and has over 30 years experience in commercial and consumer lending, accounting, finance, marketing, and strategic planning. Visit the website at http://www.businessadvisoronline.com and sign up for a six week free trial of the service, or e-mail Jim at jimdeyo@businessadvisoronline.com.

These days, the struggle to survive is becoming increasingly intense for businesses of all sizes. Special strategies need to be adopted in order to improve the functioning of a company in order to allow it to keep up with the intensity of today’s marketplace. For this reason, many businesses have chosen to seek the advice of experts who can better the overall functioning of their organizations to ensure that they are reaching their highest potentials.

Among the strategies being recently and successfully implemented is the DMAIC Model, which stands for Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control. Experts, including Six Sigma Black Belts, swear by this model for overall business success though quality control, problem management, and common sense. It works as follows:

• Define - this refers to defining the goals of any given improvement effort. Top level improvement goals may include strategic efforts such as increasing the ROI or market share. Closer to the operations level, an organization’s goal may involve bettering the output of a given department. On the projects level, the goals may involve decreasing defects and increasing production. Data mining methods are applied here for identifying prospective opportunities for enhancement.

• Measure - this refers to measuring the current process. Reliable and valid metrics need to be established so that the different steps towards achieving the goal can be defined. This starts with the definition of the current baseline. Exploratory and descriptive data analysis are applied here for assisting with the understanding of the data.

• Analyze - this refers to the analysis of the system in order to recognize the disparity between the current system performance and the goal. Statistical tools are applied here for guiding the analysis.

• Improve - this refers to the improvements made to the system. Creativity must be employed in order to discover fresh ways of doing things cheaper, faster, and better. Project management and other management and planning tools are used here in order to facilitate the implementation of the new methodology. Statistical methods are also used in order to validate improvements that have been made.

• Control - this refers to controlling the new system. The enhanced system must be institutionalized through the modification of compensation and incentive programs, policies, MRP, procedures, operating instructions, budgets, and other systems of management. You can choose to use such systems as ISO 9000 in order to ensure accuracy of the documentation.

Though the DMAIC model does involve a reworking of the mindset of a business, strategies such as Six Sigma have seen tremendous, dynamic results upon its application.

Craig Setter is a certified Master Black Belt for Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online. Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for 6 sigma black belt, green belt, yellow belt, lean and DFSS courses. They have an extensive customer list including such companies as Pfizer, Microsoft, UPS, Bank of America, and State/Federal Governments. For additional information in regards to Six Sigma or to see how Aveta Solutions Six Sigma Online can help you, please visit us at http://www.sixsigmaonline.org

I’ve challenged all leaders I have worked with during the past two decades to achieve “more results faster continually.”

They can get on track to start achieving such results not by working harder and longer but by slowing down and using Leadership Talks on a daily basis.

However, I also tell them that getting on the more-results-faster-continually track is not an end but a beginning. They must then begin focusing not just on the quantity and speed of results but the kind of results they aim to achieve.

There are roughly two kinds of results, standard results and deep results. Most leaders understand standard results but fail to come to grips with deep results. In fact, these leaders go through their entire careers getting the former, but they don’t have a clue about the latter. Of course, standard results are necessary. But in the long run, they are far less important than deep results.

We know what standard results are. They are the results we must get in our jobs, such as: speed, productivity, operations efficiencies, sales closes, sales leads, sales to new customers, failure prevention, health and safety advancements, quality, training, quality control, logistics efficiencies, marketing targets, new revenue streams, sales erosion, price calibrations, cost reductions, demand flow activities and technologies, inventory turns, cycle time reductions, materials and parts management, etc.

Whereas achieving standard results enables us to do a better job and have a better career, deep results are different. Deep results are about being better leaders and human beings.

Of course, being a better leader will have a positive impact on your job and your career. But there is something else involved: Being a better leader means being a better person. Who we are as a leader and who we are as a person should be the same thing. If they’re not, we diminish both our leadership and the person we are.

Look at it this way: Standard results are about “doing”; deep results are about “being”. Our most important achievements as leaders are not just what we achieve but who we become in that achieving.

For instance, if we don’t get standard results in our job, we fail in that job or at least in that particular aspect of the job.

