Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Seven steps toward Greatness

1. Have enthusiasm -- Be a fire setter.
Enthusiasm is so essential -- and sometimes it's something that has to be developed. Each of us is enthusiastic about something -- even if it's Friday afternoon. We need to become enthusiastic about our path to greatness, or it's almost certain that we won't reach our goal.
Enthusiasm is something that can be compared to a fire. As a fire starts to burn, it may be only a few flames -- but with enough time and fuel, a fire begins to burn hotter and hotter, kindling other flames as it grows.
Although I'm not trying to minimize the great damage they caused, like the forest fires that have been plaguing us here in the Western United States over the last few years, a small spark can kindle a great blaze. In some cases, a single match, carelessly thrown out of a car window, caused a vast wildfire.
Our quest for greatness can inspire and inflame an organization -- it can make an organization's enthusiasm flare up, just as the wildfires did.
A couple of weeks ago, I read an interesting book called "And Dignity for All." The title doesn't really do the book justice, even though it adequately conveys the general message of the book. The book tells of the re-creation of parts of Caterpillar, a U.S.-based manufacturer of heavy machinery. More than just that, it's the chronicle of how just a few people reformed long-held ideas, and turned a company toward a better path to greatness.
Just as in this excellent book, we all can create enthusiasm in our organizations, and in ourselves.
A technique shared by many motivational experts is the "fake it until you make it" technique. In this technique, a person acts as if he/she already has a particular skill, ability, or positive attitude. The real thing follows easily.
If you're having a bit of a problem getting started on the enthusiasm bandwagon, just act as if you're enthused. You'll soon get caught up in it.

2. Expect great things, and you'll get them.
It's an old adage, but it's true -- when you expect greatness, you're likely to get it. Whether it be from yourself, your co-workers, your family, or your followers, when you expect the best, you're more likely to gain it.
Conversely, the opposite is also true -- if you expect junk, you're likely to get it.
Once you've become inflamed with enthusiasm, decide that only greatness will be good enough. Sure, your organization may take some time to get there -- or you may take time yourself -- but commit to do whatever it takes in order to get the great results you seek.
Great things come from great people, who are striving to accomplish great undertakings.

3. Don't settle for less than greatness.
Sounds like a bit of a replay of number two -- but it needs mentioning by itself. When you allow yourself to settle for "second best," you are doing yourself, and your organization, a great disservice. Years ago, a commercial had this tag line: "My tastes are simple. I only settle for the very best." Take this commercial line into your own approach to life. Expect the best from yourself -- and don't let yourself settle for less.

4. Encourage greatness in others.
There's an old description of the difference between a leader and a dictator. A dictator tells people where to go -- and punishes them if they don't get there. A leader shows people where to go -- and leads them there herself.
Don't only use mere words to encourage your organization and yourself to strive for greatness. Include training to give them (and you) the skills necessary to attain the best. Adjust your thinking to bring them onboard your "greatness bandwagon." Lead them, teach them, guide them -- and do the same for yourself.

5. Move steadily.
This one item is the step that most people have the most problem with -- keeping going. It's usually easy for an organization to take their group to a "management retreat," where the latest in "team-building games" and "motivational moments" are shared -- but at best, most of these retreats provide a "six-month blip." After the initial excitement wears off, most people just stop moving.
Your key, whether it be in yourself or in your organization, is to encourage continual movement and growth. Usually, all it takes is a bit of a push when movement seems to slow down -- but as a leader, you've got to keep yourself aware of those slowdowns.

Earl's Best!Earl Nightingale talks about the methods he used to create his fortune and reform his life. This program has changed many lives since its inception many years ago. Still among the best success audio programs available, along with his tape series
6. Evaluate progress.
An old friend of mine used to say "If something isn't measured, it doesn't happen." It sounds like the old "tree falls in the forest" argument, but it's more true than we may think. If there's no measurement of how an organization or an individual is moving and changing, it's likely there will be very little movement or change.
Don't be onerous about it -- but evaluate how well your organization or yourself is adapting to your path toward greatness.

7. Adjust, adapt, and repeat.
It's a never-ending quest -- when we become great, we need to become greater. Our newer heights show us greater ones to achieve.
Adjust your approach to account for obstacles that may need to be surmounted. Adapt to those challenges, and also adapt to the things your quest has taught you.
Repeat your quest for greatness -- and keep on striving to become greater, each and every day.

