Building your Circles

Overheard a successful business person once referring to their list of contacts on their cell phone as their "bat list".   Of course I asked what this meant:   list of people in their circle who can be called upon at anytime to help.

This is one of the reasons we need Circles.   Who can you call on?  Who can you ask to help with a situation or a client/friend requiring assistance, information, a quote or help in a jam?

The Circles we build close to us include these types of individuals.   I am very fortunate to have great people close in my Family, Friends, Business and Associates.

Building Circles is about building relationships and friendship.   It's about connecting with people and hearing their story so you can help them and they can help you with whatever is thrown at is both good and challenging!

Thanks to everyone in my Circles for making a difference and knowing I can count on you.   I strive to do the same for you.

Why are you building circles?

Make a Decision

Leaders must have the ability to take charge of all situations and make the easy and difficult decisions.

Making the decision is more important than delaying the decision trying to please everyone.   Decisions are not a leader' desire to please everyone. 

Procrastinating to make the decision will only result in more challenges and bad decisions.  

Make the decision.   Make the tough decisions timely based on facts, experience, intuition and your goals.
Lead your team and provide clear direction when your decisions are made.

What tough decisions are you making today?

Deal with what is Important

What is important?

Leaders set priorities on the important stuff and the difficult stuff instead of avoiding it or being too busy to deal with it.  Setting priorities is a constant to ensure what is important gets done.  

Who decides what is important?

There are many influencers to push their agenda forward as most important.   These can be from within your team and outside your team.   The leader needs to focus and have a discipline to steer the team to prioritize the important items.

Reacting and over-reacting is a common strategy, however, it usually is not the best one in the long-run.

How do you move important tasks forward?

Lead by example.  Communicate to your team what is important and what is required by reviewing the overall goal.   Be firm to ensure the team remains focused.

Remember it's all important stuff and it's up to the leader to prioritize, focus and stay on track.

How are you determining what is important on your Team?

Doing What's Right for Your Business

Doing what's right for your business appears to be a simple thing to do, right?   However, emotions, egos and other pressures seem to get in the way of making the right decsion.

How do you deal with these factors when making your decision?

Stay focused on the decision and understand how it affects the entire business.   The influencing factors to not make the right decision result in benefiting one or a few members of the team or negatively affecting many team members.

Remember to look at the long-term effect and not just the short-term effect.

Leadership is not about being friends and liked by all.   It's about being trusted and respected.

How are you doing what's right for your business?