GROW A BUSINESS
WITH MORE SUCCESS AND LESS SWEAT
BY DR . GEOFF SMART CHAIRMAN AND FOUNDER OF GHSMART
Having advised thousands of business leaders , my colleagues at ghSMART and I have heard many common causes of stress .
HERE ARE SOME OF THE CAUSES :
You have a bold vision but lack confidence in your team to execute it . So , your business plan feels more like wishful thinking than a reasonable set of results you expect your team to achieve in the future .
Competitors are starting to bring better , faster , cheaper services to market , and you feel your advantages slipping .
Your own workload seems to be growing exponentially , taking a toll on your life outside of work , and you are wondering where the glory is in growing a business .
In addition to the stress felt by leaders , there are many worries outside your company . A recent Conference Board survey of 800 CEOs , as reported by The Wall Street Journal on Jan . 16 , 2019 , reported that the top worries of CEOs outside their companies are recession , global trade , and politics , in that order . And the three worries inside their companies are hiring talented people , digital technology , and developing leaders .
How can you be a successful leader and reduce your stress in growing the business ?
The advice I ’ m about to share is not just some off-thecuff “ you oughta ” thoughts that your friend is telling you over lunch . I think it ’ s nice when a friend has some thoughts to share with you over lunch , but what you are about to read is different .
Our advice is based on a now 17,000-leader database of successful and unsuccessful careers , which we have analyzed with the University of Chicago and other top research universities for three bestselling books our firm has published : “ Who ,” “ Power Score ,” and “ The CEO Next Door .” We don ’ t just write books ; our leadership advisory firm , ghSMART , has tested this advice with thousands of business leaders we have advised over the last 20 years . We practice what we preach . All the advice I ’ m about to offer is based on tactics we ’ ve successfully used ourselves to grow our business to over a dozen offices in the U . S . and
Europe to serve clients globally while becoming the subject of two Harvard Business Review case studies as a pioneer in our field .
There are 3 actions that help leaders achieve more success with less sweat .
1 . Reduce your priorities to three or less .
2 . Hire and fire until you are 90 % confident that your team will execute the strategy successfully .
3 . Build relationships that are focused not just on getting along but also on achieving measurable outcomes together .
We discovered that leaders who are skilled at these three things are 20 times more likely to achieve their financial goals for their companies than those who are not . Again , these three things are prioritizing , hiring and developing talented teams , and building relationships focused on results .
Reduce your priorities to 3 or less .
Most of the time , when a leader struggles with prioritizing , it ’ s because they have too many priorities , not too few . I sat on a plane next to a CEO a couple weeks ago who seemed stressed . I was writing a love letter to my wife , and I didn ’ t
20 | MSP SUCCESS • VOLUME 1