Do What You Said You Would Do

On November 3^rd (for my fortieth birthday), my five wonderful siblings chipped in and bought me a five-disc Sony DVD player. (Did I mention that they are wonderful?) To set up the DVD player is very complicated. You have to put the plug into the wall outlet and you have to connect three wires to the back of the DVD player and the back of the tv. Takes about three minutes.

I installed the DVD on December 27^th.

Why did that take seven weeks to accomplish? Even though I said I wanted to do it, I had a huge mental block. It went something like this, "This is technology. This is complicated. I don't have time to deal with this."

One of the best ways to accelerate your results and your career is to do what you said you would do. I mean it. Just do what you said you would do. Today I'm celebrating five years as an entrepreneur. Five years ago today I left my tenured position as a high school teacher and set out on my own. The times when I've experienced success were when I did what I said I would do. The times I have been unsuccessful were a result of my not doing what I said I would do. (See, there's this book I've been talking about writing since 1990.)

The United States Military has a great commercial that says something like, "An Army Of One." I love that. It means every soldier, every captain, every general and every person in the army is responsible for their decisions and behavior. I think every business should say, "A Corporation Of One." In other words, every person is responsible for his or her decisions and behaviors. On the cover of Time magazine, the 2002 Persons Of The Year are Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom, Coleen Rowley of the FBI and Sherron Watkins of Enron. This time, Time got it exactly right. These three women took responsibility for their decisions and their input. They pushed back on their bosses for their lack of integrity and honesty. They changed the world.

In his book, "Leadership", Rudy Guiliani, the former mayor of New York City, tells a story that on his desk was a simple little statement, "I'm responsible." I love that. It means that every person in government is responsible for his or her decisions and behaviors. That philosophy helped his team a great deal during the September 11th crisis.

In his book, "A Long Way From Home", Tom Brokaw tells a story where he simply stopped taking responsibility for his life. Through the help of his father, a great teacher and his future wife, he learned that life is actually much easier when you take responsibility for your decisions and behaviors.

In the book "Execution" by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, the same point comes screaming out loud and clear. Beware of current reality and take responsibility for making the adjustments necessary to be successful. Don't avoid responsibility and assume that things will take care of themselves. (i.e. That DVD player wasn't going to jump out of the box and into the outlet by itself, although you might have thought I believed that due to my behavior.)

Every time you make a commitment to anyone, write it on a sheet called, "My Commitments." Put a deadline on each commitment. Then when you complete the commitment, scratch it off. Be fanatical about doing what you said you would.

I'm listening to a CD program by Brian Tracy called, The Power of Clarity, produced by Nightingale-Conant. In a bonus interview, he says that the biggest thing he has learned about success is that the key is for people to do what they have committed themselves to doing. If you say you're going to lose weight, lose it. If you say you're going to write a book, write it. If you say you're going to look for a different position or a different employer, do it. The gain in self-esteem and momentum will be extraordinary. Do what you said you would do every single time.

And now for our next trick, Barb and I are going to get our three-year-old and one-year-old children to bed earlier so we can actually watch a DVD.

New White Paper – Accelerate Your Strengths

On June 16th I gave a half-day seminar on “Accelerate Your Strengths: practical ideas to boost business momentum” for GE Capital. It was such an interesting project that I wrote a white paper for the group after the seminar based on what we talked about. In turn, that white paper was forwarded on to 7,000 GE employees. Consequently, I thought you might like to read the paper, except this version has all the references to GE taken out. Here is the link for the

Accelerate Your Strengths white paper: http://thecoughlincompany.com/accellerate_your_strengths.html

New Book, Find a Way to Win: Management Insights from Terry Michler, America's All-Time Winningest Soccer Coach

This book focuses on business lessons that can be learned from soccer. The foundation of the book is how Terry Michler used the powerful simplicity of Dutch soccer to win more games than any other U.S. coach in history.

On July 11th, the finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa between Holland and Spain was watched by more than 700 million people. While I was cheering for Holland at the beginning of the game, a major decision by their coach led me to learning a valuable lesson all over again.

Dutch soccer, which is highlighted in my book, is all based on extraordinary technical skill, efficiency, and precise attacking soccer. This is how a country with only 16 million people competes so extraordinarily well with the world's super powers in soccer including number-one ranked Brazil, whom they beat in the quarterfinals. However, in the World Cup finals Holland abandoned what made them great and instead focused on playing brutal, violent soccer. They wanted to intimidate Spain, and in the end they lost the game and the respect of so many people who love Dutch soccer. What happened and why did they do it?

They felt they couldn't compete with Spain if they allowed them to get into their normal passing game. So they consciously decided to physically attack the Spanish players with violent tackles all over the field. One Dutch player even shoved his metal cleats into the chest of a Spanish player. They received numerous yellow cards, a red card, and ridicule from the world-wide soccer press after the game.

What's the lesson to learn here for every business? Stay true to who you are. When the prize is close don't abandon what got you to be one of the best organizations in your industry. Too many companies in the past ten years have decided that what made them very, very good wasn't going to be enough to make them number one in their industry, and so they got away from their strengths. Big mistake.

I believe Holland will return to their traditional style of play, focus on precise, skillful, attacking soccer, and get away from their violent style of play. I think they learned a huge lesson. And hopefully every business that got away from its core strength in the pursuit of being bigger and more successful financially than anyone else in the industry will also return to its core and get back to winning again.

You can learn more about Find a Way to Win at http://thecoughlincompany.com/book_store.html

Republishing Articles

Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

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