Our Greatest Privilege

Even though it's political season, I still don't think voting is our greatest privilege. The opportunity to vote for the president in a democratic nation is an unbelievable privilege. It means regardless of the individual's race, gender, income, title, authority, assets, religious beliefs, size of home, number of children, geographic area, personality, or opinion of Donald Trump, every citizen gets the same weighted vote as any other citizen.

However, everyone, including people in communist nations, has an even greater privilege every day. That's the privilege to lead. Leadership simply means the ability to influence how other people think in ways that generate better sustainable results both for the organization and the people in it. The capacity to lead, like voting in a democracy, is available to every person regardless of their race, gender, title, income, authority, assets, home, number of children, geographic area, personality, or opinion of Donald Trump.

To me, that is awesome. Think about it. You have the same opportunity to influence the way other people think as anyone else. The greatest challenge to being an effective leader is throwing away all of those goofy tapes that say, "When you get to be head of the organization, then you can lead the way," "When you're older, then you can lead," "If you just become more charismatic, then you can really be the leader for this group." ENOUGH NONSENSE!

I love the topic of leadership. I love the concept of leadership. Effective leaders, which are people who really influence others in ways that generate better sustainable results, are THE necessary prerequisite for organizational success. No strategy, no brand, no financial position can withstand the lack of leadership and still generate sustainable and positive results.

Having said all of this, I hope you understand how powerful the privilege of leadership is for you. You get to vote for the president once every four years, but you can influence how other people think five times a day. Leadership is the open tap of society. Everyone can provide influence on an on-going basis.

This article is more about the privilege than the tactics, but since I'm a "how-to writer" I'll mention briefly how to be a leader. Here we go:

1. Make a list of the people who have influenced you to think in a way that generated better sustainable results.
2. For each name, write down how they effectively influenced you.
3. Look at the list and determine how you could use these proven leadership techniques to influence the people in your life.
4. Constantly work to improve your delivery of that technique.
5. Repeat the process.

Here's an example. I'm a freshmen in high school and my freshman advisor tells me, "Dan, high school is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to pace yourself." This advice generated sustainable results for me because even though many times my career has not unfolded exactly the way I wanted to I always kept in mind that it's a marathon. If I just keep going, eventually breakthroughs happen.

He used an analogy of a race to influence my thoughts. Bingo. There's a leadership technique that I can use. For example, I can use the analogy between voting and leading.

Have a great month and be an influencer!

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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