Doing What Matters

Continuous dissatisfaction with the status quo is the best way to keep growing as an individual, an organization, or a company. Constructive discomfort with yourself, your business, your people, and your products, systems, and services will fuel ongoing change and progress. However, never allow your dissatisfaction to become negative or dysfunctional.

Things That Really Matter

Growth Matters
Continuous dissatisfaction with the status quo is the best way to keep growing. Without an ethos that assumes you are never as good as you will become, you will stall out and your people will put their performance on cruise control.

Relationship Matters
Mentors can be the difference between you having to struggle and learn entirely by trial and error versus profiting from the sage advice and past experience of someone who is older and wiser.

Loyalty Matters
Staying true to associates and subordinates creates the credibility and trust you need to be a leader. And loyalty cuts both ways. You benefit by retaining the support of smart people who know your style and want to meet your expectations.

Small Moments Matter
Expressions of concern and interest in an associate’s s career and struggles must be real and genuine, but they don’t have to be large, orchestrated events. Small things can create a lifelong remembrance. Be honest with your people about your expectations and don’t sugarcoat any shortcomings, but take the time to support them when they need your help.

Timely Decisions Matter
One of the toughest things in business is firing people, which usually results in delays that hurt everyone. Remember that someone who’s a poor match for a position in your business may be a star elsewhere. At any rate, putting off a tough decision never makes it easier. Timely decision making helps your business, your associates, and ultimately the displaced person, who can then get on with a new life.

Doing What You Enjoy Matters
Find something you like to do, and then find someone who will pay you to do it. If you don’t like what you are doing, every day seems like eternity. If you’re absorbed and consumed with your work, a career of decades seems short. The more you like what you do, the better off, the more successful, and the more satisfied you’ll be over time.

Life’s Early Lessons Matter
In an age of such great change and tumult, what better mooring could you have for your values than the lessons learned from your mother’s knee! Everything from play fair… to be on time… to work hard… to tell the truth… to don’t blame others, and on and on. As Warren Buffet says: Don’t do it if you wouldn’t want to read about it on the front page of your newspaper.
Doing the right things always matter.

The Right Team Matters
Surround yourself with the best people. Fairly or unfairly, you’re credited for the success of your team and blamed for their failures. So get the best and the brightest people and keep many of them with you throughout your career.

Confronting Reality Matters
Often the challenge is accepting the fact that change is needed to make things better. But equally important is the wisdom to know when no amount of change will work. There is wisdom in knowing your limitations and accepting those things you can’t influence.

-James M. Kilts