But in the realm of deep results, such failure might lead to success if in that failure, we find a better way to lead, a way to be better.

Here are some ways deep results differ from standard results.

–Deep results emerge over longer periods of time.

–Deep results encompass wider circles outside your job, usually impacting your family, friends, and relatives.

–Deep results are often not conventionally successful results. They can come in the guise of failure.

–Deep results can’t be quantified. They’re usually a quality of living or being.

–Deep results are often not immediately apparent. Usually, you become aware of them after they appear and sometimes long after they appear.

–Deep results are formed in your inner life and the choices you make over the things you control, your opinions, aspirations, and desires.

–Deep results shape, and are shaped by, character.

How does one go about getting deep results? There are many paths up this mountain. But one path is straight and steep and clear. That is the path of the Leadership Imperative.

I WILL LEAD PEOPLE IN SUCH A WAY THAT WE TOGETHER NOT ONLY ACHIEVE THE RESULTS WE NEED BUT THEY ALSO BECOME BETTER AS LEADERS AND AS PEOPLE.

The Imperative has two parts: one is results-accomplishments and the other is self betterment.

You are never more powerful as a leader as when, in getting results, you are helping others be better than they are — even better than thought they could be. Guided by the Leadership Imperative, you’ll find yourself realizing deep results.

Deep results are not a measurement or a direction. They are not a central purpose. They are a process of being. They are not something achieved. They are an achieving taking place not at a special place in a special time but at every place at all times.

You are deep results before you know that you are. Though deep results are easy, though often they do not come easily.

The task that we shoulder reveals our heart to the world. Deep results show our soul to the world.

Examples of deep results:

–With the disasters of the Franco-Prussia War tumbling down upon Paris, a remarkable event took place, the word of which spread like wildfire through the city. The great author Victor Hugo, exiled for 19 years, had come back to Paris. Traveling through German lines, through the war-ravaged countryside, he had come into the city on virtually the last train. He had come to share the sufferings with the Parisians in their darkest hour when his arriving meant virtual imprisonment in the city. Throngs gathered at the station to applaud him. One man shouted over the crowd, “If defeat brings us Victor Hugo, we couldn’t be better rewarded!” - deep results.

–Doug Collins, member of the ‘72 U.S. Olympic team that ultimately lost the gold medal on a disputed call to the Soviet Union, describes the dramatic moments at the end of the game. We’re losing by one. The Soviets have the ball. The clock’s running out. I hide behind the center, bait a guy into throwing a pass, knock it loose and grab it. A Russian goes under me as I’m going up for the lay-up. I’m KO’d for a second. The coaches run to me. John Bach, one of the assistants, says, ‘We gotta get somebody to shoot the fouls.” But coach Hank Iba says, ‘If Doug can walk, he’ll shoot.’ That electrified me. The coach believed in me. I can’t even remember feeling any pressure. Three dribbles, spin the ball, toss it in, same as in my backyard. I hit ‘em both and got the lead. I didn’t know what I was made of until then.” -deep results.

–Herb Rammrath, a General Electric client of mine in the late 1980s, told me this. “I was a young Naval officer reporting with many other new sailors aboard an aircraft carrier. The captain met us in a formation on the flight deck. He shook my hand and went down the line greeting many other sailors. I didn’t think anything of it until several weeks later when he passed by me in a passageway. He said, ‘Hi, Herb!’ I never forgot that. He remembered my name despite the fact that he had met scores of new sailors that day. It’s made a tremendous impact on me till this day.” -deep results.

–Seeing abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison dragged with a rope down a Boston Street, Wendell Phillips became so outraged that he joined the abolitionist movement and became one of its most effective activists. -deep results.

Many people go through their careers ignorant of deep results. But when you view your career as a whole, don’t you think that the ultimate yardstick of your life should be deep results?

Deep results are not about getting but giving, not about doing but becoming, not about material accumulation but about self-enrichment and the enrichment of human relationships. From now on, when thinking about getting results in your jobs and your career, think too of the deep results you should achieve.

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

2006 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. - and for more than 20 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free white paper: “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at http://www.actionleadership.com