Have confidence in your ability to reach greatness and move your organization toward greater heights

Monday, March 23, 2009

The Four Discipline of Execution

Leader make a difference in great organization, In today’s global knowledge based world, the called for greatness is greater than ever before, sustainable financial performance , intense customer loyalty, a winning culture and a distinctive contribution in a marketplace, all hallmark of truly great organization.
Great organizations are created by great leaders, leaders who kind of list the highest and best contribution of their team through their organization’s most critical priority. Every organization and every leader are aspired to greatness. But why the only few achieved it, the problem is that many leaders rely on an old school approaches to leadership. Great leaders not only see the world differently, they do think differently. Executing the strategic goal is the greatest challenge in business today; aligning the organization with the most important objective is a never ending battle. In addition keeping people engaged and focus on a top goal is critical, Imagine an organization where all employees are totally focus on the most important priority and committed to achieving the wildly important goal. 70 percent of strategic failures are due to poor of execution of leadership, it is rarely for lack of smart or vision.
All organization are composed in individuals, unless you got individual work align to the organization top priority, organizational goal would not be achieved. The reason why most people never reach their goal is they don’t define them. Franklincovey research show, execution break down in four ways:
People and team don’t know the goal, either there are too many goals or the goals are not clear.
People and team don’t know what to do to achieve the goal, in other word the goals are goals, are not translated into day to day activities.
People and team don’t keep score; few people can tell at any moment if they are on track to achieve the thing that really matter and are critical to their organization’s success.
People and team don’t account for result, people don’t account to each other for progress on the most important goal, almost workers have most choices and more technology than ever before, very few know how to filter it, and through all the competing priority they received and flawlessly executed the most important priority.
Strategic and Executions
Two things a leader has influences over when it comes to getting result:
What do you want to accomplish? How do you accomplish?
Execution: Ability to execute that strategy.
Why Execution of the strategy become a big problem? Because we got a sort of barrier to change social behavior and sometimes the leaders start to playing a role and screwing up an execution. The more a leader is in love with a strategy the greater the lag we had that the leader will underestimate difficulty associating with the strategy. Actually, the four breakdowns are basic, important but not common because we got distraction, multitasking, and a lot of thing going on in a same time.
In every organization there is an inherent conflict between two forces, on one side we have the day job, and the other side we have the goal for moving the organization forward. The nature of the day job is urgent and the nature of the goal is important, and when an urgency and importance clash urgency will triumph importance every time. It is very critical for a leader to draw a hard-line between the goal and the day job. The fundamental challenge with execution is not achieving a goal, but achieving the goal in a myth of day to day job. Here 4 discipline that principle and sequential:
Discipline 1: Focus on a Wildly Important Goal (WIG).
Focus on WIG means you have to narrow your focus down to 1, 2, 3 most important goal you must achieved. The difference between important goal and WIG is:
Important goal: a goal with significant consequences and value.
Wildly Important Goal: A goal that make all the difference. Failure to achieve this goal renders any others achievement inconsequential.
Focus diligently and intensely on only few crucial goal (3 maximum), because if you keep adding goal as WIG, the probability of achieving them plunges steeply. Juggle five goals at once and you only a 33 percent chance of getting excellent results.
Number of goals
1-3
4-10
11-20
Goals achieved with excellence
1-3
1-2
0
3 goal or fewer, not for the whole entity but per team, and then build relationship between them. Put that in a day-to-day job because if you tell people to focus and you don’t acknowledge the day job you are going to frustrated them. Next draw a Finish line, how do you know you’ve won? X-> Y by when. X where you are today, Y where you need to be, by when define the finish line (ex: Increase Customer Satisfaction Index from 80[X] to 85[Y] this quartal [When]).
Discipline 2: Act on the lead measure.
What is lead measure? After you’ve narrowed your focus to the few key goals you must accomplish, you need to select a few activities that are predictive of goal achievement and then you can influence in a weekly bases. These lead measures are the 20/80 activities there is 80 percent of the result come from 20 percent of these activities, the 80/20 rule is also known as the pareto principle. Here is the difference between lag measure and lead measure:
Lag Measure
Lead Measure
Measure a goal achievement.
Predict a goal achievement.
Harder to influence.
Easier to influence.
Easy to measure.
Harder to measure.
Lead measure characteristics:

