The Super Bowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals was an excellent example of how executing will win or lose a game. The Steelers won because when they needed to, behind in the score as the game clock started to run out of time, they scored a touchdown and won the game.
I am not taking anything away from the Steelers, they are an excellent team and deserved to win. Personally, I was rooting for Arizona.
In business, it is the same thing: failure to execute will cause a company or organization to fail to achieve the objectives which it has set to survive or succeed.
Now is the time for every single leader, manager and employee to stop focusing on all of the external and internal distractions that lead away from doing their jobs.
The newspapers, magazines, television newscasts and talk shows, radio shows (satelite, over the air, internet) are all filled with nothing but negative news about the economy. People are hooked on the addiction of reading, seeing or hearing that tens of thousands of people are being laid off by companies.
Let me give you a newsflash: the companies that are laying off those kind of numbers have been doing it for decades. You read that right, the Fortune 1000, the Forbes 1000 and many other public companies have been downsizing for years. Only now that these firms are doing it in the thousands, feeding the frenzy of bad news that the media just loves to report. And, to keep reporting because fear sells.
Just like sex sells, so does fear. Fear sells viewership, fear sells readership and fear sells listeners. As those numbers (subscribers) go up, more advertisers jump in, seeing an opportunity to take control of more eyeballs and more ears. (The only problem is that most advertising is a waste of money).
So, what should you be doing now? Turn off the talk radio and news radio. Stop reading the paper; if you have to read the paper, go to the sports section for your fill. Cancel the news magazines, they are filled with more opinion now than news. In other words, stop feeding the fear and negativity and instead, do something else.
DO THE JOB YOUR EMPLOYER IS PAYING YOU TO DO!
If you don’t know what is expected of you, or not crystal clear, right now (as in TODAY!) is a great time to find out. Sit down with the boss and ask a very simple yet critically important question: “How can I help the company right now?”
If you know what you are supposed to be doing, have a quick conversation with your boss and ask: “I need for you to tell me three things that I could do better to achieve what you want me to do, please tell me what they are.”
Then listen. Don’t open your mouth. LISTEN. Let the silence be deafening.
Write what the boss tells you. Don’t argue, don’t push back. If you need clarification, ask for it. Be specific about what you are seeking and when th boss replies, write it down so you don’t forget. Read it back to the boss so he or she understands that you know what you need to be doing better.
At this point in the business cycle, all that really matters in a business is three things:
1. Have the customer place an order
2. Serve the customer, fill the order and provide the service in the manner the customer wants.
3. Collect the money from the customer for the service or product.
You want to know about all those people who are getting laid off? They didn’t understand the three things that must happen for a company to survive. They didn’t do what was needed to help a company survive. They didn’t do enough of it. They didn’t do it often enough. Or good enough.
I am sorry so many individuals are out of work. I have been out of work myself, and it is not a comfortable place to be. A friend told me that being out of work is worse than having a prison sentence, and I asked for clarification, not understanding his comment. He explained that someone in jail knows exactly when they will be released. Someone out of work has no idea when they will be hired.
If you are out of work, I’d suggest you take a look at the short list above and decide which one of the three key areas you can most help a company you want to work at. Most companies today are looking to see if they can add more people interested in “having the customer place an order” (meaning, produce revenue) than the other two, but that depends on the company and the industry.
And so it was with the Cardinals last Sunday night. They did not do what they needed to do when they needed to do it. And today, if you aren’t doing what you’re supposed to be doing, you might find yourseld on the outside looking in.
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