IT'S TIME...

It's time for American businesses to fly again, both figuratively and literally.

It's time for American businesses to stop playing it safe and acting like they need a guarantee for success before they will take a prudent risk. (Of course, if they had a guarantee for success, then they would not be taking a risk. More on that in a moment.)

For the past six years, far too many American businesses have acted like they should be automatically rewarded for every initiative. In the late 1990s, many businesses pumped billions of dollars into innovation and new approaches to the marketplace. However, this was not risk taking because many of these businesses assumed that if they put the word "internet" anywhere in their business plan, they would automatically be rewarded handsomely. When that boondoggle fell apart, far too many businesses took the exact opposite approach: fire employees, eliminate investments in innovation, conserve cash and WAIT for the economy to turn around.

Folks, there is no magic wand for turning the economy around. It will happen only when businesses, from small to large, decide to stop waiting and to start taking chances again. Paraphrasing Franklin D. Roosevelt, the greatest risk we can take is to not take any risks.

Tom Brokaw did our country a great favor by writing about the greatest generation, the individuals who carried us through the depression, WWII and the post-war years. In the late 1940s and 1950s, Americans faced an uncertain international situation, they were coming off of terrible economic conditions, they experienced a housing boom like nothing ever seen in this country before and they had relatively new technologies in the form of televisions, automobiles and airplanes. Doesn't all of this sound eerily familiar to the America of today? But instead of being frozen into avoiding risks, the greatest generation stepped forward, they tried new things, they were charged up by the possibilities, not the guarantees. If we are going to be a great generation, if we are going to leave our mark on history, then we must take chances again. We must invest in innovation. We must find new ways to add more value to customers. We have to stop waiting for someone else to turn the economy around. So today decide what you can do to make your organization more successful and then take a risk and invest in doing it. It's time for us to make our mark as a generation.

Resource Recommendation: The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw.

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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