Case study: Reduce lost time injuries this year from 12 to 0 by compliance 8 safety standard. 0 is lag measure and compliance 8 safety standard is lead measure.
Lead measures are not guarantee, they are bets. And the bad news is people always focus on lag measure because lag measure darn important and easy to get.
Discipline 3: Keep a compelling scoreboard.
The fact is people play a lot differently when they are keeping score. People will disengage from a goal when they don’t know the score or if they feel they can not influence the score. So, scoreboard ensures that people have the same understanding of goals. Once you define your team measures, turn these into a compelling scoreboard that is:
Motivating: Tell if we are winning, where we are and where we should be.
Simple: Can tell within 5 second if we are winning.
Updateable: Can be updated easily.
Complete: Both lead and lag measure included.
Accessible: The whole team can see it easily and often.
The rule of score board it’s got to tell me am I winning.
Discipline 4: Create a cadence of accountability.
Cadence of accountability is rhythm of team based engagement in accountability, maintaining commitment to the goal requires frequent team accountability. Traditional staff meeting won’t suffice; you need a better process for engaging the team and reporting on results. On 20 minutes meeting, no more than 20 minutes, report what are 1, 2 or 3 things that your team could do this week, what could your team accomplish this week and would have the biggest impact on the scoreboard. Just triage reporting, scoreboard review, follow-through, success celebrated. You never know if you got a good strategic or bad until you execute it.
Conclusion:
The 4 discipline of execution is a process that every team in every organization can use to help focuses on and execute the top priority, without such a process success becomes a matter of change and unpredictable factor.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Pertemuan Pak Lah Anwar Antara Realiti & Harapan



Mukmin Yang Cintakan Keamanan,Ukhwah dan Kesejahteraan setiasa menunggu tribulasi dikalangan pimpinan tertinggi untuk bekerjasama kearah yang lebih baik ... Idea Tuan Guru Nik Aziz Bubarkan semua parti Jadikan satu parti adalah Yang terbaik .....Namun sukar dilrealisasikan kerana kita sudah sedia maklum sebahagian besar pimpinan terutamanya yang berkuasa lebih mengutamakan kepentingan diri..
Namun saya yakin Pak Lah & Anwar Bahkan TGH Hadi dibantu pakar-pakar penasihat tentu lebih arif mencari solusi untuk kebaikan Agama,Bangsa & Negara...
Realitinya semua tahu,UMNO Sudah rosak akibat pemimpin-pemimpin yang tamak manakala PAS & Keadilan terpaksa menghentam UMNO sehabis-habisnya untuk mengurangkan Kuasa BN yang terbukti telah banyak merugikan bangsa Melayu dan Negara...
Kita bimbang sekiranya tiada anjakan paradigma dikalangan pimpinan Melayu...
Pihak lain akan menanguk di air yang keroh...
Mengapakah kita tidak mahu berfikir diluar kotak kekangan semasa Kearah membina Unity Government bagi mengagaskan kerajaan perpaduan yang tidak ada pembangkang.
Maksud perwujudkannya Win-Win Situation ... keadaan bagi membolehkan kerajaan dan pembangkang sama-sama memberi fokus kepada menyelesaikan masalah semasa rakyat yang terdesak seperti ekonomi, keselamatan, sosial dan lain-lain. Unity government bukan bermaksud untuk mendapatkan kuasa atau berkuasa atau gila kepada kuasa, namun sama-sama berusaha mencari kebaikan bersama .
Ertinya kerajaan perdamaian ini, disokong oleh semua parti walaupun tanpa keterlibatan pembangkang bergabung secara langsung . Lebih mudah lagi pembangkang tidak akan membangkang seperti hari ini melainkan akan membangkang jika kerajaan UNITY itu besimpang dari pinsip keadilan dan kesejahteraan rakyat.
Saya rasa juga sudah tiba masanya negeri-negeri majoriti muslim yang kini diperintah UMNO dan PAS diberi ruang seluasnya untuk mengetengahkan model negeri Islam dengan lebih menyeluruh..tanpa sabotaj politik.Manakala Raja-raja melayu perlulah tampil sebagai role model mukmin yang baik seterusnya bertindak sebagai ketua agama negeri kearah pembinaan negeri yang mantap... Kita Yakin bila Islam didaulat Pertolongan Allah pasti Datang dari jalan yang tidak diduga...Namun Bila Islam Dikesampingkan Pasti Bala Allah Akan Dalam Bentuk gelora tak sudah Akibat Pemimpin yang Loba dan Rakyat yang Derhaka..