Small Business Today Magazine MAR 2015 IMPACT STONE DESIGN | Page 34
EDITORIALFEATURE
My 5 Wishes
By N.D. Brown
H
ow many times have you looked over
your shoulder and thought “I wish I
had done that”? You are probably like
me and have lost count. The good
news is that it’s never too late to make those
missed wishes come true. You’ve learned
from every missed wish. When you analyze
every wish that didn’t happen you will find a
way to make it happen.
This article isn’t about wishing on a star,
tossing coins in that famous Roman fountain
or make believe wishing wells, the lottery
ticket you impulsively bought the last time
you filled up, or your thoughts as you rubbed
the old lamp you found in the attic. This is
about the wishes you make hoping, in spite
of what you have done, the future will bend
in your favor.
Remember the exam you didn’t really
study for and as you looked for your name on
the list of posted grades you were wishing for
a miracle? Of course the grade next to your
name proved that there are very few miracles
so then you wished you had studied harder.
I call these regret wishes - when you wish
you had read the entire book before taking
the test; when you wish you had done more
research before writing the report; when
you wish you had listened more closely
when they were explaining how the gadget
worked.
The future is not bendable but the past is
loaded with knowledge.
Here are my 5 regret wishes that helped
me get smarter:
1. I wish I had communicated with employees better.
Early on, a wizened client taught me about
upward management. It’s the act of letting
The answer was that
they had been
outgrowing their small
business roots. They
had lost sight of how
teamwork helps. They
had made the expression
“It’s not my job” the
company mantra.
That negating phrase
is a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Soon, nothing
is anyone’s job and your
small business can get
smaller and smaller.
the people who gave you the assignment
know what you are doing. I wish I had
taught more of my employees that simple
task. It makes them look smarter and lets
that group of upper management know that
the work is going well. It also lets them know
if it is going badly and help is needed.
2. I wish I had shown appreciation better.
I was good at saying thank you and giving
deserved pats on the back and even those
sometimes barely deserved pats. Now I
know it is much more than that. Employees
need to know how integral they are to your
business’s success.
3. I wish I had demonstrated teamwork
better.
32 SMALL BUSINESS TODAY MAGAZINE [ MARCH 2015 ]
I was the leader but that doesn’t mean
taking the credit for every success. In fact,
I think leadership means making sure everyone knows the value of their individual
participation. Every idea starts in a single
brain but its life comes from the team that
nurtures it to life. It is one thing to verbalize
teamwork. The trite saying, “There is no I in
Team,” should be restated, “In a team, there
is no such thing as that’s not my job”. Everyone, including the team leader, needs to
do whatever needs to be done.
4. I wish I had used circles of excellence, the
action of group thinking.
Once a week, the entire team should be
gathering for no more than 30 minutes highlighting the challenges for the next week. It
should be a session discussing what needs to
be accomplished and examining where help
is needed.
When my group was asked by a Fortune
500 company to prepare a video showing
how their NEW group thinking tactic was
working
I was flabbergasted because what they
were doing was not a new idea. Books
about changing production line thinking to
group support were being published in the
‘50s!
The answer was that they had been outgrowing their small business roots. They
had lost sight of how teamwork helps. They
had made the expression “It’s not my job”
the company mantra. That negating phrase
is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Soon, nothing is
anyone’s job and your small business can get
smaller and smaller.
»Continued on Page 40